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Grafana Cloud vs Sentry

SEPT 2026 audit

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

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 25 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

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

Choose 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.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

  • 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.
  • 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.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Grafana Cloud alternatives · Sentry alternatives

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

Visit Grafana Cloud documentationVisit Sentry 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.

CriterionGrafana CloudSentry
Pricing
Free tierYesYes
Kind of free offerFree tierFree tier
What the free plan includes50 GB ingested a month with 14-day retention and community support, described as always free.5,000 errors, 5 GB of logs, 5 million spans, 50 session replays and 1 uptime monitor a month.
Entry paid plan
$19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
$26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan
Pricing modelA $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.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.
Observability
Events includedFree plan, per month: 10k active metrics series; 50 GB each of logs, traces and profiles; 50k frontend-observability sessions; 500 k6 virtual user hours; 100k API test executions. Grafana meters series, GB, sessions and host hours; no event-count meter is published.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 window13 months for metrics and 30 days for logs, traces, profiles and k6 tests on Pro. The free tier is 14 days for everything.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
Limited — Public preview add-on to Frontend Observability, disabled by default and enabled per stack on request.
Supported
Self-hostable
Supported
Limited
Support
Support on entry paid planCommunity support on Free; 8x5 email support on Pro, from $19/month plus usage. Enterprise starts at $25,000/year.Four levels listed: community support via GitHub and Discord, email support, a dedicated technical account manager, and premium customer success. Enterprise is the tier the page names for the account manager and dedicated support.
Compliance
SOC 2SOC 2 report listed in the Grafana Labs Trust Center, available on request.SOC 2 Type I and Type II certifications; report available via account or on request.
ISO 27001ISO/IEC 27001 certificate and Statement of Applicability listed in the Trust Center.ISO 27001 certified; certificate available via account or on request.
Encryption at restAES-256 for storage and HTTPS/TLS in transit; Grafana Cloud manages the keys with industry-standard key management systems.All data encrypted at rest; keys managed via a redundant, globally distributed Key Management Service.
Role-based access controlGrafana Cloud administrative controls and role-based access control (RBAC).Role-based access: Billing, Member, Admin, Manager, Organization Owner.

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

Grafana Cloud
50 GB ingested a month with 14-day retention and community support, described as always free.
Sentry
5,000 errors, 5 GB of logs, 5 million spans, 50 session replays and 1 uptime monitor a month.
Sources (2) →
  • Grafana Cloud Pricing ↗

    “Perfect for personal projects, exploring new ideas, and early-stage startups. [...] Limited to 50 GB ingested per month 14 day retention Community support”

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

  • Pricing — Sentry ↗

    “Free [...] Error Monitoring 5k errors [...] Logs 5GB [...] Tracing 5M spans [...] Session Replay 50 replays [...] Uptime Monitoring 1 uptime monitor”

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

Entry paid plan

Grafana Cloud
$19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.
Sentry
$26/month for Team, the cheapest paid plan
Sources (2) →

Pricing model

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.
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.
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Sentry ↗

    “Error Monitoring 5k errors 50k errors [...] Logs 5GB 5GB +$0.50/GB additional [...] Application Metrics 5GB 5GB +$0.50/GB additional [...] Tracing 5M spans [...] Session Replay 50 replays [...] Uptime Monitoring 1 uptime monitor +$1.00/uptime alert additional”

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

Events included

Grafana Cloud
Free plan, per month: 10k active metrics series; 50 GB each of logs, traces and profiles; 50k frontend-observability sessions; 500 k6 virtual user hours; 100k API test executions. Grafana meters series, GB, sessions and host hours; no event-count meter is published.
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.
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing | Grafana Labs ↗

    “Limited to 10k active series per month [...] Limited to 50 GB ingested per month [...] Limited to 50k sessions per month”

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

  • Pricing — Sentry ↗

    “Error Monitoring 5k errors 50k errors 50k errors Custom [...] Logs 5GB 5GB +$0.50/GB additional [...] Tracing 5M spans 5M spans 5M spans [...] Session Replay 50 replays 50 replays 50 replays”

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

Retention window

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.
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.
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • Pricing — Sentry ↗

    “Data retention [...] 30-day lookback [...] Up to 90-day lookback [...] Up to 90-day lookback & additional sampled retention [...] Custom”

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

Session replay

Grafana Cloud
Limited — Public preview add-on to Frontend Observability, disabled by default and enabled per stack on request.
Sentry
Supported
Sources (2) →
  • Session Replay | Grafana Cloud documentation ↗

    “Grafana Labs offers limited support, and breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available. [...] Session Replay is disabled by default and must be enabled per Grafana Cloud stack. [...] Session Replay is an add-on feature for Grafana Cloud Frontend Observability”

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

  • Pricing — Sentry ↗

    “Session Replay 50 replays 50 replays 50 replays Custom”

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

Self-hostable

Grafana Cloud
Supported
Sentry
Limited
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗

    “minimum commit of $25,000 per year. Cloud or self-host”

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

  • Self-Hosted Sentry — Sentry Developer Documentation ↗

    “In addition to making its source code available publicly, Sentry offers and maintains a minimal setup that works out-of-the-box for simple use cases. This version comes with no guarantees or dedicated support. Sentry engineers will do their best to answer questions and are dedicated to making sure self-hosted is running, but that's where our involvement ends.”

