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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Log Management
13th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Cloud's operations s...
Ranking in Log Management
25th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (26th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.6%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management
Unique Categories:
Cloud Monitoring Software
6.8%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1.8%
 

Featured Reviews

Adalberto Barbosa Da Costa Lobato - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 11, 2023
Comprehensive monitoring tool and provides good stability
CloudWatch is used to monitor not only for the cloud but also for on-premises services. So, you could think of it as a comprehensive monitoring tool. It's just proprietary monitoring software Every time we get an alarm or have an incident, CloudWatch is always there. We use it not only for…
Darasimi Ajewole - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 26, 2022
Easy to get logs from different platforms but provides insufficient metrics
Our use cases of Stackdriver are for cloud monitoring, cloud logging, and APM It has really been helpful in detecting, identifying, and troubleshooting issues with cloud services used in the organization. The cloud logging is really awesome. It enables us to get our logs from the different…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The monitoring feature is valuable."
"The most valuable features of Amazon CloudWatch are metrics, dashboards, alarms, logs, events, logs insight, and application insights."
"We use Amazon CloudWatch for logging."
"It offers direct integrations with various storage providers, making it convenient to push logs from CloudWatch to these external platforms."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is collecting the logs from Lambda."
"What I found most valuable in Amazon CloudWatch is that it gives you detailed information, which I found helpful because it can even provide you with data for the past one minute, which is quite granular. That was what helped me most in terms of finding the root causes. Task automation is another valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is intrusion prevention."
"We can create events and alerts. We use the information to dive down into the infrastructure performance."
"It's easy to use."
"The cloud login enables us to get our logs from the different platforms that we currently use."
"I like the monitoring feature."
"Offers a valuable logging transport feature"
"Provides visibility into the performance uptime."
"The most valuable feature is the multi-cloud integration, where there is support for both GCP and AWS."
"Our company has a corporate account for Google Cloud and so our systems and clusters integrate really well."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its graphs - if I need any statistics, in Kubernetes or Kong level or VPN level, I can quickly get the reports."
 

Cons

"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."
"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"This product lacks some features: real-time data stream monitoring, application performance monitoring, mobile app monitoring, and live dashboards. Its workflows also need improvement."
"I think something that can be improved are the alerts and alerting mechanism based on no rejects. We want to have it more flexible and that is one of the key things that is required."
"I found several areas for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch. First is that it's tough to track issues and find out where it's going wrong. The process takes longer. For example, if I get an exception error, I read the logs, search, go to AWS Cloud, then to the groups to find the keyword to determine what's wrong. Another area for improvement in Amazon CloudWatch is that it's slow in terms of log streaming. It requires an entire twenty-four hours for scanning, rather than just one hour. This issue can be solved with Elasticsearch streaming with Kibana, but it requires a lot of development effort and integration with Kibana or Splunk, and this also means I need a separate developer and software technical stack to do the indexing and streaming to Kibana. It's a manual effort that you need to do properly, so log streaming should be improved in Amazon CloudWatch. The AWS support person should also have a better understanding of the logs in Amazon CloudWatch. What I'd like added to the solution is a more advanced search function, particularly one that can tell you more information or special information. Right now, the search function is difficult to use because it only gives you limited data. For example, I got an error message saying that the policy wasn't created. I only know the amount the customer paid for the policy, the mobile number, and the customer name, but if I use those details, the information won't show up on the logs. I need to enter more details, so that's the type of fuzzy matching Amazon CloudWatch won't provide. If this type of search functionality is provided, it will be very helpful for businesses and companies that provide professional services to customers, like ours."
"Improvement of SSSD logs would be beneficial."
"CloudWatch's scalability could be improved."
"The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future."
"This solution could be improved if it offered the ability to analyze charts, such as a solution like Kibana."
"The logging functionality could be better."
"It could be even more automated."
"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."
"It is difficult to estimate in advance how much something is going to cost."
"The product provides minimal metrics that are insufficient."
"The process of logging analytics can be improved"
"Lacking sufficient operations documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."
"The tool is not expensive."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"It is a free-of-charge service."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"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."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"The cost of using Stackdriver depends on usage."
"We have a basic standard license without any additional costs."
"The cost could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch is a native service of AWS, and the bill is included with the other services in AWS. We receive a collective bill. The tool is not expensive. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten.
What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
The integration with third-party tools must be made easier.
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Google 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: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.