Senior Director with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A good solution for infrastructure, but not for application-level monitoring
Pros and Cons
  • "Datadog's ability to group and visualize the servers and the data makes it relatively easy for the root cause analysis."
  • "Datadog lacks a deeper application-level insight. Their competitors had eclipsed them in offering ET functionality that was important to us. That's why we stopped using it and switched to New Relic. Datadog's price is also high."

What is our primary use case?

We used Datadog to capture the salvatory of our AWS fleet of around 1,200 servers.

What is most valuable?

Datadog's ability to group and visualize the servers and the data makes it relatively easy for the root cause analysis.

What needs improvement?

Datadog lacks a deeper application-level insight. Their competitors had eclipsed them in offering ET functionality that was important to us. That's why we stopped using it and switched to New Relic.

Datadog's price is also high.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Datadog for about three years.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability really wasn't ever an issue. We didn't have any outages specific to Datadog where we couldn't get reports or insights to information. We were more concerned about the stability of our own systems and applications.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There was no issue with scaling as such. It didn't scale well only from the cost perspective.

How are customer service and support?

Fortunately, because of the stability of the solution, we never had reasons to deal with technical support. Most of our interaction was with their product management, which was focused on the feature capability and ultimately pricing.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We switched from Datadog to New Relic because it offered ET functionality. Datadog was traditionally born out of monitoring infrastructure. Over the years, they have improved their ability to give you insights at the application layer and to be considered under APM. New Relic really started at the application layer and has worked its way down. 

Ultimately, we were able to accept New Relic because coming from an operations team, infrastructure was more important. As our application became more complex, our application developers needed better insight. Because there is a significant overlap in the Venn diagram between Datadog and New Relic, we felt that the needs of the infrastructure team and the applications team could be met with New Relic and its expansion in providing a sort of lightweight security.

What other advice do I have?

Datadog started off at the infrastructure level, and New Relic started off at the application level. Both of them were expanding not only into each other's space but also into the SIM space.

There are a lot of options out there. For folks like me, it becomes a costly proposition because, at the end of the day, we're talking about logs, events that get pushed out. I have to push out some to Datadog and some to the security event manager. Then you start to think why can't you just push them to one place and let a product do that. That's where these products are trying to grow. They're not quite there yet because the SIM space is pretty mature. An enterprise like ours needs something fully focused and dedicated. Startups can live with New Relic that has a security capability or Datadog.

I would advise you to really understand the value that you're trying to go after. Make sure that you're not trying to solve all problems that you have from the observability perspective with Datadog because that will erode the value you get out of this solution.

Make sure that you are going to use Datadog for infrastructure, and it is going to be great. If you start adding other kinds of stuff to it, you'll probably start losing some of that value. Especially, if you want to go for application-level monitoring, you may be a bit disappointed.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten. I'm a very price-conscious kind of purchaser.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Akshay Manchalwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Support Engineer at Cybage Software
Real User
Top 5
Helps to set up alerts and thresholds to monitor real-time metrics
Pros and Cons
  • "Integrating Datadog with other platforms has made our monitoring processes a bit easier. It's not super simple, but it's manageable."
  • "For three to four months, we have been experiencing real-time delays. For example, if we're monitoring incoming traffic, the real-time status should be displayed up to a certain point. However, due to delays or issues with Datadog, the real-time data might only be updated at an earlier time. We are experiencing consistent delays in data updates from Datadog, with the most recent data often being delayed by about an hour. This issue has been ongoing for the past four months."

What is our primary use case?

Datadog is mainly used to set up alerts and thresholds to monitor real-time metrics and checks.

What is most valuable?

Integrating Datadog with other platforms has made our monitoring processes a bit easier. It's not super simple, but it's manageable.

What needs improvement?

For three to four months, we have been experiencing real-time delays. For example, if we're monitoring incoming traffic, the real-time status should be displayed up to a certain point. However, due to delays or issues with Datadog, the real-time data might only be updated at an earlier time. We are experiencing consistent delays in data updates from Datadog, with the most recent data often being delayed by about an hour. This issue has been ongoing for the past four months.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for a year. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

My company has 50 users for Datadog. 

How was the initial setup?

The tool's deployment is difficult and time-consuming. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The tool is open-source. 

What other advice do I have?

