Skip to content
inetGeek

GlitchTip vs Better Stack

SEPT 2026 audit

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

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 24 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

Choose GlitchTip if…

Anyone who wants Sentry-shaped error tracking without Sentry's bill — the SDKs are compatible, so switching is a DSN change, and self-hosting is free and genuinely supported.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Better Stack if…

Teams who would otherwise buy uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking separately, and would rather have one bill and one dashboard.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • GlitchTip: It tracks errors and nothing else. No tracing, no replays, no uptime monitoring, so a team wanting one pane of glass will be assembling it from parts.
  • Better Stack: Web event retention is 3 days on the free plan, which is short enough to miss a Monday-morning investigation of a Friday-night incident.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: GlitchTip alternatives · Better Stack alternatives

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

Visit GlitchTip documentationVisit Better Stack 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.

CriterionGlitchTipBetter Stack
Pricing
Free tierYesYes
Kind of free offerFree tierFree tier
What the free plan includes1,000 events a month, described by GlitchTip as free forever.3 GB of logs a month retained 3 days, 100,000 exceptions, and uptime monitoring with on-call and status pages at $0 per member.
Entry paid plan
$15/month for the 100,000 event plan; $50 for 500,000 and $250 for 3 million
From $29/month, or $34/month depending on the plan selected; Better Stack advertises both figures as starting prices on the same page.
Pricing modelFlat monthly tiers bought by event ceiling, with a free self-hosted build as the alternative to the hosted plans.One plan covering uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking together, with exceptions counted per month and web events metered by volume and retention rather than by count.
Infrastructure
RegionsTwo fully separate hosted instances: US (DigitalOcean NYC1, New York, app.glitchtip.com) and EU (DigitalOcean FRA1, Frankfurt, eu.glitchtip.com); no replication between them.EU by default; logs ingestion is priced per region for US, Germany and Singapore, and custom data locations are offered to enterprise accounts.
Observability
Events included100,000 events a month on the cheapest paid plan; 1,000 on the free hosted plan. One meter, not several — GlitchTip counts events and nothing else.100,000 exceptions and 5,000 session replays a month on the free personal plan, plus 30 GB metrics and 3 GB each of logs, traces and web events. Six meters, priced separately: exceptions at $0.000050 each, replays at $0.00150, metrics at $0.50 per GB per month.
Retention window90 days by default when self-hosted, set by GLITCHTIP_RETENTION_DAYS and configurable per data type — events, transactions, logs, uptime checks and files all inherit it, releases keep 365 days. Events move from Postgres to cold storage after 30 days but stay queryable. GlitchTip publishes no retention figure for its hosted plans.90 days for errors and session replays. Logs, traces and web events are retained 3 days on the free personal plan, where retention is what the 3 GB allowance buys rather than a fixed window.
Self-hostable
Supported
Not supported — SaaS only; same page lists Better Stack data ownership as "SaaS-hosted (optional S3 bucket)".
Compliance
SOC 2
No SOC 2 report claimed; the hosted architecture is described as adhering to principles found in HIPAA, SOC II and ISO 27001 frameworks.
SOC 2 Type 2 compliant; the report is shared under NDA on request.
ISO 27001No certification claimed; the hosted architecture is described as adhering to principles found in the ISO 27001 framework.Not claimed for Better Stack itself; data is stored in DIN ISO/IEC 27001-certified data centres.
HIPAA
BAA available on the Large plan ($250/month) for the US instance only; the EU instance is not covered.
Not offered; the security page says Better Stack is currently not HIPAA compliant.
GDPR / data residencyFully independent EU instance in Frankfurt keeps events, accounts and email inside the EU; a DPA with EU SCCs and the UK addendum is published.GDPR compliant with a Data Processing Agreement; all data stored in EU regions by default.
PCI DSSNot certified itself; billing is handled by Stripe (PCI-DSS Service Provider Level 1), which never receives event data.Not certified itself: card data is never stored and payments run through Stripe, a PCI Service Provider Level 1.
Encryption at restDigitalOcean Volumes Block Storage encryption at rest; TLS 1.2+ in transit.AES-256 at rest and HTTPS/TLS in transit.
Role-based access controlOrganization members hold one of four roles (member, admin, manager, owner) set via the members API, plus optional per-team roles. Linked as "API Documentation" from glitchtip.com/documentation.Listed as an Enterprise feature alongside team-level isolation, SCIM and SSO enforcement.
Private networking / VPC
Hosted database cluster sits in a private VPC unreachable from the public internet; no customer-facing private connectivity is described.
Custom VPC deployment on Enterprise; logs ingestion over AWS Direct Connect at $0.04 per GB.
Dedicated infrastructure
All hosted plans run on the same security-controlled infrastructure; the difference between Free, Small, Medium and Large is contractual.
Custom cluster deployment offered on the enterprise tier for logs and traces.

