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Datadog Logo
26,001 views|15,508 comparisons
Graylog Logo
10,699 views|9,032 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jul 23, 2023

We performed a comparison between Datadog and Graylog based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Features: Datadog users like its customizable displays, error tracking, and advanced AI/ML capabilities. Graylog stands out with its exceptional search functions, seamless integration with Elasticsearch, and real-time data access. Datadog could enhance its usability and reduce its learning curve. Users said integration was another pain point. Graylog could benefit from additional customization options and an improved rule-creation process.

  • Service and Support: While many users spoke highly of Datadog’s support team, others reported slow support, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Graylog's customer service is generally well-regarded, with reviewers noting effective solutions and satisfactory experiences. While response times may differ, Graylog's support is considered superior compared to that of other products.

  • Ease of Deployment: Datadog’s setup is considered straightforward, and users often receive help from a partner or vendor. Some Graylog users said the setup was easy. Other reviewers faced challenges, but these were easily resolved with help from the vendor’s support staff. Graylog is easier to set up in smaller environments, but it could get complicated in large clusters.

  • Pricing: Opinions about Datadog's price are divided. Some users found it costly, but others thought it was acceptable. Some said the pricing model could be clearer and better explained. Graylog offers an enterprise edition and an open-source option with a daily capacity restriction. Some users said that data costs can be expensive.

  • ROI: Users said Datadog saved them time and improved visibility into security blind spots. Graylog can offer some cost savings. The precise ROI may vary depending on the organization’s size and use case.

Conclusion: Datadog is favored over Graylog due to its simple setup, seamless integration, user-friendly interface, extensive features, and excellent customer support. In contrast, Graylog has a more diverse setup, limited customization options, higher infrastructure costs, and needs enhancements in authentication and access control.
To learn more, read our detailed Datadog vs. Graylog Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is easy to implement and scale applications with standardized visibility, monitoring and alerting""I find the greatest feature is being able to search across logs from various microservices.""The ingestion points are unlimited and support customization. We haven't had anything yet that we haven't been able to integrate with it.""It lets us react more quickly to things going wrong. Whereas before, it might have been 30 minutes to an hour before we noticed something going on, we will know within a minute or two if something is off, which will let us essentially get something back up and running faster for our customers, which is revenue.""We like the distributed tracing and flame graphs for debugging. This has been invaluable for us during periods of high traffic or red alert conditions.""The solution allows flexibility and heightened observability for presenting data, creating indicators, and setting service-level objectives.""The ability to easily drill down into log queries quickly and efficiently has helped us to resolve several critical incidents.""APM is great and has provided low-effort out-of-the-box observability for various services."

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"I like the correlation and the alerting.""The product is scalable. The solution is stable.""UDP is a fast and lightweight protocol, perfect for sending large volumes of logs with minimal overhead.""The build is stable and requires little maintenance, even compared to some extremely expensive products.""Open source and user friendly.""It is used as a log manager/SIEM. It provides visibility into the infrastructure and security related events.""The solution's most valuable feature is its new interface.""I am very proud of how very stable the solution is."

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Cons
"Sometimes it’s difficult to customize certain queries to find specific things, specifically with the logging solution.""Deploying the agents is still very manual.""I've only been using Datadog for a few months, and at first, it was frankly overwhelming in terms of both the UI and the available capabilities.""Lately, chat support has a longer waiting time.""The more tools that they can build that allow you to run AWX playbooks, or other similar fixes, would benefit clients greatly.""The menu on the left is pretty dense (and I know it has to be). I never knew about the cmd+k functionality until recently. It would be helpful to offer more tips/cheat sheets to see handy shortcuts like that.""The product is quite complex, and there are so many features that I either didn't know about or wasn't sure how to use.""Even though it is powerful on its own, the UI-based design lacks elegance, efficiency, and complexity."

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"The infrastructure cost is the main issue. I like the rest. If the infrastructure costs could be lower, it would be fantastic.""We ran into problems with Elasticsearch throwing a circuit-breaking exception due to field data size being too large. It turned out that the heap size directly impacted this size in a high-throughput environment, causing unexplained instability in Graylog. We were able to troubleshoot on the Elasticsearch size, but we should have been able to reference some minimum requirements for Graylog to know that our settings weren't sufficient.""I would like to see some kind of visualization included in Graylog.""I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and creating alerts. The initial setup is complex.""Over six months, I had two similar issues where searches were performed on field "messages". It exhausted all the memory of the ES node causing an ES crash and a Graylog halt.""The biggest problem is the collector application, as we wanted to avoid using Graylog Collector Sidecar due to its architecture.""Lacks sufficient documentation.""I would like to see a default dashboard widget that shows the topology of the clusters defined for the graylog install."

