# Datadog vs Sentry

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/datadog-vs-sentry/

Every value below is read from Datadog's and Sentry's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Datadog | Sentry |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan |
| 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 plan fee plus five independent meters — errors, logs, application metrics, tracing spans and session replays — each with its own included amount and its own overage. Logs and metrics overflow at $0.50/GB; extra uptime alerts at $1.00 each. |
| Events included | None included. Log indexing is $1.70 per million events per month at 15-day retention, and Flex Storage is $0.05 per million events stored — ingest and indexing are separate charges on the same logs. | 50,000 errors a month on Team and Business; 5,000 on Free. Errors are one meter of several — logs, spans, replays and uptime monitors are counted and billed separately. |
| 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. | 30-day lookback on Developer, the free plan. Up to 90 days on Team, and up to 90 days plus additional sampled retention on Business. Enterprise is custom. "Up to" is Sentry's own wording — the 90 days is a ceiling, not a guarantee. |
| Session replay | Supported | Supported |

## 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. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- Sentry: $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan ([source](https://sentry.io/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. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- Sentry: A plan fee plus five independent meters — errors, logs, application metrics, tracing spans and session replays — each with its own included amount and its own overage. Logs and metrics overflow at $0.50/GB; extra uptime alerts at $1.00 each. ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

### Events included

- Datadog: None included. Log indexing is $1.70 per million events per month at 15-day retention, and Flex Storage is $0.05 per million events stored — ingest and indexing are separate charges on the same logs. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- Sentry: 50,000 errors a month on Team and Business; 5,000 on Free. Errors are one meter of several — logs, spans, replays and uptime monitors are counted and billed separately. ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

### 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. ([source](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/))
- Sentry: 30-day lookback on Developer, the free plan. Up to 90 days on Team, and up to 90 days plus additional sampled retention on Business. Enterprise is custom. "Up to" is Sentry's own wording — the 90 days is a ceiling, not a guarantee. ([source](https://sentry.io/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

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 Sentry if Teams that want tracing, logs, replays and uptime in one place and will pay per meter for it. The tooling is the deepest in the category and the SDK coverage is the widest.

Consider something else: 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.

Consider something else: Sentry — Five meters bill independently, so 50,000 errors is not 50,000 units of observability. A team watching cost needs to watch spans and logs too, not just the error count.

## Documented by only one

- When you exceed a cap: Sentry: Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate.
- Self-hostable: Sentry: Limited
- 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Datadog or Sentry?**

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.
Sentry: $26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan

**Should I choose Datadog or Sentry?**

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 Sentry if Teams that want tracing, logs, replays and uptime in one place and will pay per meter for it. The tooling is the deepest in the category and the SDK coverage is the widest.