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.

What the free plan includes

GlitchTip
1,000 events a month, described by GlitchTip as free forever.
Better Stack
3 GB of logs a month retained 3 days, 100,000 exceptions, and uptime monitoring with on-call and status pages at $0 per member.
Sources (2) →

Entry paid plan

GlitchTip
$15/month for the 100,000 event plan; $50 for 500,000 and $250 for 3 million
Better Stack
From $29/month, or $34/month depending on the plan selected; Better Stack advertises both figures as starting prices on the same page.
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

GlitchTip
Flat monthly tiers bought by event ceiling, with a free self-hosted build as the alternative to the hosted plans.
Better Stack
One plan covering uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking together, with exceptions counted per month and web events metered by volume and retention rather than by count.
Sources (2) →
  • GlitchTip Pricing ↗

    “Self-hosted version Run on your own server Free for personal projects [...] up to 100k events/mo [...] support access $15 / month [...] up to 500k events/mo [...] up to 3 million events/mo”

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

  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Web events [...] Free for personal projects $0 per month [...] 100,000 exceptions per month [...] 3 GB web events retained for 3 days [...] Free access to Telemetry.”

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

Regions

GlitchTip
Two fully separate hosted instances: US (DigitalOcean NYC1, New York, app.glitchtip.com) and EU (DigitalOcean FRA1, Frankfurt, eu.glitchtip.com); no replication between them.
Better Stack
EU by default; logs ingestion is priced per region for US, Germany and Singapore, and custom data locations are offered to enterprise accounts.
Sources (2) →

Events included

GlitchTip
100,000 events a month on the cheapest paid plan; 1,000 on the free hosted plan. One meter, not several — GlitchTip counts events and nothing else.
Better Stack
100,000 exceptions and 5,000 session replays a month on the free personal plan, plus 30 GB metrics and 3 GB each of logs, traces and web events. Six meters, priced separately: exceptions at $0.000050 each, replays at $0.00150, metrics at $0.50 per GB per month.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — GlitchTip ↗

    “Up to 1,000 events/mo [...] Up to 100k events/mo [...] $15 / month”

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

  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Free for personal projects $0 per month [...] 100,000 exceptions per month 5,000 session replays 3 GB logs retained for 3 days 3 GB traces retained for 3 days 30 GB metrics 3 GB web events retained for 3 days [...] Additional exceptions $0.000050 per exception [...] Additional session replays $0.00150 per session replay”

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

Retention window

GlitchTip
90 days by default when self-hosted, set by GLITCHTIP_RETENTION_DAYS and configurable per data type — events, transactions, logs, uptime checks and files all inherit it, releases keep 365 days. Events move from Postgres to cold storage after 30 days but stay queryable. GlitchTip publishes no retention figure for its hosted plans.
Better Stack
90 days for errors and session replays. Logs, traces and web events are retained 3 days on the free personal plan, where retention is what the 3 GB allowance buys rather than a fixed window.
Sources (2) →
  • Installation — GlitchTip documentation ↗

    “Data Retention [...] GlitchTip automatically cleans up old data based on configurable retention periods. [...] GLITCHTIP_RETENTION_DAYS 90 Master default for all retention periods [...] GLITCHTIP_EVENT_HOT_DAYS 30 Days to keep events in PostgreSQL before archival [...] GLITCHTIP_RELEASE_RETENTION_DAYS 365 Release retention”

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

  • Pricing — Better Stack ↗

    “Error tracking [...] Retention 90 days [...] Session replay [...] Retention 90 days [...] Free for personal projects [...] 3 GB logs retained for 3 days 3 GB traces retained for 3 days [...] 3 GB web events retained for 3 days”

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

Self-hostable

GlitchTip
Supported
Better Stack
Not supported — SaaS only; same page lists Better Stack data ownership as "SaaS-hosted (optional S3 bucket)".
Sources (2) →

