We performed a comparison between AWS X-Ray and Datadog based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: AWS X-Ray excels in error identification and resolution, providing comprehensive information for debugging capabilities. It also offers compliance and security features, as well as performance insights and event flow analysis. Datadog is known for its user-friendliness for development teams, offering dashboards, error reporting, and ease of use. It also provides logs and analysis, troubleshooting and instrumentation capabilities, and infrastructure monitoring. Datadog also offers APM and tracing capabilities, as well as observability features. While AWS X-Ray focuses on error identification and resolution, compliance, security, and performance insights, Datadog emphasizes user-friendliness, flexibility, and a wide range of integrations and additional features. AWS X-Ray could benefit from better log filtering, an improved user interface, better data interpretation, and potentially allocating more resources. Datadog could focus on improving usability, reducing the learning curve, monitoring external websites, ensuring SSL security, and addressing additional areas for improvement.
Service and Support: AWS X-Ray's customer service has minimal feedback, indicating that customers rarely need assistance. Datadog's customer service has received a mix of opinions. Some users appreciate the quick and supportive help, while others have encountered delays or unhelpful responses.
Ease of Deployment: Setting up AWS X-Ray is moderately challenging, involving the need for research and documentation. This process typically takes around one to two days to complete. The initial setup for Datadog is generally regarded as simple and direct, with the time required ranging from one hour to three days, depending on the complexity of the setup.
Pricing: AWS X-Ray is seen as a cost-effective option for setup, particularly for companies looking to scale up. Users have mixed experiences with Datadog's pricing and licensing, with some finding it costly and perplexing.
ROI: AWS X-Ray does not provide clear details about its ROI. That said, many users have reported experiencing substantial returns from using it. Datadog's ROI differs among users, with some expressing positive sentiments and estimating an ROI ranging from 10x to 20x.
Comparison Results: AWS X-Ray is preferred over Datadog. AWS X-Ray excels in identifying and resolving errors, providing a centralized location to view related requests and efficient issue detection. It also offers comprehensive information such as IP addresses and user locations, ensuring compliance and security.
"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."
"It is easy to navigate the menu and create tests."
"I don't have to worry about upgrades with the AWS version."
"Its logs are most valuable."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"Dashboards and their versatility are among the most valuable features."
"Its integration is most valuable because you can integrate it with various service providers such as AWS, .Net, etc."
"I find the greatest feature is being able to search across logs from various microservices."
"Anything I've wanted to do, I found a way to get it done through Datadog."
"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."
"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray."
"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"As a new customer, the Datadog user interface is a bit daunting."
"The error traceability is an area that can be improved."
"The incident management beta looks promising, but it is still missing the ability to automatically create incidents based on certain alerts."
"The installation is easy for me. However, if you are new to this solution it might not be so easy."
"Datadog has a lot of documentation, but a lot of that documentation assumes you know how the service works, which can lead to confusion."
"There is always room for improvement when dealing with cloud-based technologies. Mainly, I would say, it's just increasing our offerings to attract various other types of industries and businesses across more fields."
"It can be overwhelming for new people as it has a lot of features."
"While the tool is robust with many different capabilities, users would greatly benefit from more examples in the documentation."
AWS X-Ray is ranked 14th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 6 reviews while Datadog is ranked 1st in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 137 reviews. AWS X-Ray is rated 8.0, while Datadog is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of AWS X-Ray writes "Saves time, is relatively cheap, and helps find errors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Datadog writes "Very good RUM, synthetics, and infrastructure host maps". AWS X-Ray is most compared with Azure Monitor, New Relic, Sentry, Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) and Grafana, whereas Datadog is most compared with Dynatrace, Azure Monitor, New Relic, Elastic Observability and AppDynamics. See our AWS X-Ray vs. Datadog report.
See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.
We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.