Amazon CloudWatch vs Elastic Observability comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Elastic are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.0, while Elastic is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 0.9% mindshare in APM, compared to Elastic’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Elastic users who would recommend it.

Amazon CloudWatch

Read 49 Amazon CloudWatch reviews

9,188 Views
4,686 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Elastic Observability

Read 29 Elastic Observability reviews

12,505 Views
7,628 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Amazon CloudWatch

Elastic Observability

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Amazon CloudWatch and Elastic Observability are key competitors in monitoring and observability tools. Elastic Observability appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features, despite CloudWatch's strong user satisfaction regarding pricing and customer support.

Features: Amazon CloudWatch offers seamless integration with AWS services, providing efficient monitoring of applications and resources. Users benefit from real-time performance monitoring and detailed metrics. Elastic Observability provides robust analytics and handles a wide range of data sources, supported by comprehensive monitoring features that cater to varied needs.

Room for Improvement: Users feel Amazon CloudWatch could improve its real-time alerting capabilities and simplify the configuration process. Enhancing its data visualization features would benefit users. Elastic Observability could work on reducing the complexity of dashboard customization, minimizing resource consumption, and simplifying setup to better serve its users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon CloudWatch is known for straightforward deployment within AWS environments and dependable customer service. Elastic Observability offers comprehensive documentation but has a steeper learning curve in deployment. However, the support team is positively acknowledged for responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon CloudWatch is recognized for providing value, especially within AWS-centric ecosystems. Elastic Observability, though more costly, is regarded positively regarding ROI due to its extensive feature set offering powerful insights, justifying its pricing structure.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon CloudWatch vs. Elastic Observability Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Elastic Observability

November 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 920,769 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

7.0

Amazon CloudWatch enhances ROI by automating monitoring, reducing staffing costs, and improving developer productivity with centralized dashboards.

Sentiment score

6.5

Elastic Observability enhances cost-effectiveness by reducing incidents, automating fixes, and visualizing cloud operations, saving time and resources.

Automated alerts, centralized dashboards, and log analysis reduce troubleshooting time, improve incident response, and minimize manual monitoring.

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

Amazon CloudWatch offers cost-saving advantages by being an inbuilt solution that requires no separate setup or maintenance for monitoring tasks.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

Elastic Observability has saved us time as it's much easier to find relevant pieces across the system in one screen compared to our own software, and it has saved resources too since the same resources can use less time.

Stefan Decuypere

Technology Consultant at Hybrid software

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.5

Amazon CloudWatch support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though resolution speed varies with support tiers and engineer quality.

Sentiment score

7.6

Elastic Observability customers appreciate their helpful support, quick responses, and valuable documentation, despite some challenges in complex issue resolution.

In recent years, due to business expansion, knowledge levels among support engineers seem to vary.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

While using their cloud and cloud resources, if you have an issue with CloudWatch, you must pay additional monthly fees to get time from dedicated tech support.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

Customer support for Amazon CloudWatch has been excellent.

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

Elastic support really struggles in complex situations to resolve issues.

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Their excellent documentation typically helps me solve any issues I encounter.

Stefan Decuypere

Technology Consultant at Hybrid software

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Amazon CloudWatch is praised for seamless scalability, efficient data handling, and stability, despite some cost concerns.

Sentiment score

7.2

Elastic Observability is praised for scalability and ease of deployment, despite potential complexities and internal process limitations.

It is already there as a managed service from AWS.

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

The scalability of Amazon CloudWatch is very good, providing high throughput and auto-managing applications alongside auto-dashboard support.

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

Amazon CloudWatch's scalability is managed by AWS.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

I rate the scalability of Elastic Observability as a ten, as we have never seen issues even with a lot of data coming in from more customers, provided we have the appropriate configuration.

Stefan Decuypere

Technology Consultant at Hybrid software

Elastic Observability seems to have a good scale-out capability.

Syed Waqar Uddin

Chief Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Elastic Observability is easy in deployment in general for small scale, but when you deploy it at a really large scale, the complexity comes with the customizations.

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Amazon CloudWatch is highly reliable with minimal bugs, though minor delays and some query complexity are occasionally noted.

Sentiment score

8.2

Elastic Observability is stable and reliable, with high user ratings, efficiently handling large data volumes with proper configuration.

I sometimes notice slowness when Amazon CloudWatch agents are installed on machines with less capacity, causing me to use other monitoring tools.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

There are some bugs that come with each release, but they are keen always to build major versions and minor versions on time, including the CVE vulnerabilities to fix it.

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it.

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

I would rate the stability of Elastic Observability as a ten, as we don't experience any issues.

Stefan Decuypere

Technology Consultant at Hybrid software

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Room For Improvement

Amazon CloudWatch users desire more intuitive dashboards, cost-effectiveness, better integration, and improved monitoring and scalability features.

Elastic Observability needs automation, AI, and customization improvements, addressing complex deployment, market presence, metrics, licensing, and usability issues.

