Datadog is a fully managed SaaS monitoring platform with built-in alerting and support, while Prometheus is an open-source, self-hosted time-series database requiring manual setup and maintenance. Datadog costs money but requires minimal infrastructure investment, whereas Prometheus is free but demands significant DevOps expertise to operate effectively.
Datadog vs Prometheus — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Enterprise SaaS monitoring and observability platform with built-in alerting, dashboards, and 600+ integrations.
Open-source time-series database and monitoring system with pull-based metric collection and built-in alerting.
Deployment Model. Cost Structure. Setup Time (small deployment). Data Retention (standard plan). Supported Integrations. Infrastructure Overhead. Enterprise Support
Choose Datadog if you need a production-ready monitoring solution with minimal setup, managed infrastructure, professional support, and 15-month data retention—ideal for teams prioritizing speed-to-value over cost. Choose Prometheus if you have strong DevOps capabilities, need zero licensing costs, require complete control over your infrastructure, and can maintain open-source components internally—ideal for cost-constrained organizations with technical depth.
Datadog: Distributed tracing and session replay | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Comprehensive with advanced orchestration | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Native distributed tracing | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Built-in with retention policies | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $32 per host/month | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Most comprehensive with custom parsing | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Advanced features, steeper learning curve | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $0 - limited (3 hosts max) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 40+ languages | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Advanced with ML insights | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $15 per host minimum | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: No, SaaS only | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $15.00 (base) + metered | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 600+ native integrations | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 60% alert reduction via AI | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Yes (full distributed tracing) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 4-8 weeks | Prometheus: 1-2 hours
Datadog: Basic (limited schedule management) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $180+/month (Standard plan) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 30-60 minutes | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Full log aggregation and analytics | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 15+ major frameworks | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 600+ integrations | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Monthly/pay-as-you-go | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $0.05 per metric | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Machine learning-based pattern recognition | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 35% reduction (typical) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $15/month (Standard tier) | Prometheus: $0 (open-source)
Datadog: 0.5 hours | Prometheus: 5 hours
Datadog: 450 days (15 months default) | Prometheus: 15 days (configurable to 365+)
Datadog: 600+ official integrations | Prometheus: 800+ community exporters
Datadog: Unlimited with tag aggregation | Prometheus: 10+ (practical limit before degradation)
Datadog: 800-1200 (with agent) | Prometheus: 50-150 (single instance)
Datadog: 24/7 phone, email, chat | Prometheus: Community forums (async)
Datadog: Native support | Prometheus: Requires third-party (Jaeger, Zipkin)
Datadog: Method-level with sampling | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Yes, standard in most plans | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Basic anomaly detection | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 15-30 minutes | Prometheus: N/A
APM (Application Performance Monitoring)
Datadog: Advanced APM with distributed tracing | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Advanced session replay with pixel-perfect reproduction | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: SAML, SSO, SOC2 Type II, HIPAA compliance, security monitoring | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: ~600+ integrations | Prometheus: N/A
Default Data Retention (included in pricing)
Datadog: 100% of traces stored | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 0 (add-on only) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 19,000+ (2024) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $12,000-$18,000 | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Limited query builder; UI-driven | Prometheus: 20-40 hours (PromQL)
Datadog: 2/10 - agent-based, minimal config | Prometheus: 7/10 - YAML config, service discovery setup
Datadog: Infrastructure, APM, logs, metrics, synthetics, RUM | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: SaaS, full on-premise, hybrid | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Available with RUM plan | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 600+ pre-built integrations | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Basic container metrics and logs | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Yes, with distributed tracing | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Not available | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Yes (anomaly detection, AI Advisor) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP, HIPAA | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: $28,200-38,400 | Prometheus: N/A
Base Monthly Pricing (1GB/day ingestion)
Datadog: 15 days standard | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 50+ security rules | Prometheus: N/A
Maximum Data Ingestion Per Day (Enterprise)
Datadog: Unlimited (licensing dependent) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 450 days (15 months) | Prometheus: 15 days
