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AtemnkengNkeze - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS Cloud Engineer/Cloud Architect at Landmark Technologies
Real User
Top 5
A monitoring tool that collects metrics well and easily integrates with other solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "The detection is the most valuable feature."
  • "CloudWatch's scalability could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

CloudWatch is important because we use it to remediate automation. For example, I had to integrate GuardDuty with CloudWatch. If anything went wrong in the environment when GuardDuty had captured all the APIs, and if someone got an alarm on the server, it was basically because of CloudWatch. CloudWatch would have seen an intruder, thinking, "This is what's happening," and so on.

I used the solution to monitor, collect, and store metrics from AWS solutions like EC2. Taking all these metrics from other sections, such as GuardDuty for the security department and all the security hubs, you are presented with all the views at once.

How has it helped my organization?

CloudWatch is required for the organization to stay compliant.

What is most valuable?

The detection is the most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

CloudWatch's scalability could be improved.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using CloudWatch for almost five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate CloudWatch's stability a seven out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate CloudWatch's scalability a seven out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The solution was easy to deploy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is okay for me. How good the pricing is depends on how you want to use the solution.

What other advice do I have?

CloudWatch has good features and tools. No matter how many people are on the security team, CloudWatch monitors the performance of your gateway resources daily, including CPU utilization and network traffic. If you are new to monitoring, CloudWatch is good because it helps you monitor your environment and your logs and captures and generates logs by applications and resources. I rate CloudWatch an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Saurav P - PeerSpot reviewer
Big Data Engineer at Cognizant
Real User
Top 5
The solution can be used for monitoring, analyzing logs, and collecting and aggregating infrastructure and application metrics
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is collecting the logs from Lambda."
  • "The solution's auto-scaling could be improved."

How has it helped my organization?

Amazon CloudWatch helps us with some monitoring, analyzing different logs, and collecting and aggregating infrastructure and application metrics. The solution also helps us with container metrics.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is collecting the logs from Lambda.

What needs improvement?

The solution's auto-scaling could be improved.

Log analytics features should be included in the next release of Amazon CloudWatch.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Amazon CloudWatch for the last two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Amazon CloudWatch an eight out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate Amazon CloudWatch an eight out of ten for scalability.

What was our ROI?

Amazon CloudWatch helped us meet our business requirement goals.

What other advice do I have?

Amazon CloudWatch's features, like logs, metrics, and co-relations, can be useful for users looking for monitoring or collecting logs.

Overall, I rate Amazon CloudWatch an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Amazon CloudWatch
April 2025
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Alex Kabugo - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at Wipro Limited
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A cloud solution for monitoring the devices with a scheduling feature
Pros and Cons
  • "Scheduling is a valuable feature."
  • "It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to monitor the devices on our system or infrastructure. CloudWatch notifies you when a token is used or when the VM is not working. It helps you to determine the status of your infrastructure.

How has it helped my organization?

We created a CloudWatch application or feature for our system to provide us with the ongoing status of our machines or components in the network.

What is most valuable?

Scheduling is a valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

When you set up CloudWatch, you can't even take a lot without checking on them or without going through the whole configuration because we're configuring. It's not a frequent feature you always work on.

The integration requires a lot of permissions and the tool delays in providing notifications. Sometimes, receiving a notification after an update takes a long time. So, we prefer using a monitoring tool like New Relic or Grafana.

Another area of improvement is scheduling. CloudWatch is complicated when it comes to scheduling. If you want to monitor the component, the configuration is not straightforward. You need good knowledge for something to be added there.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon CloudWatch for two years. We use the latest version of CloudWatch.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

It is hard to configure; it is not a straightforward tool.

What was our ROI?

We see an ROI. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is okay. 

What other advice do I have?

If someone wants to use the product. It depends on whether the company can use another tool. If so, I recommend AWS, which, too, has a monitoring tool. However, it may still be too expensive for a small company. I recommend using CloudWatch for a small company if they don’t have money.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Ashutosh-Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 10
Effective application monitoring with room for improvement in logging and alerting
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable part is the metrics part, which is really good."
  • "There is some delay in logging that they need to improve on."

What is our primary use case?

We use Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring applications. We use it for Synthetics and also RAM. Amazon CloudWatch has been very helpful for monitoring our applications. We have been able to create a monitoring account where we get metrics, traces, and application monitoring data in one account. One noteworthy feature is that this is free of cost.

How has it helped my organization?

