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Elastic Cloud vs SigNoz

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Elastic Cloud and SigNoz built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 26 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose Elastic Cloud if…

Teams that need full-text search and observability on the same underlying engine, or that want the option to self-host later — Elastic's dual identity as a search platform and an observability platform is the actual differentiator against single-purpose competitors.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose SigNoz if…

Teams that want per-GB billing without per-host or per-seat charges, and the option to run the same product themselves rather than being locked to the cloud version.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • Elastic Cloud: The need is narrowly error tracking or APM — a purpose-built tool is usually simpler to operate than standing up an Elasticsearch cluster for one workload, and Elastic Cloud's per-resource pricing doesn't publish a flat entry price the way single-purpose competitors do.
  • SigNoz: $0.30 per GB is six times OpenObserve's rate, so a high-volume log pipeline pays a large premium for the packaging.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Elastic Cloud alternatives · SigNoz alternatives

14 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Elastic Cloud documentationVisit SigNoz documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionElastic CloudSigNoz
Pricing
Free tierNo — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.No
Kind of free offerFree trial — The only free offer here is a trial; no ongoing free tier is listed beside the Hosted and Serverless plans.Free trial
Entry paid planElastic Cloud Hosted Standard, cheapest of four subscription tiers: as low as $99 per month for a production config of 120 GB storage across 2 zones. Gold $114, Platinum $131, Enterprise $184 per month on the same config basis. Serverless is metered, no plan fee.$49/month for Teams, and the $49 is usage credit rather than a fee on top — SigNoz bills against it before charging more.
Pricing modelThree deployment options priced differently: Hosted is resource-based, Serverless is usage-based — both pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid — and Self-managed is licensed by node count and RAM.Per GB ingested, with no per-user, per-host or custom-metric pricing — SigNoz states all three exclusions explicitly. Retention is a per-signal choice that changes the rate.
Infrastructure
RegionsHosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.US, EU and India data centres for SigNoz Cloud; Enterprise Cloud lets you pick the region.
Observability
Retention windowNo fixed window on Serverless: retention is priced per GB retained per month, as low as $0.017 (Logs Essentials) or $0.019 (Complete), and $0.005 for metrics.15 days by default for logs and traces, selectable up to 30, 90, 180 days or 1 year at higher rates.
Self-hostableSupportedSupported
Ingest price per GBAs low as $0.07 per GB ingested (logs, traces, RUM) on Serverless Observability Logs Essentials; as low as $0.09 on Observability Complete, with metrics at $0.023.$0.30 per GB ingested for logs, and the same for traces. Retention is chosen per signal and priced with it.
Query priceNo separate query meter on Serverless Observability: billing is ingest plus retention only, with egress 50 GB free then $0.05 per GB.No charge for querying on SigNoz Cloud: query compute is included in the $0.30/GB ingestion price, with no dashboard or API charges.
Support
Support on entry paid planFour support tiers, keyed to the Elastic Cloud subscription tier rather than bought separately. Platinum and Enterprise share an identical support SLA.In-product chat, email and Slack on the usage-based cloud plan. Enterprise, from $4,000/month, adds data residency and compliance.
Compliance
SOC 2SOC 2 Type 2 audit by Coalfire covers Elasticsearch Service and support subscriptions; report available on request via the Trust Center.SOC 2 Type 2 compliant on SigNoz Cloud.
HIPAAHIPAA business associate agreements available on all Elastic Cloud subscription tiers on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.HIPAA compliant, with a BAA available as an add-on for eligible SigNoz Cloud contracts.
GDPR / data residencyOperates in compliance with GDPR principles; customers can request a Data Processing Addendum through a support case.Data residency via US, EU and India regions so data need not leave its region; Enterprise Cloud selects the region.
Encryption at restCluster data is encrypted at rest by default; TLS between Elasticsearch nodes and from the internet.Encrypted at rest and in transit on the Enterprise offering.
Role-based access controlPredefined cloud resource roles (Admin, Editor, Viewer, billing admin) for Hosted and Serverless; custom roles can be created on Serverless projects.Role-based access control included; fine-grained RBAC is listed as beta on the pricing comparison.
Private networking / VPC
AWS PrivateLink and Azure Private Link for Hosted and Serverless; GCP Private Service Connect for Hosted only. IP filtering can be combined with private connections.
BYOC / Enterprise Self-Hosted runs the SigNoz stack inside your own AWS/GCP/Azure account, so your data never leaves your VPC. From the deployment-options section: Enterprise Self-Hosted / BYOC, alongside a fully managed Enterprise Cloud.
Dedicated infrastructure
Elasticsearch nodes run in isolated containers under least privilege; containers have no means of communicating with containers from another cluster. Scope: container-level isolation between customer clusters; no dedicated-hardware option is offered on this page.
Enterprise offers SigNoz Cloud: Dedicated, Enterprise Self-Hosted, and a bring-your-own-cloud option run by SigNoz in your account.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Entry paid plan

