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CloudWatch
AWS Monitoring and Observability
As of 30 August 2026, CloudWatch is free to use. Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service built for DevOps engineers, developers. Softwr lists it under Logging. CloudWatch is made by Amazon Web Services, launched in 2006, available on Web, API.
Overview
What CloudWatch does
Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring and observability service built for DevOps engineers, developers.
What people use it for
- Metrics and log collection for AWS workloads
- Alarming on thresholds across AWS services
- Querying logs with Logs Insights
- Live tailing logs during an incident
- Distributed tracing alongside X-Ray
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about CloudWatch.
- The free tier covers 5 GB of log ingestion and 10 custom metrics a month, after which log ingestion is $0.50 per GB from 5 to 30 GB
- Custom metrics are $0.30 each for the first 10,000, so instrumenting broadly gets expensive before volume discounts apply
- Each custom dashboard beyond the free three is $3 a month
- Alarms are billed at $0.10 per alarm metric a month, with high-resolution alarms costing more
- Log storage beyond the free 5 GB is $0.03 per GB per month on top of the ingestion charge
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of CloudWatch
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- CloudWatchvsDatadog Logs
Datadog Logs: Log Management and Analytics
- CloudWatchvsNew Relic
New Relic: Observability made simple
- CloudWatchvsCoralogix
Coralogix: Continuous Log Insights and Visibility
Pricing
What CloudWatch costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Pay-as-you-go
Free
- Logs ingestion: $0.50/GB (first 5GB free), down to $0.05/GB at scale
- Logs storage: $0.03/GB/month
- Live Tail: $0.01/minute after 1,800 free minutes
- Custom metrics: $0.30/metric/month (first 10,000), down to $0.05 at scale
- Custom dashboards: $3/month
- Standard alarms: $0.10/metric/month
Free tier
Free
- 5GB logs ingestion per month
- 10 custom metrics
- 3 custom dashboards
- 10 alarm metrics
Capabilities
Features
Metrics collection
Log aggregation
Dashboards
Alarms and notifications
API
Integration with API
Webhooks
Integration with Webhooks
REST
Integration with REST
Web support
Available on web
Api support
Available on api
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
How much does Amazon CloudWatch cost?
CloudWatch uses pay-as-you-go pricing with no upfront commitment. Logs ingestion costs $0.50/GB (first 5GB free), logs storage is $0.03/GB/month, custom metrics cost $0.30/metric/month (first 10,000), custom dashboards are $3/month, and standard alarms are $0.10/metric/month.
SourceDoes CloudWatch offer a free tier?
Yes, CloudWatch free tier includes 5GB logs ingestion, 10 custom metrics, 3 custom dashboards, and 10 alarm metrics per month at no charge. Usage beyond these limits incurs pay-as-you-go fees.
SourceWhat are CloudWatch's pricing tiers for high-volume usage?
CloudWatch offers tiered pricing with volume discounts: logs ingestion starts at $0.50/GB and decreases to $0.05/GB at higher volumes; custom metrics start at $0.30/metric/month and decline to $0.05 at higher volumes; Application Signals cost $1.50 per million traces initially, declining to $0.30.
SourceBehind it
Who makes CloudWatch
- Company
- Amazon Web Services
- Based in
- United States
Keep looking
Where to go from CloudWatch
- CloudWatch alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- CloudWatch pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- CloudWatch badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Logging softwareThe full category
- Best Logging softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Logging software for
Compare CloudWatch with
- New Relic
- Elastic Stack
- Datadog Logs
- Coralogix
- Splunk Cloud
- Checkly
- InfluxDB
- Airbrake
- Fluent Bit
- Honeybadger
- Logz.io
- Uptime.com
- Vector
- Dynatrace
- AppDynamics
- Elastic APM
- Checkly
- Airbrake
Other Logging software
Continuous Log Insights and Visibility
Free, then $0.42/GB (logs ingestion)10 researched notesActive reliability platform combining uptime monitoring, API testing, and incident response
Free plan11 researched notesPurpose-built time series database for metrics and events
Free, then $0.0025/MB ingested12 researched notesWebsite monitoring and uptime checker with 80+ global monitoring points
10 researched notesA Lightweight and Ultra-Fast Tool for Building Observability Pipelines
Free plan9 researched notesActive reliability platform combining uptime monitoring, API testing, and incident response
Free plan11 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for CloudWatch, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on CloudWatch
CloudWatch alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
CloudWatch pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare CloudWatch
Put it head to head with anything we hold
CloudWatch badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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