Amazon CloudWatch has been very helpful for monitoring our applications. We have been able to create a monitoring account where we get metrics, traces, and application monitoring data in one account. One noteworthy feature is that this is free of cost.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable part is the metrics part, which is really good. They recently introduced Application Signals, which we like the most. Additionally, the Synthetics feature is something that we love.

What needs improvement?

There is some delay in logging that they need to improve on. While CloudWatch is good, when compared to Dynatrace, there are several areas for improvement. For instance, Dynatrace has better distributed tracing and a feature like back trace, which CloudWatch lacks. In terms of alerts, we use PagerDuty, but composite alarms and similar features need more work.

For how long have I used the solution?

I would say I have almost three years of experience with Amazon CloudWatch.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon CloudWatch is stable. However, there is some delay in logging that needs improvement.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is pretty scalable. We have not had any problems so far.

How are customer service and support?

Amazon's customer service is very good. They are both responsive and knowledgeable. Depending on the ticket, they connect us with the right resource without having us jump through different channels.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we used Dynatrace, which is an APM tool. We recently moved to CloudWatch but still use Dynatrace.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Amazon CloudWatch is very simple. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the ease of setup between nine and ten.

What about the implementation team?

Multiple squads and teams, approximately 200 different teams, have been using Amazon CloudWatch.

What was our ROI?

Return on this investment is still to be discovered. Currently, we are in the middle of migration, paying for both on-prem and CloudWatch, as well as Dynatrace and CloudWatch. Once everything is settled in the cloud, we will have a clearer picture.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In general, Amazon CloudWatch is cheaper compared to Dynatrace. However, there are potential costs to be mindful of, like running a log query that returns trillions of bytes of data.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have experience with Dynatrace. Comparing CloudWatch against Dynatrace highlights many areas for improvement.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend CloudWatch if your applications are running in AWS. If your applications are in a different environment or cloud, I am not sure I would recommend it.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Vinod Siwach - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at plutos ONE
Real User
Top 5
Provides excellent monitoring features and integrates well with other tools
Pros and Cons
  • "The monitoring features are valuable."
  • "CloudWatch doesn’t monitor disk throughput by default."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for monitoring CPU usage, memory usage, Lambda logs, and load balancer logs.

What is most valuable?

The monitoring features are valuable. The product pushes notifications with the help of SNS. We can increase or decrease our instances horizontally or vertically. We are collecting CloudWatch logs in Grafana too. We have also configured it with Kibana.

What needs improvement?

CloudWatch doesn’t monitor disk throughput by default. It is part of EC2. If EC2 forwards the logs, then we can do it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The tool’s scalability is good. I rate the scalability a seven and a half out of ten. I have configured two instances for CPU usage. It breaks the threshold. It scales up and down multiple times. It is better to build only one instance in such facilities. We have 30 users in our organization.

How are customer service and support?

The support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. The deployment takes around five minutes. It is very fast.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is average.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were using third-party tools before. We had to configure the third-party tools.

What other advice do I have?

I will recommend the tool to others. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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NathanNV - PeerSpot reviewer
Elite Global CISO at Scybers
Real User
Top 5
A product with great support, an easy installation phase, and great scalability options
Pros and Cons
  • "Amazon CloudWatch's best feature stems from its ability to monitor app performance."
  • "The dashboard of Amazon CloudWatch is not very customizable right now."

What is our primary use case?

My company's clients use Amazon CloudWatch, which offers a very good performance for application performance monitoring, as well as the integrations part.

What is most valuable?

Amazon CloudWatch's best feature stems from its ability to monitor app performance. People also use Amazon CloudWatch for integration with AWS services.

What needs improvement?

I think Amazon CloudWatch has built a very good service in terms of integration since it can integrate with Docker, EC2, and Kubernetes, owing to which we don't have any problem with the solution in our company right now as it works fine. Amazon CloudWatch resolved its performance issues quickly as well. I don't think there is anything bad in Amazon CloudWatch.

I don't think I need to comment on any additional features that need to be included in Amazon CloudWatch since they roll out new features as per the roadmap Amazon has planned.

The dashboard of Amazon CloudWatch is not very customizable right now. In the future, I would like the dashboard of Amazon CloudWatch to be made more customizable.


For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon CloudWatch for more than three to four years. My company operates as an integrator, consultant, and partner of Amazon.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

With Amazon CloudWatch, you don't need to worry about scalability in terms of volume or in terms of horizontal or vertical growth. In general, Amazon CloudWatch is a highly scalable product.

My company's clients who use Amazon CloudWatch and I deal with are mostly small and medium-sized companies.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is great since I haven't faced any challenges yet. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The product's installation phase is very easy. In our company, we didn't face any problems with the product's installation part.

