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Amazon CloudWatch vs Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
19th
Ranking in Log Management
17th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Cloud's operations s...
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
26th
Ranking in Log Management
23rd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.1%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon CloudWatch1.1%
Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver)0.9%
Other98.0%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Anand_Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Architect at T-Systems International GmbH
Offers reliable Ops Agent and logging transport feature with easy third-party integrations
As part of our company, we implemented several changes in our log analytics pattern, including the storage and procurement process. Earlier, before implementing the solution, our company was able to procure only one year of data, but later, we came to the three-year mark. Around 15-20% reduction has been witnessed in the total analytic consumption of our company. The aforementioned result was possible because the solution allowed the creation of a dashboard where factors like storage costs, proportion of logs, and logs presence in a storage bucket or Big Query can all be checked. Earlier all logs were stored in a raw storage, but currently our company is able to move logs in table bucket that contributes towards cost savings. It has default integration for all gcp services. recently managed Prometheus support gives more flexibility to organizations to remain connected with their current Prometheus setup. We leveraged integrated FinOps Hub for recommendations for our workloads and server configurations, helpd us lot in order to get maximum TCO.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon CloudWatch offers cost-saving advantages by being an inbuilt solution that requires no separate setup or maintenance for monitoring tasks."
"CloudWatch immediately hooks up and connects to the KPIs and all the metrics."
"The tool's UI is good. One can scroll through the logs very easily."
"The alarms are one thing I love about AWS CloudWatch. It has alerts that notify us when resource use is approaching the limit."
"It is a robust analytical tool and it goes beyond mere functionality and extends into the realm of providing comprehensive insights."
"The tool enables live monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is its ease of use and logs. You do not have to go to each separate system to see the logs, such as Syslog and they are located in one dashboard GUI."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."
"It has really been helpful in detecting, identifying, and troubleshooting issues with cloud services used in the organization."
"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."
"The solution has improved our organization by reducing latency and also monitoring the costs of GCP usage by using the logging and monitoring features."
"It's easy to use."
"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."
"I like the monitoring feature."
"The cloud login enables us to get our logs from the different platforms that we currently use."
 

Cons

"Amazon CloudWatch charges extra for custom metrics, which is a significant disadvantage."
"Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool."
"It would be beneficial for CloudWatch to provide an API interface and some kind of custom configuration."
"The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future."
"It's not very intuitive. It doesn't have drag-and-drop functionality to trigger actions from notifications."
"We'd like the interface to be as easy as Datadog."
"Even though the product works well with most AWS, it is a nightmare to use with Snowflake."
"We find this product lacking and this is why we want to look for a new service that can cover our needs."
"It could be more stable."
"While we are satisfied with the overall performance, in certain cases we must add additional metrics and additional tools like Grafana and Dynatrace."
"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."
"If I want to track any round-trip or breakdowns of my response times, I'm not able to get it. My request goes through various levels of the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and comes back to my client machine. Suppose that my request has taken 10 seconds overall, so if I want to break it down, to see where the delay is happening within my architecture, I am not able to find that out using Stackdriver."
"Google Stackdriver is a stable product, but there is some lagging we cannot stop."
"The product provides minimal metrics that are insufficient."
"The logging functionality could be better."
"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s an open-source solution."
"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"The pricing is average."
"It is a free-of-charge service."
"The tool is not expensive."
"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."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."
"The cost could be lower."
"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Stackdriver?
As Ops Suite, is a google product which effectively comes at zero setup cost, in order to manage your on-premises logs on onsite, it involves negligible cost for using ops agent and it also include...
What needs improvement with Google Stackdriver?
If the errors are caught early in the interface, it would be easier for users to manage. The process of logging analytics can be improved.
What is your primary use case for Google Stackdriver?
I use the solution for logging, defining alerts, and monitoring. Our company's Java and Python logging teams mainly use it.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Google Stackdriver, Stackdriver, Stackdriver Monitoring, Stackdriver Logging, Google Cloud Monitoring
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
Uber, Batterii, Q42, Dovetail Games
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
895,272 professionals have used our research since 2012.