Elastic Cloud
Elastic Cloud Hosted Standard, cheapest of four subscription tiers: as low as $99 per month for a production config of 120 GB storage across 2 zones. Gold $114, Platinum $131, Enterprise $184 per month on the same config basis. Serverless is metered, no plan fee.
SigNoz
$49/month for Teams, and the $49 is usage credit rather than a fee on top — SigNoz bills against it before charging more.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

Elastic Cloud
Three deployment options priced differently: Hosted is resource-based, Serverless is usage-based — both pay-as-you-go monthly or prepaid — and Self-managed is licensed by node count and RAM.
SigNoz
Per GB ingested, with no per-user, per-host or custom-metric pricing — SigNoz states all three exclusions explicitly. Retention is a per-signal choice that changes the rate.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Pricing Resource based pricing Pay as you go (monthly) or prepaid Usage based pricing Pay as you go (monthly) or prepaid License-based pricing Licensing based on number of nodes and used RAM”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • Pricing — SigNoz ↗

    “Simple Usage-based Predictable Observability Costs No user-based pricing No host-based pricing No special pricing for custom metrics”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Regions

Elastic Cloud
Hosted: 60 regions across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud (also Alibaba Cloud and FedRAMP). Serverless: generally available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.
SigNoz
US, EU and India data centres for SigNoz Cloud; Enterprise Cloud lets you pick the region.
Sources (2) →

Retention window

Elastic Cloud
No fixed window on Serverless: retention is priced per GB retained per month, as low as $0.017 (Logs Essentials) or $0.019 (Complete), and $0.005 for metrics.
SigNoz
15 days by default for logs and traces, selectable up to 30, 90, 180 days or 1 year at higher rates.
Sources (2) →

Ingest price per GB

Elastic Cloud
As low as $0.07 per GB ingested (logs, traces, RUM) on Serverless Observability Logs Essentials; as low as $0.09 on Observability Complete, with metrics at $0.023.
SigNoz
$0.30 per GB ingested for logs, and the same for traces. Retention is chosen per signal and priced with it.
Sources (2) →

Query price

Elastic Cloud
No separate query meter on Serverless Observability: billing is ingest plus retention only, with egress 50 GB free then $0.05 per GB.
SigNoz
No charge for querying on SigNoz Cloud: query compute is included in the $0.30/GB ingestion price, with no dashboard or API charges.
Sources (2) →

Support on entry paid plan

Elastic Cloud
Four support tiers, keyed to the Elastic Cloud subscription tier rather than bought separately. Platinum and Enterprise share an identical support SLA.
SigNoz
In-product chat, email and Slack on the usage-based cloud plan. Enterprise, from $4,000/month, adds data residency and compliance.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Pricing ↗

    “four support tiers, depending on the elastic cloud subscription tier two subscription tiers (platinum and enterprise) with identical support sla”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

  • SigNoz Pricing ↗

    “add unlimited teammates and monitor any number of hosts support via in-product chat, email, and slack soc2 type ii & hipaa compliant [...] for larger orgs that need data residency, compliance and support. custom starts at $4000/month”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

SOC 2

Elastic Cloud
SOC 2 Type 2 audit by Coalfire covers Elasticsearch Service and support subscriptions; report available on request via the Trust Center.
SigNoz
SOC 2 Type 2 compliant on SigNoz Cloud.
Sources (2) →

HIPAA

Elastic Cloud
HIPAA business associate agreements available on all Elastic Cloud subscription tiers on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
SigNoz
HIPAA compliant, with a BAA available as an add-on for eligible SigNoz Cloud contracts.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Elastic Cloud
Operates in compliance with GDPR principles; customers can request a Data Processing Addendum through a support case.
SigNoz
Data residency via US, EU and India regions so data need not leave its region; Enterprise Cloud selects the region.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Elastic Cloud
Cluster data is encrypted at rest by default; TLS between Elasticsearch nodes and from the internet.
SigNoz
Encrypted at rest and in transit on the Enterprise offering.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

