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Azure Monitor vs Datadog: What are the differences?
Introduction
Azure Monitor and Datadog are both monitoring and observability platforms that provide organizations with the capability to monitor their applications, infrastructure, and services. While they share similarities, there are key differences between the two platforms that make them unique. In this article, we will explore and compare the key differences between Azure Monitor and Datadog.
Scope of Monitoring: One of the primary differences between Azure Monitor and Datadog lies in the scope of monitoring capabilities they offer. Azure Monitor is primarily focused on monitoring and management of resources within the Microsoft Azure cloud environment. This includes monitoring Azure resources such as virtual machines, databases, and services running on Azure. On the other hand, Datadog provides a broader scope of monitoring capabilities, extending beyond just the Azure cloud. It supports monitoring of various cloud platforms, on-premises environments, and hybrid infrastructures.
Integration with Azure Services: Azure Monitor has deep integrations with various Azure services, providing seamless monitoring and management capabilities for Azure resources. It leverages Azure-provided agents and connectors to collect metrics, logs, and traces from Azure services, enabling comprehensive monitoring and analysis. Datadog, on the other hand, offers integrations with multiple cloud providers, including Azure, as well as other third-party services. It provides a wide range of plugins, libraries, and APIs that enable integration with different systems and technologies.
Alerting and Notification: Azure Monitor has extensive alerting and notification capabilities, allowing users to define and customize alerts based on specific metrics, events, or conditions. It integrates with Azure Logic Apps, Azure Functions, and other services to enable automated responses and actions based on alerts. Datadog also provides powerful alerting features with customizable thresholds and conditions. It supports various notification channels such as email, SMS, and chat tools, allowing users to stay informed about critical issues in their environment.
Metrics and Analytics: Azure Monitor offers a comprehensive set of metrics and analytics capabilities that allow users to gain insights into the performance and health of their Azure resources. It provides real-time metrics, diagnostics logs, and application insights, enabling in-depth analysis and troubleshooting. Datadog, on the other hand, provides advanced monitoring and analytics features with customizable dashboards, visualizations, and anomaly detection. It supports advanced querying languages, allowing users to perform complex analysis and correlation across different data sources.
Cost Management: Azure Monitor closely integrates with Azure Cost Management, enabling users to monitor and optimize their resource usage and costs. It provides insights into resource utilization, enabling users to identify and address cost inefficiencies. Datadog also offers cost management features, providing visibility into the cost of different cloud services and infrastructure. It allows users to track spending, identify cost trends, and optimize resource allocation.
Community and Ecosystem: Azure Monitor benefits from being part of the wider Azure ecosystem, which includes a large community and marketplace. Users can leverage community-contributed solutions, share knowledge, and take advantage of pre-built integrations and extensions. Datadog also has a strong community and ecosystem, with a wide range of integrations, plugins, and community-contributed content. It provides a platform for users to share knowledge, collaborate, and extend the capabilities of the platform.
In summary, Azure Monitor and Datadog are monitoring and observability platforms that offer unique features and capabilities. Azure Monitor focuses on monitoring Azure resources and offers deep integration with Azure services, while Datadog provides a broader scope of monitoring capabilities and supports multiple cloud platforms. Both platforms offer powerful alerting, analytics, and cost management features, allowing users to monitor and optimize their environments effectively.
Hey there! We are looking at Datadog, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, and New Relic as options for our web application monitoring.
Current Environment: .NET Core Web app hosted on Microsoft IIS
Future Environment: Web app will be hosted on Microsoft Azure
Tech Stacks: IIS, RabbitMQ, Redis, Microsoft SQL Server
Requirement: Infra Monitoring, APM, Real - User Monitoring (User activity monitoring i.e., time spent on a page, most active page, etc.), Service Tracing, Root Cause Analysis, and Centralized Log Management.
Please advise on the above. Thanks!
We are looking for a centralised monitoring solution for our application deployed on Amazon EKS. We would like to monitor using metrics from Kubernetes, AWS services (NeptuneDB, AWS Elastic Load Balancing (ELB), Amazon EBS, Amazon S3, etc) and application microservice's custom metrics.
We are expected to use around 80 microservices (not replicas). I think a total of 200-250 microservices will be there in the system with 10-12 slave nodes.
We tried Prometheus but it looks like maintenance is a big issue. We need to manage scaling, maintaining the storage, and dealing with multiple exporters and Grafana. I felt this itself needs few dedicated resources (at least 2-3 people) to manage. Not sure if I am thinking in the correct direction. Please confirm.