SOC 2

GlitchTip
No SOC 2 report claimed; the hosted architecture is described as adhering to principles found in HIPAA, SOC II and ISO 27001 frameworks.
Better Stack
SOC 2 Type 2 compliant; the report is shared under NDA on request.
Sources (2) →

ISO 27001

GlitchTip
No certification claimed; the hosted architecture is described as adhering to principles found in the ISO 27001 framework.
Better Stack
Not claimed for Better Stack itself; data is stored in DIN ISO/IEC 27001-certified data centres.
Sources (2) →

HIPAA

GlitchTip
BAA available on the Large plan ($250/month) for the US instance only; the EU instance is not covered.
Better Stack
Not offered; the security page says Better Stack is currently not HIPAA compliant.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

GlitchTip
Fully independent EU instance in Frankfurt keeps events, accounts and email inside the EU; a DPA with EU SCCs and the UK addendum is published.
Better Stack
GDPR compliant with a Data Processing Agreement; all data stored in EU regions by default.
Sources (2) →

PCI DSS

GlitchTip
Not certified itself; billing is handled by Stripe (PCI-DSS Service Provider Level 1), which never receives event data.
Better Stack
Not certified itself: card data is never stored and payments run through Stripe, a PCI Service Provider Level 1.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

GlitchTip
DigitalOcean Volumes Block Storage encryption at rest; TLS 1.2+ in transit.
Better Stack
AES-256 at rest and HTTPS/TLS in transit.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

GlitchTip
Organization members hold one of four roles (member, admin, manager, owner) set via the members API, plus optional per-team roles. Linked as "API Documentation" from glitchtip.com/documentation.
Better Stack
Listed as an Enterprise feature alongside team-level isolation, SCIM and SSO enforcement.
Sources (2) →

Private networking / VPC

GlitchTip
Hosted database cluster sits in a private VPC unreachable from the public internet; no customer-facing private connectivity is described.
Better Stack
Custom VPC deployment on Enterprise; logs ingestion over AWS Direct Connect at $0.04 per GB.
Sources (2) →

Dedicated infrastructure

GlitchTip
All hosted plans run on the same security-controlled infrastructure; the difference between Free, Small, Medium and Large is contractual.
Better Stack
Custom cluster deployment offered on the enterprise tier for logs and traces.
Sources (2) →

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

Confirm by email; unsubscribe from any issue. Your address goes to Kit and nowhere else — what we do with it.

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.

When the free offer endsGlitchTip: Never — free forever, up to 1,000 events a month.
Session replayBetter Stack: Supported
Ingest price per GBBetter Stack: $0.10 per GB for logs and traces in the Germany region ($0.15 US, $0.35 Singapore) beyond 3 GB/month included; retention billed separately at $0.05 per GB-month in Germany.
Query priceBetter Stack: Standard querying included; optional Query boost at $0.001 per GB scanned.
Support on entry paid planGlitchTip: Support access on Small ($15/month), the entry paid plan; priority email and live chat from Medium; development support and prioritization on Large.
Customer-managed keysBetter Stack: Not offered. Better Stack's own comparison says it has no equivalent to Honeycomb's Secure Tenancy (customer-managed-key encryption).
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: GlitchTip or Better Stack?

GlitchTip: $15/month for the 100,000 event plan; $50 for 500,000 and $250 for 3 million

Better Stack: From $29/month, or $34/month depending on the plan selected; Better Stack advertises both figures as starting prices on the same page.

Should I choose GlitchTip or Better Stack?

Pick GlitchTip if Anyone who wants Sentry-shaped error tracking without Sentry's bill — the SDKs are compatible, so switching is a DSN change, and self-hosting is free and genuinely supported.

Pick Better Stack if Teams who would otherwise buy uptime monitoring, log management and error tracking separately, and would rather have one bill and one dashboard.

Provider pages

GlitchTipOpen-source error tracking compatible with Sentry SDKs, offered as a hosted plan priced per event or run yourself for free.Better StackUptime monitoring, log management and error tracking on one plan, with exceptions and web events metered separately.

Related comparisons

Axiom vs Better StackAxiom vs GlitchTipBetter Stack vs DatadogBetter Stack vs Elastic CloudBetter Stack vs Grafana CloudBetter Stack vs OpenObserveBetter Stack vs SigNozDatadog vs GlitchTip

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.