With Amazon CloudWatch, the time taken for the installation phase is only related to the configuration part. You just need to do the configuration on the basis of availability, after which you need to make sure that you have a configuration ready, making it a very easy process that doesn't take hours to finish.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Amazon CloudWatch is a really good product compared to its competitors in the market.

What other advice do I have?

With Amazon CloudWatch, my company did not find the need to get involved with the maintenance part as it is a service. It is the cloud service provider who makes sure that the service is available all the time, so you don't have to worry about the maintenance part.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Consultant
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Karthick Selvam - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Saama
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A stable tool to collect logs that provides its users with great technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable solution...I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
  • "The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future."

What is our primary use case?

My company uses the solution to collect logs from other sources, including Amazon Virtual Private Cloud. All the logs are collected from Amazon CloudWatch. From the log groups, my company sends S3 and other third-party applications. My company uses Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring purposes.

What is most valuable?

Amazon CloudWatch is a tool that already provides my company with external features. I will have to check all the features provided by Amazon CloudWatch. Monitoring is one of the best features of Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon CloudWatch can be considered as a tunnel where you can collect logs.

What needs improvement?

In my company, we have created a Lambda function to collect logs from CraC. Our company particularly uses Lambda function in Amazon CloudWatch's log groups. From Amazon CloudWatch, in my company, we are not getting proper logs from particular services. When my company faces the aforementioned issues, we have to get involved in the troubleshooting process while also keeping a check on Lambda functions. In my company, we are unable to get proper logs even with Lambda functions, making it one of the areas that needs improvement.

The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon CloudWatch for two to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In my company, we have around 20 AWS accounts, and on each AWS account, we use Amazon CloudWatch. The major purpose of the solution is to collect logs.

How are customer service and support?

I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Amazon CloudWatch is easy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I consider it as a medium-priced solution. The prices are dependent on the size of the log collection users require for their environments. If users opt for 10 TB, they need to pay a different price, while those who opt for 1 TB and 1 GB pay a different price.

What other advice do I have?

For the audit purposes of your environment or to collect some details through a better procedure, you can consider Amazon CloudWatch. Whether to use Amazon CloudWatch or not depends entirely on your environment.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Prasanth MG - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at Readyly
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Though at times there are issues due to missing logs, it provides a good UI
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."
  • "Amazon CloudWatch needs improvement. The main thing is we have noticed missing logs."

What is our primary use case?

We use Amazon CloudWatch in our company to mainly troubleshoot Lambda functions. Then, we use CloudWatch to set up CloudWatch Alarms.

What is most valuable?

It maintains all the streams and all the logs in an orderly manner, and it maintains it indefinitely unless otherwise configured with a retention period. CloudWatch Alarms is another useful service. It will send us a notification if our usage exceeds the limit we've set. Also, we have to use CloudWatch Alarms to comply with some security standards. Watching the logs and troubleshooting Lambda is the main use of Amazon CloudWatch for us. The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily.

What needs improvement?

Amazon CloudWatch needs improvement. The main thing is we have noticed missing logs. Like, we know that the Lambda function was executed because we have been able to see the output in another downstream system, but we do not see the logs of that execution on CloudWatch. Sometimes we face problems like our program didn't produce the correct output, and the customer reports it. However, we don't see any logs when we go to CloudWatch.

CloudWatch can also improve the logs search functionality. Searching with keywords over the log streams can produce very unreliable results.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon CloudWatch for a year. I am a customer of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I won't say it is a stable tool since there is the problem of missing logs.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's a very scalable solution. Maybe at a time, ten people use it in our company.

How was the initial setup?

One doesn't have to do any setup for CloudWatch logs. Only CloudWatch Alarms need setting up. Whenever you create a Lambda function, it automatically logs to CloudWatch.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Actually, we had chosen Amazon Lambda for our serverless programming, and Lambda logs to CloudWatch by default. We can log in to other services, which can be a storage like S3 and all, but it will require more work from us. CloudWatch is the default standard for Lambda logging. Another reason for choosing Amazon CloudWatch is because we use CloudWatch Alarms. If we don't set up CloudWatch Alarms, we will fail certain security compliance standards.

What other advice do I have?

You should be careful about using Amazon CloudWatch if your Lambda is running continuously since that is when you suffer log missing problems. If you are running a Lambda function only intermittently, then it is okay. I would suggest that if you intend it to run your Lambda function continuously, like, every single second, then maybe use another service for logs. It is better to write your own logs to S3 or something.

I rate the overall solution a five out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon CloudWatch Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Amazon CloudWatch Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.