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Technology · head to head

PagerDuty vs Datadog

PagerDuty logo

PagerDuty

Technology

Real-time operations for real-time business

From
$21/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Datadog logo

Datadog

Technology

Modern monitoring & security

From
$15/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: PagerDuty aIOps, status pages, and live call routing are expensive add-ons not included in base plans, significantly increasing total cost; Datadog consumption-based pricing model makes costs hard to predict and can scale quickly
  • They diverge on capability: PagerDuty covers Incident response, Datadog covers Infrastructure monitoring.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which PagerDuty and Datadog actually diverge.

Attributes where PagerDuty and Datadog differ
AttributePagerDutyDatadog
Starting price$21/month$15/month
PlatformsWeb, Ios, Android, ApiWeb, Linux, Windows, macOS
Founded20092010

Identical on both: pricing model (Unknown), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Technology).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in PagerDuty

  • Incident response
  • On-call management
  • Alert grouping
  • Escalation policies
  • Mobile incident management
  • Postmortems
  • Status pages
  • Event intelligence

Only in Datadog

  • Infrastructure monitoring
  • Application performance monitoring
  • Log management
  • Real user monitoring
  • Synthetic monitoring
  • Security monitoring
  • Network monitoring
  • Serverless monitoring

Both cover

  • Slack
  • SOC2
  • ISO27001
  • HIPAA

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

PagerDuty

  • Incident managementnot Datadog
  • On-call schedulingnot Datadog
  • Real-time alertingnot Datadog
  • Service reliabilitynot Datadog
  • Digital operationsnot Datadog

Datadog

  • Infrastructure monitoringnot PagerDuty
  • Application performancenot PagerDuty
  • Security monitoringnot PagerDuty
  • Log analysisnot PagerDuty
  • Cloud monitoringnot PagerDuty

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

PagerDuty

  • AIOps, status pages, and live call routing are expensive add-ons not included in base plans, significantly increasing total cost
  • Complex escalation policies require workarounds for scheduling patterns beyond basic weekly rotations
  • 5-user minimum requirement forces costs even for small teams, with forced Business tier upgrades adding $12,000+ annually for larger teams

Datadog

  • Consumption-based pricing model makes costs hard to predict and can scale quickly
  • Add-on modules significantly increase costs: custom metrics, indexed spans, extended retention
  • No free tier for production monitoring
  • High costs for organizations with large amounts of log data or high-cardinality metrics

Pricing, plan by plan

PagerDuty

$21/month

No published plan breakdown. See the PagerDuty review.

Datadog

$15/month
  • Infrastructure Monitoring$15/month
    • Host monitoring
    • Basic dashboards
  • APM$31/month
    • Application performance monitoring
    • Trace collection
  • Log Management$0.1/gb
    • Log indexing
    • Search and filter

Which should you pick?

Choose PagerDuty if

  • You need incident response.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android, Api.
  • You also want on-call management.
PagerDuty review

Choose Datadog if

  • You need infrastructure monitoring.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Windows, macOS.
  • You also want application performance monitoring.
Datadog review

Questions people ask

Is PagerDuty or Datadog better?
Neither clearly leads. PagerDuty starts at $21/month and Datadog at $15/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, PagerDuty or Datadog?
PagerDuty starts at $21/month and Datadog at $15/month.
Does PagerDuty or Datadog run on more platforms?
PagerDuty runs on Web, Ios, Android, Api. Datadog runs on Web, Linux, Windows, macOS.
What is PagerDuty best used for?
PagerDuty is most often used for incident management, on-call scheduling, real-time alerting, service reliability. Of those, incident management and on-call scheduling are not what Datadog is typically brought in for.
What can PagerDuty do that Datadog cannot?
PagerDuty covers Incident response, On-call management, Alert grouping, Escalation policies. Datadog covers Infrastructure monitoring, Application performance monitoring, Log management, Real user monitoring. Both handle Slack, SOC2, ISO27001, HIPAA.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

PagerDuty: What is the minimum cost to use PagerDuty?

PagerDuty requires a minimum of 5 users per account. The Professional plan starts at $21 per user per month ($105/month minimum), with annual billing providing 16% discount.

Source
Datadog: How is Datadog pricing structured?

Datadog uses consumption-based pricing tied to data volume ingested, hosts monitored, and products enabled. Infrastructure Monitoring starts at $15/host/month, APM at $31/host/month, and Log Management at $0.10/GB for indexed logs.

Source
PagerDuty: What integrations does PagerDuty support?

PagerDuty integrates with 750+ monitoring, ticketing, and collaboration tools including Datadog, Slack, Jira, ServiceNow, New Relic, and Nagios.

Source
Datadog: Does Datadog offer a free tier?

Datadog offers a free trial but not a permanent free tier for production monitoring. Pricing begins with paid plans only.

Source
PagerDuty: How much does AIOps cost in PagerDuty?

AIOps Intelligence is sold separately as an add-on starting at $699 per month, and is not included in any of the base plans.

Source
Datadog: What integrations does Datadog support?

Datadog offers 1000+ built-in integrations including AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Azure, GCP, and most major cloud platforms and services.

Source
Datadog: Can Datadog monitor Kubernetes clusters?

Yes. The Datadog Agent runs as a DaemonSet to provide real-time visibility into pods, nodes, deployments, and control-plane health across major Kubernetes distributions including EKS, AKS, GKE, OpenShift, and others.

Source
Datadog: How can I reduce Datadog costs?

Datadog bills based on indexed logs, custom metrics, and high-cardinality tags. Costs can be unpredictable and may run 2-3x estimates. Prepaying annually can secure 5-15% discounts.

Source
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