When using third-party dashboards such as Kibana or Grafana and other visualization tools, there should be a way to feed CloudWatch's data and logging capabilities into these visualization tools.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch.

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

I wish to see simpler pricing, more intuitive dashboards, easier log queries for beginners, richer visualization options, and strong AI-assisted troubleshooting.

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

For instance, if you have many error logs and want to create a rule with a custom query, such as triggering an alert for five errors in the last hour, all you need to do is open the AI bot, type this question, and it generates an Elastic query for you to use in your alert rules.

Lakshmi Bodepu

Senior Consultant at Skillfield

It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side.

reviewer708360

Senior Technical Sales at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Some areas such as AI Ops still require data scientists to understand machine learning and AI, and it doesn't have a quick win with no-brainer use cases.

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers report mixed experiences with Amazon CloudWatch pricing, ranging from affordable to expensive, depending on usage and integration.

Elastic Observability provides competitive pricing, benefiting large enterprises with comprehensive licensing, but may be costly for smaller users.

Overall, the pricing of Amazon CloudWatch is very expensive.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

Amazon CloudWatch charges more for custom metrics as well as for changes in the timeline.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

It was very easy to set up because it is built into AWS and does not require separate licensing, being billed based on usage.

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

The license is reasonably priced, however, the VMs where we host the solution are extremely expensive, making the overall cost in the public cloud high.

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing.

Syed Waqar Uddin

Chief Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not indexing huge blobs of text and trying to parse those.

Lakshmi Bodepu

Senior Consultant at Skillfield

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Valuable Features

Amazon CloudWatch offers real-time monitoring, comprehensive logging, AWS integration, and analytics with cost-effectiveness and detailed data insights.

Elastic Observability excels with flexible integration, powerful search, scalability, real-time insights, affordability, and robust support, enhancing efficiency.

We can quickly fix issues at the point of occurrence, and real-time metrics for microservices provide centralized logging and automated alerts that enable fast incident detection, quicker troubleshooting, and better application reliability.

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

Amazon CloudWatch allows me to set up and view even historical logs, which is one of the features I find valuable.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

If there is a CPU spike or system issues, we set alarms to notify us if the system is going down or not reachable.

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

The most valuable feature is the integrated platform that allows customers to start from observability and expand into other areas like security, EDR solutions, etc.

Syed Waqar Uddin

Chief Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

the most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities.

reviewer708360

Senior Technical Sales at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

All the features that we use, such as monitoring, dashboarding, reporting, the possibility of alerting, and the way we index the data, are important.

Adelina Craciun

Product Owner at Swisscom

For more quotes and insights, download the Elastic Observability report

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

24th

Ranking in Log Management

19th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Elastic Observability

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

12th

Ranking in Log Management

16th

Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), Container Monitoring (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 0.9%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Observability is 1.5%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Elastic Observability	1.5%
Amazon CloudWatch	0.9%
Other	97.6%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Amandeep Pawar

Engineer Technology at Iris Software Technologies Private Limited

Monitoring microservices has improved and teams respond faster to production incidents

In my opinion, the best features Amazon CloudWatch offers are Metrics, Analytics, Logs, Alarms, Dashboards, and Log Insights, with standout features being real-time monitoring and centralized logging, proactive alerting, and fast troubleshooting. The dashboards in Amazon CloudWatch help with troubleshooting by allowing us to easily look into API latency and how much resource consumption is occurring. The CloudWatch dashboard provides real-time data and views of our application health while Log Insights lets us quickly search and analyze logs to identify root causes of production issues, making troubleshooting time efficient and monitoring much more streamlined. Amazon CloudWatch has positively impacted my organization by improving our ability to monitor production issues and easily find the root cause in the application. We can quickly fix issues at the point of occurrence, and real-time metrics for microservices provide centralized logging and automated alerts that enable fast incident detection, quicker troubleshooting, and better application reliability, ultimately reducing operational efforts by giving engineers a single platform for monitoring AWS resources and microservices. I have seen many positive outcomes in my organization, estimating that CloudWatch reduced troubleshooting time by around thirty to forty percent because engineers could correlate metrics and logging from a single platform. Early alerts also help us resolve many performance issues before they escalate into major incidents, contributing to improved service availability.

Read full review

Mohammed-Abdelalim

Assistant Vice President at QualityKiosk Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Has provided powerful customization for unique monitoring needs but needs more out-of-the-box capabilities

In my opinion, the best features of Elastic Observability are their flexibility to integrate with other existing systems and the ability to build a unified monitoring tool that can integrate with existing ones and end-to-end user journeys which require a lot of customizations. The greatest feature in Elastic is the ability to customize. This is similar to my comments about customizable dashboards in Elastic because it's visible to the analyst. However, it's very great. Customizing these dashboards can meet the customer's specific use cases and specific stories that they have in their environment, their special environment that doesn't look like other environments. The dashboarding in Elastic is highly customizable to the level of logos. If the customer wants his company logo in the dashboard, it can be done.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	26

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Amazon CloudWatch has been positive. It was very easy to set up because it is built into AWS and does not require separate licensing, bein...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?

