Vendor comparison
Seven vendors, three scenarios, side by side
A vendor-neutral comparison of Datadog, New Relic, Grafana Cloud, Dynatrace, Splunk, and Elastic. List pricing only, no opinions on which one your team should buy.
TL;DR
Cheapest at scale: Netdata (flat per node, data on your own infrastructure), then Grafana Cloud or self-hosted Prometheus. Easiest: Datadog. Best free tier: New Relic and Grafana Cloud. Enterprise default: Datadog or Dynatrace, with negotiated pricing. Below is the full breakdown.
Methodology
How we priced each vendor
| Vendor | Pricing model | Free tier | Infra (per-host equiv.) | APM | Logs ingest | Pricing page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Datadog | Per host + per-unit add-ons | 5 hosts, 1-day retention, no APM/logs | $18/host/mo | $35/host/mo | $0.1/GB | verify |
New Relic | Per GB data ingest + per user seat | 100 GB/month ingest free, 1 full-platform user | ingest | n/a | $0.4/GB | verify |
Grafana Cloud | Per active series + per GB logs/traces + per user | 10K active series, 50 GB logs, 50 GB traces, 3 users | ingest | n/a | $0.45/GB | verify |
Dynatrace | DPS (Dynatrace Platform Subscription), capability units | 15-day trial only | $29/host/mo | $58/host/mo | $0.2/GB | verify |
Elastic Cloud | Resource-based (compute + storage) deployment size | 14-day trial; self-hosted OSS is free | $8/host/mo | $6/host/mo | $0.12/GB | verify |
Splunk Cloud | Per host (Observability Cloud editions) | 14-day Splunk Observability Cloud trial | $15/host/mo | $45/host/mo | n/a | verify |
Netdata | Flat per node, no data-volume charges | Community: up to 5 nodes; open-source agent free and unlimited | $4.5/host/mo | n/a | n/a | verify |
Scenario
Startup, 10 hosts
| Vendor | Infra | APM | Logs | Custom metrics | Total / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Netdata | $45 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $45 |
Grafana Cloud | $19 | $0 | $45 | $0 | $64 |
New Relic | $0 | $0 | $98 | $0 | $98 |
Elastic Cloud | $80 | $30 | $18 | $0 | $128 |
Splunk Cloud | $150 | $225 | $0 | $0 | $375 |
Dynatrace | $145 | $290 | $30 | $0 | $465 |
Datadog | $180 | $175 | $1,035 | $1 | $1,391 |
Scenario
Mid-market, 100 hosts
| Vendor | Infra | APM | Logs | Custom metrics | Total / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Netdata | $450 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $450 |
Grafana Cloud | $19 | $0 | $979 | $163 | $1,160 |
Elastic Cloud | $800 | $300 | $270 | $0 | $1,370 |
New Relic | $891 | $0 | $2,010 | $0 | $2,901 |
Splunk Cloud | $1,500 | $2,250 | $0 | $0 | $3,750 |
Dynatrace | $1,450 | $2,900 | $450 | $0 | $4,800 |
Datadog | $1,800 | $1,750 | $15,450 | $10 | $19,010 |
Scenario
Enterprise, 1,000 hosts
| Vendor | Infra | APM | Logs | Custom metrics | Total / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Netdata | $4,500 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4,500 |
Elastic Cloud | $8,000 | $4,200 | $4,500 | $0 | $16,700 |
Grafana Cloud | $19 | $0 | $16,819 | $2,860 | $19,698 |
New Relic | $9,801 | $0 | $36,200 | $0 | $46,001 |
Splunk Cloud | $15,000 | $31,500 | $0 | $0 | $46,500 |
Dynatrace | $8,700 | $40,600 | $7,500 | $0 | $56,800 |
Datadog | $18,000 | $24,500 | $256,500 | $150 | $299,150 |
Enterprise totals reflect list pricing only. At this tier vendors typically negotiate 20 to 50 percent off list with annual or multi-year commitments. Treat the table as a negotiation baseline, not a quote.
Verdict by use case
Pick the model that matches your fleet
Best for startups
Grafana Cloud or New Relic. Both have free tiers that cover small fleets without a credit card. Grafana wins if your team is comfortable with Prometheus; New Relic wins if you want one ingest meter and a managed UX.
Best free tier
Tied between New Relic (100 GB/month ingest, 1 user) and Grafana Cloud (10K active series, 50 GB logs, 50 GB traces, 3 users).
Best for the lowest bill
Netdata. A flat $4.50/node with metrics, logs and unlimited retention included undercuts the per-host and per-GB vendors sharply. The trade-off: data stays on your own infrastructure, so add your storage and ops, and it is lighter on distributed tracing than the APM suites. See the Netdata pricing page.
Best for K8s-heavy stacks
Datadog and Dynatrace if budget allows; Grafana Cloud if you can manage cardinality. The active-series model rewards careful label discipline. Per-host pricing punishes ephemeral pods.
Best for log-heavy workloads
Elastic Cloud, Grafana Loki, or self-hosted ELK. Splunk has the most powerful query language but the highest list price. Datadog's split ingest/index meter punishes verbose logging.
Best with a strong platform team
Self-hosted Prometheus plus Grafana plus Loki plus Tempo. License cost zero, infrastructure and engineering time non-trivial. See open-source-vs-paid TCO page.
Best for enterprise compliance
Splunk and Dynatrace remain dominant in regulated environments. Datadog is closing the gap. Negotiated rates and committed-use discounts are the norm at this tier.
Where to go next
Open the calculator →
Plug in your own numbers and see all seven vendors at once.
Datadog pricing deep dive →
The market leader, line-item by line-item.
Log management pricing →
Splunk vs Datadog vs Elastic, normalised per GB.
Open source vs paid TCO →
When self-hosted Prometheus beats SaaS, and when it does not.
Vendors covered: Datadog, New Relic, Grafana Cloud, Dynatrace, Elastic Cloud, Splunk Cloud, Netdata.