Grafana Cloud vs Sentry
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Grafana Cloud and Sentry built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
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.
4 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
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.
Grafana Cloud 0
Sentry 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Grafana Cloud | Sentry |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| 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 model | 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. | 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 | ||
| Retention window | 13 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. |
| Self-hostable | Supported | Limited |
Where they differ.
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) →Sources ↓
- 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 — Sentry ↗
“$26/mo [...] Additional events (See pricing) [...] $80/mo”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
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) →Sources ↓
- 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
- 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
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) →Sources ↓
- 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
- 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
Self-hostable
- Grafana Cloud
- Supported
- Sentry
- Limited
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Grafana Cloud ↗
“minimum commit of $25,000 per year. Cloud or self-host”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- 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
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
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: 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.