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Datadog vs Elastic Observability comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
7.1
Organizations experienced diverse returns with Datadog, reporting time savings, reduced blindspots, enhanced visibility, integration benefits, and efficiency improvements.
Sentiment score
7.1
Elastic Observability enhances efficiency, reduces incidents, and provides cost-effective visibility, with benefits in data management and availability.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Datadog customer service is responsive and professional, offering proactive support despite occasional delays in their ticket system.
Sentiment score
7.7
Elastic Observability users praise responsive, knowledgeable support, valuing quick problem-solving, though rely on documentation for added assistance.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Datadog scales efficiently with diverse technologies, though rising costs and limited API capabilities remain concerns for some users.
Sentiment score
7.1
Elastic Observability offers scalable performance and ease of use, with user satisfaction varying based on specific implementations and preferences.
Elastic Observability seems to have a good scale-out capability.
What is not scalable for us is not on Elastic's side.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Datadog offers reliable performance with minimal downtime, resolving integration issues promptly and maintaining consistent uptime even during peak traffic.
Sentiment score
8.2
Elastic Observability is stable, efficiently handles analytics, and is well-regarded by users, though monitoring storage is recommended.
It is very stable, and I would rate it ten out of ten based on my interaction with it.
Elastic Observability is really stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Datadog struggles with performance, usability, and cost issues, requiring improvements in integration, documentation, and user interface.
Elastic Observability needs improved automation, ease of use, dashboard customization, advanced metrics, compatibility, and streamlined deployment processes.
The documentation is adequate, but team members coming into a project could benefit from more guided, interactive tutorials, ideally leveraging real-world data.
There should be a clearer view of the expenses.
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.
It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like network observability, package flow analysis, and device performance data on the infrastructure side.
Elastic Observability could improve asset discovery as the current requirement to push the agent is not ideal.
 

Setup Cost

Datadog's pricing model is flexible yet can be costly, requiring careful planning to optimize its comprehensive features and avoid surprises.
Elastic Observability offers cost-effective, flexible pricing for enterprises, though high-tier licensing may be expensive for smaller users.
The setup cost for Datadog is more than $100.
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing.
Observability is actually cheaper compared to logs because you're not indexing huge blobs of text and trying to parse those.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Datadog excels in integration, monitoring, and data visualization, enhancing system reliability and efficiency with seamless AWS synchronization.
Elastic Observability enhances incident response with powerful search, centralized logging, machine learning, and scalable integration for seamless monitoring and alerting.
Our architecture is written in several languages, and one area where Datadog particularly shines is in providing first-class support for a multitude of programming languages.
The technology itself is generally very useful.
the most valued feature of Elastic is its log analytics capabilities.
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.
Every integration, whether for Windows or Linux or even Palo Alto or Fortinet, installs the out-of-the-box dashboards along with it, making it easy to parse incoming data meaningfully and immediately start viewing dashboards to see what's happening in the platform.
 

Categories and Ranking

Datadog
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
1st
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Log Management
3rd
Ranking in Container Monitoring
2nd
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
187
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (4th), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (6th)
Elastic Observability
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
7th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
11th
Ranking in Log Management
16th
Ranking in Container Monitoring
4th
Ranking in Cloud Monitoring Software
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Datadog is 8.6%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Observability is 5.0%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin Palmer - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful log aggregation and management with helpful metrics aggregation
Datadog provides us value in three major ways: First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance. Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit. Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.
Adelina Craciun - PeerSpot reviewer
Customization enables tailored monitoring and alerting across departments
The possibility to customize it has been quite useful. Whatever the other departments want to dream up, we implement. Whatever they want to monitor, the granularity of it, the changes in the threshold, and the anomalies that they want reported all require some development. So far, every single request has been fulfilled.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
What do you like most about Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability significantly improves incident response time by providing quick access to logs and data across various sources. For instance, searching for specific keywords in logs spanning...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Elastic Observability?
Elastic Observability is cost-efficient and provides all features in the enterprise license without asset-based licensing. However, sizing and licensing information could be clearer.
What needs improvement with Elastic Observability?
Of course, maintenance is necessary, as with any software, requiring updates with the latest features and security enhancements. It lacked some capabilities when handling on-prem devices, like netw...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
PSCU, Entel, VITAS, Mimecast, Barrett Steel, Butterfield Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Elastic Observability and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.