Prometheus vs Datadog
Observability pricing comparison · 2026
Prometheus pricing ranges from $0–$2500/month, while Datadog ranges from $0–$31/host/month. These products use different pricing models (Per-seat subscription vs Hybrid (seat + usage)), so a direct price comparison isn't meaningful — costs depend on usage volume and mix.
VS
Prometheus and Datadog both operate in the observability category. This page compares their list pricing.
Plan-by-Plan Pricing
| Plan | Prometheus | Datadog |
|---|---|---|
| Self-Hosted (Open Source) | Free /month | Free /month |
| Grafana Cloud Free | Free /month | $18 /host/month |
| Grafana Cloud Pro | $19 /month + usage | $27 /host/month |
| AWS Managed Service for Prometheus | $90 /month (usage-based, ~1B samples) | Custom |
| Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus | $60 /month (usage-based, ~1B samples) | $31 /host/month |
| Enterprise / Custom (Chronosphere, Sysdig, etc.) | Custom | $0.10 /GB ingested |
Cost at Scale
Total cost of ownership — licenses, implementation, and hidden costs included.
Prometheus
9 scenarios$50
Self-Hosted Small Team (10 services)
$100/month
$400
Self-Hosted Production (High Availability)
$800/month
$0/month
Grafana Cloud Free Tier
Datadog
5 scenarios$2,800 Year 1 ($1,800 licenses + $600 log ingestion + $400 onboarding tuning)
Small Team (10 hosts, Pro annual)
$38,400 Year 1 ($13,800 infrastructure + $18,600 APM + $6,000 log management)
Mid-Size with APM (50 hosts, Enterprise annual)
$150,000 Year 1 ($55,200 infrastructure + $74,400 APM + $20,400 logs and custom metrics)
Large Deployment (200 hosts, Enterprise full stack)
Market Intelligence
Prometheus
- Median annual cost
- $20,000
- Based on
- 3 deals
Datadog
- Median annual cost
- $152,340
- Average negotiated discount
- 10%
- Based on
- 1023 deals