You mentioned Datadog and Sysdig charges per host. Does it charge per slave node?
Can't say anything to Sysdig. I clearly prefer Datadog as
- they provide plenty of easy to "switch-on" plugins for various technologies (incl. most of AWS)
- easy to code (python) agent plugins / api for own metrics
- brillant dashboarding / alarms with many customization options
- pricing is OK, there are cheaper options for specific use cases but if you want superior dashboarding / alarms I haven't seen a good competitor (despite your own Prometheus / Grafana / Kibana dog food)
IMHO NewRelic is "promising since years" ;) good ideas but bad integration between their products. Their Dashboard query language is really nice but lacks critical functions like multiple data sets or advanced calculations. Needless to say you get all of that with Datadog.
Need help setting up a monitoring / logging / alarm infrastructure? Send me a message!
Hi Medeti,
you are right. Building based on your stack something with open source is heavy lifting. A lot of people I know start with such a set-up, but quickly run into frustration as they need to dedicated their best people to build a monitoring which is doing the job in a professional way.
As you are microservice focussed and are looking for 'low implementation and maintenance effort', you might want to have a look at INSTANA, which was built with modern tool stacks in mind. https://www.instana.com/apm-for-microservices/
We have a public sand-box available if you just want to have a look at the product once and of course also a free-trial: https://www.instana.com/getting-started-with-apm/
Let me know if you need anything on top.
I have hands on production experience both with New Relic and Datadog. I personally prefer Datadog over NewRelic because of the UI, the Documentation and the overall user/developer experience.
NewRelic however, can do basically the same things as Datadog can, and some of the features like alerting have been present in NewRelic for longer than in Datadog. The cool thing about NewRelic is their last-summer-updated pricing: you no longer pay per host but after data you send towards New Relic. This can be a huge cost saver depending on your particular setup
I'd go for Datadog, but given you have lots of containers I would also make a cost calculation. If the price difference is significant and there's a budget constraint NewRelic might be the better choice.
I haven't heard much about Datadog until about a year ago. Ironically, the NewRelic sales person who I had a series of trainings with was trash talking about Datadog a lot. That drew my attention to Datadog and I gave it a try at another client project where we needed log handling, dashboards and alerting.
In 2019, Datadog was already offering log management and from that perspective, it was ahead of NewRelic. Other than that, from my perspective, the two tools are offering a very-very similar set of tools. Therefore I wouldn't say there's a significant difference between the two, the decision is likely a matter of taste. The pricing is also very similar.
The reasons why we chose Datadog over NewRelic were:
- The presence of log handling feature (since then, logging is GA at NewRelic as well since falls 2019).
- The setup was easier even though I already had experience with NewRelic, including participation in NewRelic trainings.
- The UI of Datadog is more compact and my experience is smoother.
- The NewRelic UI is very fragmented and New Relic One is just increasing this experience for me.
- The log feature of Datadog is very well designed, I find very useful the tagging logs with services. The log filtering is also very awesome.
Bottom line is that both tools are great and it makes sense to discover both and making the decision based on your use case. In our case, Datadog was the clear winner due to its UI, ease of setup and the awesome logging and alerting features.
I chose Datadog APM because the much better APM insights it provides (flamegraph, percentiles by default).
The drawbacks of this decision are we had to move our production monitoring to TimescaleDB + Telegraf instead of NR Insight
NewRelic is definitely easier when starting out. Agent is only a lib and doesn't require a daemon
Pros of Azure Monitor
Pros of Datadog
- Monitoring for many apps (databases, web servers, etc)137
- Easy setup107
- Powerful ui87
- Powerful integrations83
- Great value70
- Great visualization54
- Events + metrics = clarity46
- Custom metrics41
- Notifications41
- Flexibility39
- Free & paid plans19
- Great customer support16
- Makes my life easier15
- Adapts automatically as i scale up10
- Easy setup and plugins9
- Super easy and powerful8
- AWS support7
- In-context collaboration7
- Rich in features6
- Docker support5
- Cost4
- Source control and bug tracking4
- Automation tools4
- Cute logo4
- Monitor almost everything4
- Full visibility of applications4
- Simple, powerful, great for infra4
- Easy to Analyze4
- Best than others4
- Expensive3
- Best in the field3
- Free setup3
- Good for Startups3
- APM2
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Cons of Azure Monitor
Cons of Datadog
- Expensive19
- No errors exception tracking4
- External Network Goes Down You Wont Be Logging2
- Complicated1
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