head to head
Datadog vs Grafana
Grafana is the open source alternative to Datadog — cloud monitoring and observability platform. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Grafana is a viable free replacement for Datadog. Grafana is open source under AGPL-3.0, written in TypeScript, with 76,791 GitHub stars, 14,749 forks and 3,326 open issues; it was last pushed 4 hours ago. Datadog costs from $15, while self-hosting Grafana carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 3 other open source Datadog alternatives are tracked here, led by SigNoz at 32,116 stars. Grafana ranks #1 of 4 tracked open source Datadog alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: SigNoz (32,116 stars), Highlight (9,375 stars), Uptrace (4,286 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Grafana and 3 reasons to stay on Datadog.
choose Grafana if
- Your Datadog bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Datadog if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Datadog integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| Grafana (open source) | Datadog | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $15-$34/host/month |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — grafana/grafana | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 77K · ⑂ 15K | — |
| Built with | TypeScript | — |
Why people look for a Datadog alternative
About Grafana
Grafana is an open source observability platform for visualizing metrics, logs, and traces across diverse data sources. It runs in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, designed for teams needing unified visibility into system behavior without vendor lock in. Built with TypeScript and Go, it provides a composable architecture that integrates with existing toolchains.
read the full Grafana overview →
Other open source alternatives to Datadog
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana a good replacement for Datadog?
Grafana is an open source alternative to Datadog (Cloud monitoring and observability platform). It is written in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL-3.0, with 76,791 GitHub stars.
Is Grafana free compared to Datadog?
Yes. Grafana is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Datadog is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Datadog to Grafana?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Grafana's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.