Best Datadog alternatives in 2026

Looking for an alternative to Datadog? Whether you've outgrown it, find the pricing steep, or just want to weigh your options, these are the strongest error & performance monitoring alternatives in 2026 — ranked on pricing, features, and who each one fits best. Datadog itself has a free tier, so we've flagged where each option is cheaper, simpler, or more specialized.

1
Grafana
Best for: devops-teams
Open-source dashboards and observability. A popular error tracking alternative to Datadog with a genuinely usable free tier — free – $19/mo. Particularly strong for devops-teams.
4.6Free – $19/moVisit
2
Sentry
Best for: developers
If Datadog feels like overkill or over-budget, Sentry is a leaner option with a genuinely usable free tier. Application monitoring and error tracking. Pricing: free – $26/mo.
4.6Free – $26/moVisit
3
Honeycomb
Best for: engineering-teams
Honeycomb goes head-to-head with Datadog on features with a genuinely usable free tier. Observability for complex systems. Best suited to engineering-teams. Free.
4.6FreeVisit
4
PagerDuty
Best for: devops-teams
A well-rated monitoring pick. Incident response and on-call. PagerDuty offers a free plan and starts at free – $21/user/mo, making it a credible Datadog replacement.
4.5Free – $21/user/moVisit
5
New Relic
Best for: engineering-teams
Observability for engineers. A popular error tracking alternative to Datadog with a genuinely usable free tier — free – $99/mo. Particularly strong for engineering-teams.
4.3Free – $99/moVisit
6
Better Stack
Best for: developers
If Datadog feels like overkill or over-budget, Better Stack is a leaner option with a genuinely usable free tier. Uptime, logs, and incident management. Pricing: free – $29/mo.
4.7Free – $29/moVisit
7
Loki
Best for: devops-teams
Loki goes head-to-head with Datadog on features with a genuinely usable free tier. Like Prometheus, but for logs. Best suited to devops-teams. Free.
4.5FreeVisit
8
Checkly
Best for: developers
A well-rated monitoring pick. Monitoring as code for developers. Checkly offers a free plan and starts at free – $80/mo, making it a credible Datadog replacement.
4.7Free – $80/moVisit

Still considering Datadog itself? Read our Datadog review →

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Datadog alternative?

Grafana is our top-rated Datadog alternative for 2026. Open-source dashboards and observability. Free – $19/mo.

Is there a free Datadog alternative?

Yes — Grafana, Sentry, Honeycomb all offer a free tier you can start on without a credit card.

Why switch from Datadog?

Common reasons are price, a simpler feature set, better fit for a specific use case, or platform support. Each tool above notes where it has an edge over Datadog.