For improvements, I think Amazon CloudWatch could enhance certain areas, particularly regarding pricing structure. I wish to see simpler pricing, more intuitive dashboards, easier log queries for b...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon CloudWatch?

My main use case for Amazon CloudWatch is the monitoring and analytics of the application servers. I basically use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor the microservices and AWS infrastructure, helping me ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?

The problem is their licensing model, which is a bit confusing. Many customers struggle to understand their total cost of ownership because Elastic licensing is not dependent on easy, quantifiable ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?

After careful consideration about areas for improvement in Elastic Observability, aspects such as pricing, customization, implementation, and scalability could be improved. As a user of the system,...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Elastic Observability?

My use case for Elastic Observability is observability, as we upload our customers' data, including logs, and when there is an issue, we can analyze what went wrong.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Sematext Cloud vs Amazon CloudWatch

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Compared 5% of the time

Dynatrace vs Elastic Observability

Compared 4% of the time

Grafana vs Elastic Observability

Compared 4% of the time

New Relic vs Elastic Observability

Compared 3% of the time

Datadog vs Elastic Observability

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch

October 2026

Download Amazon CloudWatch product report

Buyer's Guide

Elastic Observability

October 2026

Download Elastic Observability product report

Overview

Amazon CloudWatch integrates seamlessly with AWS, providing real-time monitoring and alerting features. Its interface supports task automation, enhancing troubleshooting and analytics capabilities, while offering strong security and scalability at a cost-effective rate.

Amazon CloudWatch is an impactful platform for monitoring AWS resources and managing application performance. It simplifies infrastructure performance monitoring by providing comprehensive analytics capabilities, including application insights and event scheduling. Users appreciate CloudWatch for its detailed metrics, dashboards, and support in issuing alerts to detect anomalies. It efficiently tracks performance, optimizes resource utilization, and ensures service availability. CloudWatch is recognized for its robust alerting features and integration with other AWS services, further supporting its resource monitoring capabilities. However, there is room for improvement in dashboard customization, log streaming speed, and integration with non-AWS services. Enhancements in API integration, machine learning features, and support for third-party tools are also desired.

What features does Amazon CloudWatch offer?

Seamless Integration: Works effortlessly with AWS for cohesive service management.
Advanced Metrics: Provides detailed monitoring of CPU, memory, and more.
Real-time Monitoring: Offers up-to-the-minute alerts on infrastructure status.
Dashboards: User-friendly and informative for quick insights.
Automation: Supports task automation for efficient troubleshooting.

What benefits does Amazon CloudWatch provide?

Cost-effectiveness: Efficient resource monitoring without high costs.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing infrastructure needs.
Security: Strong protocols for safe monitoring activities.
Improved Performance: Enhances application insights and operational efficiency.
Operational Insights: Provides comprehensive logging and performance analysis.

Industries implementing Amazon CloudWatch often focus on optimizing IT infrastructure. Companies in sectors like finance and e-commerce rely on its monitoring and alerting capabilities to ensure service uptime and performance. The platform's automation and analytics features empower teams to proactively manage performance and detect potential issues promptly.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Elastic Observability offers a comprehensive suite for log analytics, application performance monitoring, and machine learning. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Teams and Slack, enhancing data visualization and scalability for real-time insights.

Elastic Observability is designed to support production environments with features like logging, data collection, and infrastructure tracking. Centralized logging and powerful search functionalities make incident response and performance tracking efficient. Elastic APM and Kibana facilitate detailed data visualization, promoting rapid troubleshooting and effective system performance analysis. Integrated services and extensive connectivity options enhance its role in business and technical decision-making by providing actionable data insights.

What are the most important features of Elastic Observability?

Centralized Logging: Streamlines the collection, analysis, and storage of log data.
Powerful Search: Provides robust search capabilities for quick access to relevant information.
Scalability: Supports growing data needs across diverse environments.
Real-time Telemetry: Ensures up-to-date insights and monitoring.
Platform Integration: Seamlessly connects with services like Teams and Slack.
Data Visualization: Enhances visibility with Elastic APM and Kibana.

What benefits and ROI should users explore in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers significant savings through efficient data management.
Rapid Incident Response: Minimizes downtime with quick troubleshooting tools.
Comprehensive Insights: Supports better business decisions with detailed data analysis.
Performance Tracking: Enables assessment of system effectiveness and improvements.

Elastic Observability is employed across industries for critical operations, such as in finance for transaction monitoring, in healthcare for secure data management, and in technology for optimizing application performance. Its data-driven approach aids efficient event tracing, supporting diverse industry requirements.

Elastic

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus

PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch vs. Elastic Observability

November 2026

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