No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon CloudWatch vs ServiceNow Cloud Observability 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

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
22nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (20th), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
ServiceNow Cloud Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
42nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 ServiceNow Cloud Observability is 0.7%, up from 0.4% 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%
ServiceNow Cloud Observability0.7%
Other98.2%
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.
Uday-Thentu - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Automation has reduced incident impact and is driving proactive self‑healing across hybrid services
ServiceNow Cloud Observability's valuable features include AI agents that can be integrated and triggered with workflows for evaluating and taking the right action in both process and technical aspects. On the process side, it ensures the right approvals are triggered. From the technical aspect, it allows integration for taking relevant action without human intervention, moving towards self-healing. The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive. By defining and fine-tuning workflows, we were able to implement timely notification and auto-action or auto-remediations. At the same time, if anything involves additional cost or requires intervention, it helps trigger approval notifications, and once approval is received, it timely takes the action. The AI agents help define and fine-tune those workflows further.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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 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 product helps us collect and store various metrics to set test alarms."
"The monitoring feature is valuable."
"The solution is easy to use."
"We can set CPU thresholds using the solution."
"Amazon CloudWatch's best feature stems from its ability to monitor app performance."
"The ability to create a stream based on different parameters, operation name, service name, URL, tags, and URI part, is one valuable feature."
"The solution Lightstep/ServiceNow has a couple of pretty advanced functionalities to help us investigate a deviation and help the development teams have better observability in the environment using distributed and complex services."
"The UI is very intuitive."
"The main benefit of ServiceNow Cloud Observability is real-time data, which helps us move from being reactive to more proactive."
"To a certain extent, it is possible to save on the costs of the product."
 

Cons

"The graphical interface has room for improvement. CloudWatch only gives you a breakdown of what's wrong. However, it would be nice if it could automatically remedy the problems it identifies. You should be able to configure it so that when a specific condition arises, it will take a predefined action."
"The monitoring part and GUI are areas in Amazon CloudWatch that have shortcomings currently and can be considered for improvements in the future."
"The technical support must be improved."
"Maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features."
"The solution could benefit from a price decrease."
"It's not an advanced way of monitoring."
"Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool."
"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."
"The dashboard and graphics must be improved."
"In terms of licensing, users would want the product to offer them the ability to tailor the tasks offered in the solution to suit their needs."
"The design of this solution is not very intuitive and probably could come with more friendly tips for beginners."
"The support team could be better. Because of the different versions of different tactics of integrating reactive code base, the documentation is not very clear if someone has to be onboard. I would rate the documentation of Lightstep a five out of ten. It could need improvement."
"The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It’s an open-source solution."
"The tool is not expensive."
"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."
"The pricing is average."
"The price is okay for me."
"We have monthly licensing costs. The licenses are probably in the vicinity of about $300 - $350/month."
"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable for detailed basic monitoring."
"The product's cost is relatively inexpensive."
"The product is expensive. I rate the tool's pricing model an eight out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise25
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with LightStep?
The cost could be reduced or lightweight agents and lightweight modules could be introduced, which would make it much easier to implement.
What is your primary use case for LightStep?
ServiceNow Cloud Observability's main use case is end-to-end automation starting from the trigger in the cloud. Currently, it focuses more on self-healing and understanding the complete uptime of e...
What advice do you have for others considering LightStep?
Regarding security, I unfortunately do not have much hands-on experience. My focus has been majorly on self-healing activities, but given what I have observed, it does provide a good opportunity in...
 

Also Known As

No data available
LightStep
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
InVision, Twilio, Lyft, Yext, DigitalOcean,
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. ServiceNow Cloud Observability and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.