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Datadog vs Nmap 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Datadog
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
188
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Log Management (3rd), Container Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th)
Nmap
Ranking in Network Monitoring Software
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Network Monitoring Software category, the mindshare of Datadog is 3.4%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nmap is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Monitoring Software
 

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.
AntoSebastin - PeerSpot reviewer
Scans the network and identifies vulnerabilities on each machine
Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices. The tool's most valuable feature is its vulnerability scanning. It allows us to scan a specific range of IP addresses and discover devices within that range. This makes it easy to identify devices and view their details. Port scanning is crucial for network management tasks. It helps us identify vulnerabilities by finding open ports that may be unused or misconfigured. This tool makes it easy to detect such issues. The OS detection feature is great. Unlike other tools, Nmap provides accurate information about asset vulnerabilities, helping us easily detect and address them. Using Nmap provides value to the company, especially during compliance audits. It helps generate reports on assets, updates on workstations, and insights into network activities and potential attacks. Additionally, Nmap detects vulnerabilities and provides port details, allowing us to close unused ports on the client machines.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Each component complements the other, creating a cohesive system where data, logs, and metrics are seamlessly integrated."
"Excellent autocomplete for everything in the UI."
"The monitoring functionality, in general, and tagging infrastructure are great."
"When I reflect on the ways we used to track down issues, I can't imagine how we ever managed before Datadog."
"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 logging in general is one of my favorite features."
"Datadog's log aggregation is really helpful since it lets me and every other engineer on my team login, view, and share logs when we need to debug our application."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its scripts. These scripts prove beneficial when security features may obscure or block connections. Nmap helps identify vulnerabilities across different systems, including web servers and various server types."
"The real-time reporting feature of Nmap is particularly valuable. It generates detailed reports on the source and destination IP addresses, the protocols used, and the types of traffic."
"It enables us to delve deeper and identify the services and open ports on the system and visualize this information on a dashboard automatically."
"Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to scan our network and identify devices that aren't connected properly. This helps us detect any issues related to the operating systems of these devices."
"The most valuable feature of the solution for security audits stems from the fact that it serves as a powerful tool with the ability to scan a large number of ports."
"Nmap has a powerful command line tool and a set of diagnostic features."
"The best feature of Nmap is that it lets me see useful information about each endpoint in my entire network environment. For example, I can see every single connection of the network as well as each and every port."
"The solution detects the operating systems, which makes testing the software much easier before making the payload."
 

Cons

"We want to reduce having to go to different screens to obtain all the information."
"Sometimes, it takes a long time to load the dashboard if we have many charts."
"They need to implement template variables into the message response body."
"The wide range of products Datadog now offers can be a bit intimidating to developers."
"They could have better log reporting."
"Deploying the agents is still very manual."
"I like the idea of monitoring on the go, however, it seems the options are still a bit limited out of the box."
"There are some areas on log filtering screens where the user interface can take some getting used to."
"Nmap major operates through the CLI; there's no GUI component, and that's where the challenge is."
"The challenge often lies in finding suitable courses and professional resources."
"Customization is not very user-friendly in Nmap."
"The price is high and could be cheaper."
"There are concerns with the stability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There is room for improvement in the design, the GUI. It looks a bit odd. Maybe Nmap should improve it or add more widgets to make it more attractive, but the basic functionality is good and provides what we need."
"One of the drawbacks of the standard Nmap utility is that it does not come with a graphical user interface, unlike a number of other open-source alternatives such as Zenmap."
"The solution's initial setup could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you do your homework, you'll find that if you're really concerned with cost, it's good."
"The solution is fairly priced but history and log storage can get costly depending on your needs."
"It costs the same amount it would if we were hosting it ourselves, so we are incredibly happy with the cost."
"It is easy to run up a large bill, so become familiar with the cost of each piece of your bill and use the metrics they supply to estimate and monitor your bill."
"This solution is budget friendly."
"It has a module-based pricing model."
"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."
"The solution is free of cost."
"I am using the free version of Nmap."
"Nmap is open source software, which suits us well because we are a manufacturing company and not an IT company, for example. If we were an IT company, we would probably need to pay for extra support or instead go for another software solution. But as it is, we don't have any need for high-end troubleshooting tools."
"Nmap is an open-source and free product."
"The solution is open source so it is free."
"I am using the standard free version of Nmap."
"It's an open-source solution. Commerically, only the support service is available."
"The solution is free of cost, but there are specific services that we have to buy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Retailer
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Nmap?
Nmap is mostly helpful during compliance checks. We run the scanner to see how many devices are on our network and find vulnerabilities in those that aren't compliant. We also use it monthly to sca...
What is your primary use case for Nmap?
Nmap is used for network scanning to map the network, identify devices, and assess their status. It helps determine open ports and services running on a particular endpoint or server within an ente...
 

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
Lockheed Martin, Eastern Bank Boston, Perspecta, Harris Corporation, Discovery Communication
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Nmap and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,900 professionals have used our research since 2012.