Elastic Cloud
Predefined cloud resource roles (Admin, Editor, Viewer, billing admin) for Hosted and Serverless; custom roles can be created on Serverless projects.
SigNoz
Role-based access control included; fine-grained RBAC is listed as beta on the pricing comparison.
Sources (2) →

Private networking / VPC

Elastic Cloud
AWS PrivateLink and Azure Private Link for Hosted and Serverless; GCP Private Service Connect for Hosted only. IP filtering can be combined with private connections.
SigNoz
BYOC / Enterprise Self-Hosted runs the SigNoz stack inside your own AWS/GCP/Azure account, so your data never leaves your VPC. From the deployment-options section: Enterprise Self-Hosted / BYOC, alongside a fully managed Enterprise Cloud.
Sources (2) →

Dedicated infrastructure

Elastic Cloud
Elasticsearch nodes run in isolated containers under least privilege; containers have no means of communicating with containers from another cluster. Scope: container-level isolation between customer clusters; no dedicated-hardware option is offered on this page.
SigNoz
Enterprise offers SigNoz Cloud: Dedicated, Enterprise Self-Hosted, and a bring-your-own-cloud option run by SigNoz in your account.
Sources (2) →
  • Elastic Cloud Security | Elastic ↗

    “Elasticsearch nodes run in isolated containers, configured according to the principle of least privilege, and with restrictions on system calls and allowed root operations. [...] Containers have no means of setting up communication with containers from another cluster.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

  • SigNoz | Pricing ↗

    “Choose between the following offerings SigNoz Cloud: Dedicated”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

Credit card to startElastic Cloud: No
Uptime SLAElastic Cloud: 99.95% monthly, for the Platinum and Enterprise subscription tiers, on both Hosted and Serverless. Not applicable to self-managed, where the customer operates the infrastructure.
Events includedSigNoz: No events meter: SigNoz Cloud bills traces and logs per GB and metrics per million samples. The $49/month Teams minimum includes $49 of usage — e.g. 163 GB of logs or traces, or 490 mn metric samples.
Session replaySigNoz: Not supported — SigNoz's own table of capabilities it does not offer today marks Session Replays No for SigNoz Cloud.
Hybrid search (vector + keyword)Elastic Cloud: Supported — combines vector similarity scores with BM25F text-relevance scores in a single hybrid query.
Metadata filteringElastic Cloud: Supported — vector search results can be filtered by metadata while preserving approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search speed.
ISO 27001Elastic Cloud: Information Security Program certified on ISO 27001, including ISO 27017 and ISO 27018.
PCI DSSElastic Cloud: PCI DSS listed among the certifications in the Elastic Trust Center, alongside SOC 2, ISO 27001 and FedRAMP.
Customer-managed keysElastic Cloud: Supported on Elastic Cloud Hosted via your cloud provider KMS, but only at the Enterprise subscription level; the key cannot yet be changed or removed once set.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Elastic Cloud or SigNoz?

Elastic Cloud: Elastic Cloud Hosted Standard, cheapest of four subscription tiers: as low as $99 per month for a production config of 120 GB storage across 2 zones. Gold $114, Platinum $131, Enterprise $184 per month on the same config basis. Serverless is metered, no plan fee.

SigNoz: $49/month for Teams, and the $49 is usage credit rather than a fee on top — SigNoz bills against it before charging more.

Should I choose Elastic Cloud or SigNoz?

Pick Elastic Cloud if Teams that need full-text search and observability on the same underlying engine, or that want the option to self-host later — Elastic's dual identity as a search platform and an observability platform is the actual differentiator against single-purpose competitors.

Pick SigNoz if Teams that want per-GB billing without per-host or per-seat charges, and the option to run the same product themselves rather than being locked to the cloud version.

Provider pages

Elastic CloudManaged Elasticsearch, Kibana and Elastic Observability, hosted or serverless across AWS, Google Cloud and Azure.SigNozOpen-source observability for logs, metrics and traces, billed per GB ingested with retention chosen per signal.

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Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.