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

Support on entry paid plan

Grafana Cloud
Community support on Free; 8x5 email support on Pro, from $19/month plus usage. Enterprise starts at $25,000/year.
Sentry
Four levels listed: community support via GitHub and Discord, email support, a dedicated technical account manager, and premium customer success. Enterprise is the tier the page names for the account manager and dedicated support.
Sources (2) →
  • Grafana Cloud Pricing ↗

    “benefits: all Grafana Cloud services, with limited usage community support 14 days retention for metrics, logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests [...] everything in free plus: pay as you go above the free tier 8x5 email support 13 months retention for metrics”

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

  • Sentry Pricing ↗

    “SUPPORT Community support via GitHub and Discord Email support Dedicated technical account manager Premium customer success [...] Enterprise For organizations with advanced needs Custom Business features + Technical account manager Dedicated customer support”

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

SOC 2

Grafana Cloud
SOC 2 report listed in the Grafana Labs Trust Center, available on request.
Sentry
SOC 2 Type I and Type II certifications; report available via account or on request.
Sources (2) →
  • Trust Center ↗

    “Compliance SOC 2 ISO/IEC 27001 ISO/IEC 27001 SoA ISO 22301 PCI DSS v4.0.1 GDPR”

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

  • Sentry Security ↗

    “Sentry has obtained the following compliance certifications: SOC2 Type I SOC2 Type II [...] Sentry's SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 certificate are available to customers via their Sentry account or upon request.”

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

ISO 27001

Grafana Cloud
ISO/IEC 27001 certificate and Statement of Applicability listed in the Trust Center.
Sentry
ISO 27001 certified; certificate available via account or on request.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Grafana Cloud
AES-256 for storage and HTTPS/TLS in transit; Grafana Cloud manages the keys with industry-standard key management systems.
Sentry
All data encrypted at rest; keys managed via a redundant, globally distributed Key Management Service.
Sources (2) →
  • Your data and security | Grafana Cloud documentation ↗

    “Grafana Cloud encrypts your data at rest and in transit. It uses strong encryption standards (AES-256 for storage, HTTPS/TLS for network traffic) and manages keys with industry-standard key management systems.”

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

  • Sentry Security ↗

    “All data in Sentry servers is encrypted at rest. Google Cloud Platform stores and manages data cryptography keys in its redundant and globally distributed Key Management Service.”

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

Role-based access control

Grafana Cloud
Grafana Cloud administrative controls and role-based access control (RBAC).
Sentry
Role-based access: Billing, Member, Admin, Manager, Organization Owner.
Sources (2) →

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 startGrafana Cloud: No
When you exceed a capSentry: Billed, not throttled: each meter charges for additional usage beyond the included amount, at a published per-unit rate.
RegionsGrafana Cloud: 28 region/provider combinations across AWS, GCP and Azure, from US East and EU Germany to UK, India, Singapore, Japan, Brazil and Australia; a stack cannot change region after creation.
Ingest price per GBGrafana 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.
Audit logsSentry: In the audit log, all of the actions by user and event within the Sentry UI (e.g., member.invite, project.create) are listed chronologically by time and IP address so you’ll always have a view into your organization’s most recent history.
HIPAASentry: HIPAA attestation obtained. — Listed as an attestation among compliance certifications, not as a BAA offer.
GDPR / data residencyGrafana Cloud: GDPR, EU-US DPF and UK/Swiss extensions listed in the Trust Center with a DPA; residency comes from choosing one of the published regions at stack creation.Sentry: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-21 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Sentry.
PCI DSSGrafana Cloud: PCI DSS v4.0.1 listed among Trust Center compliance documents.Sentry: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-21 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Sentry.
Customer-managed keysGrafana Cloud: Keys are managed by Grafana Cloud with industry-standard key management systems. — Read from the Grafana Assistant security page, which describes how Grafana Cloud stores customer data.Sentry: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-21 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Sentry.
Private networking / VPCGrafana Cloud: AWS PrivateLink, Azure Private Link and GCP Private Service Connect are documented connectivity options for Grafana Cloud.Sentry: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-21 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Sentry.
Dedicated infrastructureGrafana Cloud: Bring Your Own Cloud deploys the managed stack into a dedicated cloud account in your AWS or GCP (Azure case-by-case) rather than a Grafana Labs-owned account.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Grafana Cloud or Sentry?

Grafana Cloud: $19/month platform fee for Pro, which includes 10,000 active series before usage billing starts.

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

Should I choose Grafana Cloud or Sentry?

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.

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.

Provider pages

Grafana CloudHosted Grafana, Loki, Mimir and Tempo with a small platform fee, usage billing and unusually long metrics retention.SentryError monitoring and tracing sold per event across errors, spans, logs and replays, with a self-hosted build offered without support guarantees.

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Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.