Datadog vs Grafana Cloud
A comparison of Datadog and Grafana Cloud built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- Pick Datadog if
- Teams that need one vendor across infrastructure, logs, traces and replay, and can model a bill that has a separate meter for each.
- Pick Grafana Cloud if
- Metrics-heavy monitoring where 13 months of retention matters — that window is an order of magnitude beyond what the error trackers and most telemetry platforms keep.
4 sourced criteria separate them:
- Entry paid plan
- Datadog: $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee.
- Grafana Cloud: $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
- Pricing model
- Datadog: Per product, not per plan: infrastructure per host, logs split between ingest per GB and indexing per million events, with retention chosen per index and priced accordingly. There is no single Datadog price — this profile follows Log Management, which is the meter comparable to the per-GB platforms in this category.
- Grafana Cloud: A $19 platform fee plus metered usage, with volume discounts applied automatically rather than negotiated. The enterprise tier starts at a $25,000 annual spend commitment.
- Retention window
- Datadog: Chosen per index and priced with it: 3, 7, 15 or 30 days, or greater than 30 by arrangement. The $1.70 per million rate is the 15-day tier. Infrastructure metrics retain 1 day on the free plan.
- Grafana Cloud: 13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything.
- Ingest price per GB
- Datadog: $0.10 per ingested or scanned GB per month for Log Management, billed annually — the same rate on demand. Indexing those logs is charged separately.
- Grafana Cloud: From $0.050 per GB processed, falling to $0.046 above 10,000 GB and $0.044 above 25,000 with automatic volume discounts.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Datadog 0
Grafana Cloud 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Datadog | Grafana Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee. | $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts. |
| Pricing model | Per product, not per plan: infrastructure per host, logs split between ingest per GB and indexing per million events, with retention chosen per index and priced accordingly. There is no single Datadog price — this profile follows Log Management, which is the meter comparable to the per-GB platforms in this category. | A $19 platform fee plus metered usage, with volume discounts applied automatically rather than negotiated. The enterprise tier starts at a $25,000 annual spend commitment. |
| Observability | ||
| Retention window | Chosen per index and priced with it: 3, 7, 15 or 30 days, or greater than 30 by arrangement. The $1.70 per million rate is the 15-day tier. Infrastructure metrics retain 1 day on the free plan. | 13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything. |
| Ingest price per GB | $0.10 per ingested or scanned GB per month for Log Management, billed annually — the same rate on demand. Indexing those logs is charged separately. | From $0.050 per GB processed, falling to $0.046 above 10,000 GB and $0.044 above 25,000 with automatic volume discounts. |
Where they differ.
Entry paid plan
- Datadog
- $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee.
- Grafana Cloud
- $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Datadog ↗
“Pro Starting At $ 15 Per host, per month* Centralize your monitoring of systems, services, and serverless functions 1,000+ integrations”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗
“Pro Self-serve From $19 / month + usage with volume discounts [...] Platform fee of $19 per month includes: 10k active series per month then pay as you go 13 months retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing model
- Datadog
- Per product, not per plan: infrastructure per host, logs split between ingest per GB and indexing per million events, with retention chosen per index and priced accordingly. There is no single Datadog price — this profile follows Log Management, which is the meter comparable to the per-GB platforms in this category.
- Grafana Cloud
- A $19 platform fee plus metered usage, with volume discounts applied automatically rather than negotiated. The enterprise tier starts at a $25,000 annual spend commitment.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Datadog ↗
“Flex Ingest Starting At $ 0.10 Per ingested or scanned GB [...] Standard Indexing [...] $ 1.70 Per million log events, per month [...] Pro Starting At $ 15 Per host, per month”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗
“From $19 / month + usage with volume discounts [...] Automatic volume discounts [...] Enterprise Full service Starts at $25,000 / year spend commit”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Retention window
Chosen per index and priced with it: 3, 7, 15 or 30 days, or greater than 30 by arrangement. The $1.70 per million rate is the 15-day tier. Infrastructure metrics retain 1 day on the free plan.
13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Datadog ↗
“3-day retention 7-day retention 15-day retention 30-day retention Greater than 30 days $ 1.70 Per million log events, per month* [...] 1-day metric retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗
“13 months retention for metrics; 30 days retention for logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests [...] Limited to 50 GB ingested per month 14 day retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Ingest price per GB
- Datadog
- $0.10 per ingested or scanned GB per month for Log Management, billed annually — the same rate on demand. Indexing those logs is charged separately.
- Grafana Cloud
- From $0.050 per GB processed, falling to $0.046 above 10,000 GB and $0.044 above 25,000 with automatic volume discounts.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Datadog ↗
“Flex Ingest Starting At $ 0.10 Per ingested or scanned GB, per month* [...] *Per GB of uncompressed data ingested for processing, or compressed data scanned for rehydrating. **Billed annually or $ 0.10 on-demand”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗
“Pro Self-serve Starts at $0.050/GB Process Rate / GB GB $0.050 1 - 10,000 $0.046 10,001 - 25,000 $0.044 25,001+ Automatic volume discounts”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
Choose Datadog if…
Teams that need one vendor across infrastructure, logs, traces and replay, and can model a bill that has a separate meter for each.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Grafana Cloud if…
Metrics-heavy monitoring where 13 months of retention matters — that window is an order of magnitude beyond what the error trackers and most telemetry platforms keep.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Datadog: Ingest and indexing are billed separately on the same logs, so $0.10 per GB is not the cost of keeping a log — the indexing charge above it is where the bill actually lands.
- Grafana Cloud: Logs and traces get 30 days rather than 13 months, so the headline retention figure does not describe most of what you send it.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Datadog or Grafana Cloud?
Datadog: $15 per host per month for Infrastructure Pro, the entry paid product. Datadog prices per product rather than per plan, so this is one meter of many rather than a platform fee.
Grafana Cloud: $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
Should I choose Datadog or Grafana Cloud?
Pick Datadog if Teams that need one vendor across infrastructure, logs, traces and replay, and can model a bill that has a separate meter for each.
Pick Grafana Cloud if Metrics-heavy monitoring where 13 months of retention matters — that window is an order of magnitude beyond what the error trackers and most telemetry platforms keep.