Checkly vs Datadog
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Checkly and Datadog.
Quick Verdict
4.1/5
Checkly
0 reviews
4.0/5
Datadog
0 reviews
Checkly is rated higher (4.1 vs 4.0). Checkly enables monitoring as code using Playwright for E2E browser checks and HTTP API checks. Define checks alongside your code in TypeScript. Global check locations. Datadog is the leading enterprise observability platform. Infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, synthetic monitoring, and security monitoring in one platform. 600+ integrations.
Checkly Monitoring as code with Playwright and API checks | Datadog Enterprise monitoring — infrastructure, APM, logs | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.1 (0 reviews)✓ | 4.0 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Engineering teams who want to define synthetic and API monitoring tests as code in their repository and run them from global locations | Scaling engineering organisations running microservices that need full-stack correlation and can fund it, plus regulated teams needing FedRAMP High or EU/German data residency. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceapi access | free tierapi accessteam featuressso |
| Visit Checkly → | Visit Datadog → | |
Checkly
Pros
- + True monitoring as code: TypeScript + Playwright checks versioned in your repo and deployed via CLI
- + Useful free Hobby tier and clear published plan pricing
- + 22 global check locations plus private locations for internal services on Team+
- + Full check types (HTTP, TCP, DNS, ICMP, SSL/TLS, gRPC, traceroute, heartbeat) with rich alerting and status pages
- + Local test mode in CI catches broken checks before deploy; SOC 2 since 2022
Cons
- - Usage-based billing scales with frequency x locations x checks — overage at $4 per 1,000 runs adds up
- - Developer-only tool: no point-and-click path for non-technical teams
- - Synthetic monitoring only — not a replacement for APM, logs, or metrics platforms
- - No public uptime SLA for the platform itself; best features (1-second checks, parallel scheduling) gated to Enterprise
Datadog
Pros
- + Deepest product breadth in observability: infrastructure, APM, logs, synthetics, RUM, security on one agent and one platform
- + List pricing is public — $15/host/mo Infrastructure Pro, $31/host APM bundled — unusual for this market
- + Strong correlation workflow: traces linked to logs, metrics and deploy events shortens incident debugging
- + Regional data residency choice with fully isolated sites in the US, Germany, UK, Japan and Australia
- + Mature alerting, dashboards and docs, with 600-plus integrations across the stack
Cons
- - Costs compound fast at scale — logs, indexed spans and custom-metric overage routinely break budgets
- - Complex multi-meter billing makes forecasting harder than the per-host headline suggests
- - Free tier is evaluation-grade only: 5 hosts, one day of retention
- - Product sprawl multiplies SKUs and contract surface area
- - Site choice at sign-up is effectively permanent — migration between regions is a rebuild
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