Grafana Cloud vs Dynatrace
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Grafana Cloud and Dynatrace.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Grafana Cloud
0 reviews
3.8/5
Dynatrace
0 reviews
Grafana Cloud is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.8). Grafana Cloud provides managed Grafana, Prometheus, Loki (logs), Tempo (traces), and k6 (load testing). Free tier includes 10,000 metrics series. Open source self-hosting also available. Dynatrace uses Davis AI to automatically detect problems, root causes, and dependencies across your full technology stack. Full-stack observability with minimal manual configuration.
Grafana Cloud Open source observability platform — cloud and self-hosted | Dynatrace AI-powered observability and AIOps platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.8 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $7/mo |
| Best for | Teams wanting a managed, self-hostable observability stack with a genuinely useful free tier and metrics, logs, and traces under one pane | Large enterprise teams wanting AI-driven automatic problem detection across their entire technology stack, where incident cost justifies platform spend |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi accessteam features | api accessteam featuressso |
| Visit Grafana Cloud → | Visit Dynatrace → | |
Grafana Cloud
Pros
- + Open source core (AGPLv3) across Grafana/Mimir/Loki/Tempo/Pyroscope — a real self-host exit
- + Permanent free tier: 10k metric series, 50 GB logs/traces/profiles, 500 k6 VUh, no credit card
- + Public Pro pricing ($19/mo platform fee, from $6.50/1k series) with automatic volume discounts
- + 42 stack regions on AWS, Azure, and GCP including a Federal Cloud option
Cons
- - Usage-based billing punishes metric cardinality and log verbosity — bills can spike on app-side mistakes
- - PromQL/LogQL and label design have a real learning curve
- - SLA is 99.5% (paid plans only) — below hyperscaler commitments
- - Some enterprise RBAC/audit/reporting features require a quote-based Enterprise plan
Dynatrace
Pros
- + Davis causal AI and OneAgent auto-discovery replace manual alert wiring with root-cause answers
- + Single platform for APM, infrastructure, logs, RUM, synthetics and runtime security
- + Published rate card with no per-seat fees and no overage premiums on DPS commitments
- + Deep compliance packaging (ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, FedRAMP Moderate, HIPAA) and unlimited seats
- + 900+ supported technologies, OpenTelemetry ingest, hybrid and mainframe coverage
Cons
- - Expensive: annual commitment required, bills scale with host memory (4 GiB floor)
- - No permanent free plan (15-day trial) and no month-to-month option
- - Capability sprawl means many meters to forecast; renewal conversations get complex
- - SaaS-only — no self-hosted deployment for strict data-residency or air-gapped environments
Stay in the loop
Get weekly updates on the best new hosting and infrastructure providers, deals, and comparisons.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.