More Graylog Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "​Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."
  • "It has always scaled for us. Cost scales up too, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's reasonable for what they're providing."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "The pricing and licensing through AWS Marketplace has been good. It would be nice if it was cheaper, but their pricing is reasonable for what it is. Sometimes, for their newer features, they charge as if it's fully fleshed out, even though it is a newer feature and it may have less stuff than their other items."
  • "It costs the same amount it would if we were hosting it ourselves, so we are incredibly happy with the cost."
  • "The pricing came up a bit compared to their competitors. It is not that the price has risen, but that the competitors have gone down. They keep adding more features that I would have expected to be baked in at a more nominal price. I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the pricing, but not enough to jump ship."
  • "It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal."
  • More Datadog Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Having paid official support is wise for projects."
  • "I am using a community edition. I have not looked at the enterprise offering from Graylog."
  • "If you want something that works and do not have the money for Splunk or QRadar, take Graylog.​​"
  • "​You get a lot out-of-the-box with the non-enterprise version, so give it a try first."
  • "Consider Enterprise support if you have atypical needs or setup requirements.​"
  • "I use the free version of Graylog."
  • "It's an open-source solution that can be used free of charge."
  • "We're using the Community edition."
  • More Graylog Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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 core… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The product is scalable. The solution is stable.
    Top Answer:We are using the free version of the product. However, the paid version is expensive.
    Top Answer:Since it's a free tool, I don't have much to say. Troubleshooting is important to me. The initial setup is complex. I hope to see improvements in Graylog for more interactivity, user-friendliness, and… more »
    Ranking
    2nd
    out of 94 in Log Management
    Views
    26,001
    Comparisons
    15,508
    Reviews
    94
    Average Words per Review
    433
    Rating
    8.6
    11th
    out of 94 in Log Management
    Views
    10,699
    Comparisons
    9,032
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    802
    Rating
    7.3
    Comparisons
    Dynatrace logo
    Compared 22% of the time.
    Azure Monitor logo
    Compared 14% of the time.
    New Relic logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    AWS X-Ray logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    AppDynamics logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Grafana Loki logo
    Compared 28% of the time.
    Wazuh logo
    Compared 26% of the time.
    syslog-ng logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    ManageEngine Log360 logo
    Compared 1% of the time.
    Also Known As
    Graylog2
    Learn More
    Overview

    Datadog is a cloud monitoring solution that is designed to assist administrators, IT teams, and other members of an organization who are charged with keeping a close eye on their networks. Administrators can use Datadog to set real-time alerts and schedule automated report generation. They can deal with issues as they arise and keep up to date with the overall health of their network while still being able to focus on other tasks. Users can also track the historical performance of their networks and ensure that they operate at the highest possible level.

    Datadog Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by deploying Datadog include:

    • Gain an integrated view of the services and programs that IT teams are employing across their networks. Users can view and monitor all of the disparate programs that they have running across their networks with this one solution. They can track these programs across the entirety of the data’s life cycle.
    • Analyze and utilize massive amounts of data in real time. Datadog’s dashboards gather data in real time. Administrators can utilize their network’s data the minute that it becomes relevant to them. Decisions can be made based on the most current information available.
    • Keep your cloud network secured against digital threats. Datadog enables users to create alerts that will notify the minute that threats arise. IT teams and administrators can rapidly address any issue that comes up and prevent any existing problem from growing worse.
    • Easily get it up and running. Users can set up Datadog, configure it, and employ API integrations to connect it to external solutions with ease.

    Datadog Features

    • Customizable and prefabricated monitoring dashboards. Administrators are supplied with two different types of dashboards that they can choose from when they are setting up Datadog. They can customize the dashboards to fit any specialized monitoring need. Additionally, users can choose to use prefabricated dashboards that come with the solution.
    • Disaster recovery feature. Datadog has a built-in feature that enables organizations to continue functioning if some disaster strikes their network. If the network suffers damage, Datadog can restore lost data and infrastructure. Should a digital threat do damage to the network, Datadog ensures that the damage is not irreparable.
    • Vulnerability scanning tool. Users can keep ahead of threats to their networks by employing Datadog’s vulnerability scanning feature. This tool scans the entirety of a user’s network and warns them if a vulnerability is detected. Users can then move to patch these holes in their security before the threat to their network can escalate.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Datadog is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. It can offer organizations many advantages. Two major advantages are the dashboards that users can create and the monitoring capability that it gives system administrators.

    A senior manager in charge of site reliability engineering at Extra Space Storage writes, “The dashboards we created are core indicators of the health of our system, and it is one of the most reliable sources we have turned to, especially as we have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately. We can usually rely on logs to tell us what the apps are doing.”

    Housecall Pro’s senior director of DevOps writes, “We value the monitoring capability since it allows us to be pushed alerts, rather than having to observe graphs continually.

    Graylog is purpose-built to deliver the best log collection, storage, enrichment, and analysis. Graylog is:

    • Considerably faster analysis speeds.
    • More robust and easier-to-use analysis platform.
    • Simpler administration and infrastructure management.
    • Lower cost than alternatives.
    • Full-scale customer service.
    • No expensive training or tool experts required.
    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
    Blue Cross Blue Shield, eBay, Cisco, LinkedIn, SAP, King.com, Twilio, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Pharma/Biotech Company5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government8%
    Educational Organization7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise38%
    Large Enterprise46%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise7%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise50%
    Buyer's Guide
    Datadog vs. Graylog
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Graylog and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Datadog is ranked 2nd in Log Management with 136 reviews while Graylog is ranked 11th in Log Management with 18 reviews. Datadog is rated 8.6, while Graylog is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Datadog writes "Very good RUM, synthetics, and infrastructure host maps". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Graylog writes "Great detailed search features and easy Java integration, but needs improvement in integration with Python". Datadog is most compared with Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, New Relic, AWS X-Ray and AppDynamics, whereas Graylog is most compared with Grafana Loki, Wazuh, syslog-ng, Splunk Enterprise Security and ManageEngine Log360. See our Datadog vs. Graylog report.

    See our list of best Log Management vendors.

    We monitor all Log Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.