Datadog: 15-30 minutes | Prometheus: 120-480 minutes (with config)
Datadog: Datadog Query Language (DQL) + PromQL support | Prometheus: PromQL (Prometheus Query Language)
Datadog: 99.99% guaranteed SLA | Prometheus: Self-hosted (user responsibility)
Datadog: 24/7 dedicated support with SLA | Prometheus: Community forums and GitHub issues
Datadog: $15-20 per host (estimated) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 3 hops (with manual configuration) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 3+ agents (APM, Infrastructure, Logs) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 4.6/5.0 (2,100+ reviews) | Prometheus: N/A
Typical Enterprise Annual Cost (1000 hosts)
Datadog: $180K-240K (with logs) | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: 32% faster than legacy APM | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: iOS, Android, React Native | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: Hosts, containers, Kubernetes, cloud services, databases | Prometheus: N/A
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Remote storage endpoints only (~5 types)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 1-2 (PromQL specific but consistent)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Advanced (AlertManager with routing, grouping, silencing)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Yes—fully self-contained with TSDB
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 15-30 (local metrics immediately available)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 1 (single binary)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: No (federation workaround available)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: N/A (local storage only)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 25,000+ stars
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 10-15 minutes
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Scrape-based (any Prometheus-compatible exporter)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Limited (basic graphs)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Free (no commercial tier)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 30-60 minutes
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Yes (Alertmanager with 50+ integrations)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 10 million (memory limited)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 15 days default
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Yes (AlertManager)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 1:1 (uncompressed)
Storage Cost for 1M metrics/sec (1 year)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: $15,000-25,000
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 500+ exporters
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 5-10 minutes (single binary)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Official client libraries for 10 languages
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 50 alert rules evaluated per second
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: Limited (Exemplars linking only)
Datadog: N/A | Prometheus: 54,000+ stars
How to choose between Datadog and Prometheus
Datadog vs Prometheus — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Datadog vs Prometheus. Contains 178 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Datadog vs Prometheus — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Datadog vs Prometheus.
Is Prometheus suitable for production environments?
Yes, Prometheus is production-ready and used by 62% of enterprises according to CNCF surveys. However, it requires implementing long-term storage solutions (Thanos, Cortex, or Mimir) since native retention is only 15 days. For high-scale deployments (1000+ metrics/sec), add 2-3 engineers to manage infrastructure. Datadog handles this automatically.
What's the total cost of ownership (TCO) difference over 3 years?
For a 50-host deployment: Datadog costs ~$99,000 (3 years at $2,750/month). Prometheus costs $0 in licensing but requires 1.5 FTE ($180,000/year) for setup, maintenance, and upgrades, totaling ~$540,000 over 3 years. Datadog is more cost-effective for teams lacking DevOps depth; Prometheus wins for well-staffed organizations.
Can I migrate from Prometheus to Datadog or vice versa?
Migration from Prometheus to Datadog is straightforward (tools like Telegraf bridge exporters). Reverse migration is difficult—Datadog uses proprietary storage formats. Plan for 1-2 weeks of parallel operation for validation. Most teams keep both systems during transition rather than full cutover.
Which has better performance for high-volume metric ingestion?
Prometheus handles 1-2 million samples/second per instance without sharding. Datadog handles billions of data points across distributed infrastructure. For workloads >5 million samples/sec, Prometheus requires clustering (Thanos or Cortex), while Datadog scales automatically. Datadog is operationally simpler at massive scale.
Do I need both Prometheus and Datadog, or is one sufficient?
Most enterprises choose one or the other based on budget and staffing. Some hybrid approaches use Prometheus for internal monitoring (cost control) and Datadog for customer-facing SLAs (professional support). Only justified if you need on-premises data storage plus cloud observability—rare use case.
How to Choose Between Datadog and Prometheus
Deployment Model: Datadog has Fully managed SaaS cloud platform, while Prometheus has Self-hosted open-source software.
Cost Structure: Datadog has $15-$55 per host/month + custom pricing, while Prometheus has Free (open-source).
Setup Time (small deployment): Datadog has 15-30 minutes with agent installation, while Prometheus has 2-8 hours with configuration and tuning.
Consider: Data Retention (standard plan)
Data Retention (standard plan): Datadog has 15 months by default, while Prometheus has 15 days (configurable, requires storage).
Supported Integrations: Datadog has 600+ integrations built-in, while Prometheus has 800+ via community exporters.
Infrastructure Overhead: Datadog has None (vendor-managed), while Prometheus has Requires dedicated servers/Kubernetes.
Enterprise Support: Datadog has 24/7 professional support included, while Prometheus has Community-only support.