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Technology · head to head

Datadog vs Trino

Datadog logo

Datadog

Technology

Modern monitoring & security

From
$15/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Trino logo

Trino

Technology

A distributed SQL engine that queries data where it already lives, across object storage, warehouses and operational databases.

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Trino has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Datadog consumption-based pricing model makes costs hard to predict and can scale quickly; Trino trino stores nothing and computes no statistics of its own, so the plan it produces is only as good as the partitioning, file sizes and table statistics on the source; a Hive table of thousands of small files or a lake with no stats produces a slow query the engine cannot improve.
  • They diverge on capability: Datadog covers Infrastructure monitoring, Trino covers Federated querying.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Datadog and Trino actually diverge.

Attributes where Datadog and Trino differ
AttributeDatadogTrino
Starting price$15/monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownopen-source
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, Linux, Windows, macOSWeb
Founded2010Unknown

Identical on both: 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 Datadog

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

Only in Trino

  • Federated querying
  • Connector architecture
  • Predicate and aggregation pushdown
  • Massively parallel execution
  • Fault-tolerant execution
  • Resource groups
  • Iceberg and Delta table support
  • Standard client protocols

What people use each for

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

Datadog

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

Trino

  • Ad hoc analysis that spans a data lake and one or more operational databases, without building an ingestion pipeline firstnot Datadog
  • Serving a BI tool a single SQL endpoint over an estate that is actually several separate storage systemsnot Datadog
  • Querying Iceberg or Delta tables on object storage interactively, as the compute layer of a lakehousenot Datadog
  • Investigating whether a dataset is worth ingesting, by querying it in place before committing to a pipeline for itnot Datadog

Where each one falls short

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

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

Trino

  • Trino stores nothing and computes no statistics of its own, so the plan it produces is only as good as the partitioning, file sizes and table statistics on the source; a Hive table of thousands of small files or a lake with no stats produces a slow query the engine cannot improve.
  • Federated queries pull data out of the systems they touch, so a join between a lake table and a production Postgres can put a full table scan onto an OLTP database that other applications depend on, and the person who wrote the query will not see the incident it causes.
  • Releases come roughly every one to two weeks with no community long-term support line, and deprecations arrive quickly, so you either dedicate someone to keeping current or you buy Starburst Enterprise for a supported long-term version.
  • It is memory-based and disk spilling was deprecated in favour of fault-tolerant execution, so a query exceeding cluster memory fails outright rather than degrading; enabling fault-tolerant execution requires an external exchange store on object storage and makes queries measurably slower.
  • It is a query engine and not a warehouse: there is no built-in job scheduling, no incremental materialised view maintenance and no transformation framework, so producing curated tables still needs dbt or an equivalent layer that somebody has to own.
  • The 2020 fork split the ecosystem, so documentation, connectors, Stack Overflow answers and vendor material written before then describe PrestoDB, which is now a different project with different behaviour, and following the wrong one wastes real time.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Trino

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Trino review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Datadog if

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

Choose Trino if

  • You need federated querying.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want connector architecture.
Trino review

Questions people ask

Is Datadog or Trino better?
Neither clearly leads. Datadog starts at $15/month and Trino at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Datadog or Trino?
Trino has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $15/month for Datadog and Free for Trino.
Does Datadog or Trino run on more platforms?
Datadog runs on Web, Linux, Windows, macOS. Trino runs on Web.
Can I use Trino for free?
Yes. Trino has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Datadog starts at $15/month.
What is Datadog best used for?
Datadog is most often used for infrastructure monitoring, application performance, security monitoring, log analysis. Of those, infrastructure monitoring and application performance are not what Trino is typically brought in for.
What can Datadog do that Trino cannot?
Datadog covers Infrastructure monitoring, Application performance monitoring, Log management, Real user monitoring. Trino covers Federated querying, Connector architecture, Predicate and aggregation pushdown, Massively parallel execution.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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
Trino: What is the difference between Trino and Presto?

They share an origin. The original creators left Meta and renamed their fork from PrestoSQL to Trino in December 2020; PrestoDB continues separately under the Linux Foundation. They have diverged in features, connectors and SQL behaviour, so material written for one may not apply to the other.

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
Trino: Does Trino replace my data warehouse?

Not on its own. It is compute without storage, scheduling or transformation. Paired with Iceberg or Delta on object storage and something like dbt for modelling it can serve as a lakehouse; used alone it is a query layer over what you already have.

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
Trino: Why is my federated query slow?

Usually because a connector could not push a filter or aggregation down, so Trino is pulling whole tables across the network to join them itself. The fix is usually better source-side partitioning or statistics, or ingesting that source rather than federating it.

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
Trino: What happens when a query runs out of memory?

It fails. Disk spilling was deprecated in favour of fault-tolerant execution, which checkpoints to an external exchange store such as S3 and lets long queries survive memory pressure and worker loss, at the cost of noticeably slower execution.

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
Trino: Is there commercial support?

Yes, from Starburst, which offers Starburst Enterprise with long-term supported releases and Starburst Galaxy as a managed service. The open source project itself has no long-term support line.

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