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Actional vs Amazon CloudWatch comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Actional
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
73rd
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
SOA Governance (5th)
Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (13th), Cloud Monitoring Software (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Actional is 0.5%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.2%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon CloudWatch1.2%
Actional0.5%
Other98.3%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

it_user690762 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Provides speed and scaling in the cloud
Provides speed and scaling in the cloud Effortless scaling Never throws away data Takes action now Delivers analytics at the speed of business Automates and speeds up system discovery I would like to see better marketing. We have used this for four years. There are no deployment issues at this…
Azam S M - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC
Has provided reliable monitoring and alerting through extensive metric tracking and dashboard configuration
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch. We are also integrating Grafana with the application itself to get the application data and logs. Alternatively, there is AWS Kinesis and Glue where you can scrape the logs and have visualization, but a more easy option is Grafana. If you want to get a proper visual representation to see what is happening, then you need to integrate a third-party tool. Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"From a testing standpoint, ignoring license and cost issues, it's not a bad product."
"This tool has great scaling capabilities, i.e., no limitations."
"Amazon CloudWatch offers cost-saving advantages by being an inbuilt solution that requires no separate setup or maintenance for monitoring tasks."
"Monitoring time and ensuring ease in it is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is reliability."
"Scheduling is a valuable feature."
"Every time we get an alarm or have an incident, CloudWatch is always there. We use it not only for resources we've spun up in the cloud, but also for some of our on-premises resources."
"It is very easy to use; as a monitoring tool, whenever your system experiences issues, it will notify you and is directly linked to your service."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution offers very detailed metrics for their services."
 

Cons

"My concern is with Automation integration."
"We find this product lacking and this is why we want to look for a new service that can cover our needs."
"When connecting to Google Cloud, there is no visibility or traceability from Google Cloud into CloudWatch."
"The solution's pricing is a bit higher."
"It would be beneficial for CloudWatch to provide an API interface and some kind of custom configuration."
"When customers want to see the CPU or memory utilization there is a cost. This should be free to see the utilization."
"What would make Amazon CloudWatch better is if it includes more on-site checks, particularly status checks on the CPU, network input/output, etc. It would also be helpful if there's built-in swap space, disk, and memory monitoring in Amazon CloudWatch because, at the moment, my team has to configure it manually through a shell script."
"Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool."
"Amazon CloudWatch charges extra for custom metrics, which is a significant disadvantage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is a free-of-charge service."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."
"What's were using is the free service of Amazon CloudWatch, so they're not charging us. As for hidden fees, we're not aware of them because we're using what our clients provided us."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Transportation Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visual...
What is your primary use case for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch is a very small service that AWS provides. It is a monitoring service for applications within the AWS cloud, and we can integrate external applications using the APIs or SDK. The ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Proximus, Air France-KLM, Barratt Developments, Freedom Mortgage
AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Find out what your peers are saying about Actional vs. Amazon CloudWatch and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.