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Datadog vs FortiMonitor comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

Datadog
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
4th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
210
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), Log Management (4th), Container Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), AI Observability (1st)
FortiMonitor
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
18th
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
22nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (13th), Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Datadog is 2.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiMonitor is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Datadog2.4%
FortiMonitor0.7%
Other96.9%
Network Monitoring Software
 

Featured Reviews

Dhroov Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Site Reliability Engineer at Grainger
Has improved incident response with better root cause visibility and supports flexible on-call scheduling
Datadog needs to introduce more hard limits to cost. If we see a huge log spike, administrators should have more control over what happens to save costs. If a service starts logging extensively, I want the ability to automatically direct that log into the cheapest log bucket. This should be the case with many offerings. If we're seeing too much APM, we need to be aware of it and able to stop it rather than having administrators reach out to specific teams. Datadog has become significantly slower over the last year. They could improve performance at the risk of slowing down feature work. More resources need to go into Fleet Automation because we face many problems with things such as the Ansible role to install Datadog in non-containerized hosts. We mainly want to see performance improvements, less time spent looking at costs, the ability to trust that costs will stay reasonable, and an easier way to manage our agents. It is such a powerful tool with much potential on the horizon, but cost control, performance, and agent management need improvement. The main issues are with the administrative side rather than the actual application.
reviewer2677554 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer III at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Managing diverse networks with detailed alerts enhances device oversight
FortiManager is very helpful in managing our networks. We use it to manage 20 farms and various networks with hundreds of devices. The version we are using provides more detail than the older dashboard. We appreciate the alerting capabilities, which are integrated with SolarWinds to notify our team via SMS.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has scaled great. I haven't run into any problems anywhere that I've used it. They have handled everything that we have needed them to."
"The ease with which we can filter, use metrics, and give accounts to customers, then let the customer filter, set up metrics, and alerts has been a big win for us."
"I like how we can customize alerts, and when alerts have become too noisy, we turn their threshold down fairly easily."
"We integrate our application logs. It is great to be able to tie our metrics and our traces together."
"Its logs are most valuable."
"We've found it most useful for managing Rstudio Workbench, which has its own logs that would not be picked up via Cloudwatch."
"The ease of correcting these dashboards and widgets when needed is amazing."
"By moving to Datadog, we did not need to manage our own monitoring infrastructure anymore."
"With FortiMonitor, you can get all the logs of the traffic information of the destination or the source."
"FortiMonitor's dashboard is very informative and user-friendly."
"It provides the best firewall features."
"Overall, I would recommend FortiMonitor to others."
"The most valuable feature of FortiMonitor is user monitoring, as we are able to see if the user is following the policy or not from their system, and additionally the solution integrates well with Fortinet FortiGate and has centralized management."
"The solution helps to see client infrastructure. It has many boxes and blinks green or red when the station goes up or down. We have different domains for the device groups that we monitor."
"In FortiMonitor, we're linked up with our Netgear, CactusServer, and NOC. It's really valuable because everything's migrating to one dashboard for us system engineers. We can keep an eye on traffic, blocked sites, and the health of our hardware. That last part, about knowing if something's going to fail soon, is super important. It gives us time to sort things out before any big problems happen. As a system engineer, I need to keep tabs on everything – temperature, monitoring systems, and network operations. This data is really handy because it helps me ensure our site runs smoothly, whether it's turning systems on or off. Just last night, there was a system failure, but thanks to real-time monitoring, I quickly identified the problem and got the necessary replacement parts."
"FortiMonitor offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities, allowing me to track network traffic in and out effectively."
 

Cons

"Datadog needs more local Asia-Pacific support, and if they don't have a SaaS solution in Asia-Pacific, they should offer an on-prem version. I'm told that's not possible."
"The incident management beta looks promising, but it is still missing the ability to automatically create incidents based on certain alerts."
"While the tool is robust with many different capabilities, users would greatly benefit from more examples in the documentation."
"It could use some additional features when working with metrics like Grafana or like New Relic has. Datadog has machine learning too, but it does not have this option in all layers of monitoring like infrastructure service process in applications."
"Datadog has a lot of features kind of cramped into one dashboard. It's quite hard to get around what feature does exactly what. There was a steep learning curve, trying to navigate through menus."
"I often have issues with the UI in my browser. I tend to have a lot of tabs open, yet have issues with it not responding or not showing data."
"This service could be less costly."
"The pricing nowadays is quite complex."
"The tool's price in Vietnam is high, making it an area of concern where improvements can be made."
"Sometimes, during high CPU usage, we cannot access FortiMonitor and must refresh it."
"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."
"There are no AI features in FortiMonitor, which might be an area for enhancement."
"There is room for improvement in the FortiMonitor report. It is not ideal for showcasing to tech customers or managers, especially when trying to display high CPU usage from logins within a specific range of months or the most recent month."
"FortiMonitor could improve by having compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux."
"The solution's initial setup process is time-consuming."
"We use FortiToken, and it's a pain to use because you have to send things through your phone and then confirm by email."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is fairly priced but history and log storage can get costly depending on your needs."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"My advice is to really keep an eye on your overage costs, as they can spiral really fast."
"Pricing and licensing are reasonable for what they give you. You get the first five hosts free, which is fun to play around with. Then it's about four dollars a month per host, which is very affordable for what you get out of it. We have a lot of hosts that we put a lot of custom metrics into, and every host gives you an allowance for the number of custom metrics."
"Sometimes it's very hard to project how much it will cost for the monthly subscription for the next month when you add certain features. Having better visibility of the cost would give a better experience."
"The cost is high and this can be justified if the scale of the environment is big."
"At my last company, we did see ROI, specifically around response time. We could get to mission critical things that were down and losing revenue on immediately. So, the product paid itself back."
"Pricing seemed easy until the bill came in and some things were not accounted for."
"Compared to other solutions, FortiMonitor is a very expensive solution."
"FortiMonitor's price is very high."
"There are additional costs needed for certain functionality, such as scalability."
"The tool's pricing model in Vietnam is a bit high. I rate the product price as an eight out of ten."
"In terms of licensing, while it may not be the most expensive option on the market, it's relatively cost-effective. You can obtain licenses at a lower cost, with the calculation being straightforward. For example, if you onboard around 5,000 devices, you'll need approximately 5,000 licenses, as each device typically counts as one license."
"We have a large customer base for Fortinet, and the additional buying power got us really great discounts."
"The price of FortiMonitor is approximately $200 annually for 225 users. The price is competitive."
"On a scale from one to ten, I rate the pricing a nine since it is a good solution that is available at a cheap price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business82
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise100
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

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 is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?
I have a clear bias because I work for Panopta. We aren't a fit for everyone, but I can confirm that Panopta is a lot less work to stand up and maintain. It's also a lot easier to use and onboard n...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiMonitor?
FortiMonitor does save time but not significantly on costs, as there are still expenses related to procurement, installation, and licensing.
What needs improvement with FortiMonitor?
There are areas for improvement that FortiManager is addressing. We have not yet upgraded to the latest software versions, being a full revision behind, but we plan to update soon since the current...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Panopta
 

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
SONY, GoDaddy, HCL, ING, ARMOR, billboard
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. FortiMonitor and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.