If you're thinking about using Datadog for the first time, I suggest getting some basic training in data operations. It'll help you navigate Datadog more easily. 
Learning it for the first time is not overly difficult, but it's also not very easy.

I would rate the tool a seven out of ten. While it's a useful tool, we've experienced some issues that haven't been resolved yet. Additionally, setting up dashboards and utilizing all the features requires some training. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Senior IT Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good tags, easy integration, and increases visibility
Pros and Cons
  • "The full stack of integrations made it easier to monitor the different technologies and platform providers, including Software as a Service providers, that otherwise would need a lot of work and customization to be able to see what is happening."
  • "The product could be improved by providing remote control to agents, enabling them to execute automation and collections without requiring another automation tool or integration."

What is our primary use case?

The main use cases are to provide visibility to costs for each product in the company as well as to consolidate all the observability in one tool. We are moving the team from being an operational team that needs to keep the tool up and running (applying patches and resolving problems) to a team that is focused on providing meaningful visibility of the systems, applications, and services of the company. We want to add value where the developers and the systems administrators are not able to focus.

How has it helped my organization?

The organization changed from having a team to operate different tools and providers to being a team worried about enabling and creating different dashboards, alerts, and automations in order to reduce downtime and increase the visibility of all the products, systems, and applications used. 

We moved from a full operation team to a team that adds value to IT, finance, product, back office, and any other team that requires correct information about the services provided while providing the possibility for them to create their own views and dashboards.

What is most valuable?

The tags are quite useful. They are providing the capability to give meaning to on-premises hardware (since it was not possible outside of cloud solutions and containers) as well to tag traces and logs. 

The full stack of integrations made it easier to monitor the different technologies and platform providers, including Software as a Service providers, that otherwise would need a lot of work and customization to be able to see what is happening. We'd also need to use several other separate tools that would require an increase in the required staff to operate them. Datadog gave us the opportunity to have a single platform for observability.

What needs improvement?

The product could be improved by providing remote control to agents, enabling them to execute automation and collections without requiring another automation tool or integration. 

Also, there is a lot of space for the FinOps discipline. For example, it could potentially provide better and richer information for the teams to check the costs and optimize the product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good even though we have had some minor problems recently.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. We've had no problems until now.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is good. That said, we had some cases that needed to be escalated to get to a faster resolution.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used AppDynamics. The tool was not providing good system visibility as it was limited and had a very high cost.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is somewhat complex. There is a need to create a new automation to install and deploy agents that needs to consider the required security for a financial company.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the implementation in-house.

What was our ROI?

The ROI is still being calculated.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Users need to be aware of licensing control. With autodiscovery, the product can begin to come at a high cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked into Splunk, ELK, and Dynatrace.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
VP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Good monitoring, dashboards, and flame graphs
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable aspect is the APM which can monitor the metrics and latencies."
  • "The correlation between the logs and the metrics needs improvement as most cases, we might use another logging tool (that is cheaper in cost) which we then have to link together."

What is our primary use case?

The product is used for APM solutions for the metrics and traces for the REST API requests and service maps to understand the upstream and downstream services.

We are creating dashboards and widgets to monitor the status. We are creating alerts and monitors as well. We integrated the alerts and ticketing system in our organization with SNOW and Netcool.

We are using Kubernetes, AWS, and infrastructure metrics. We are using Kafka and Aurora Postgres logs as well, and we are using HTTP status codes to identify the error types.

How has it helped my organization?

So far, the solution works very well and solves most of the problems we have. Currently, we are trying to integrate the trace ID into Datadog and correlate the logs and metrics. However, Datadog is not supporting the spring-generated trace IDs, and they are not shown in the Datadog UI. It works in reverse. This means Datadog injects the DD-specific trace ID into the application logs, and those logs can be in other tools, for example, Cloud Watch and Splunk. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable aspect is the APM which can monitor the metrics and latencies. There's a low error rate, and any alerts can be tagged to the service requests and sent via email to the required DLs. 

We can create incidents as well in our internal tools, like SNOW and Netcool.

The monitoring enables different dimensions of metrics to monitor the services and infrastructure. 

We have cloud infrastructure monitoring in Kubernetes nodes, pods containers, and ingress metrics.

Alerts are sent to an email in case of any issues. The metrics are used to create alerts.

The solution offers good dashboards, service maps, traces and flame graphs, HTTP status codes, power packs, service catalogs, and profiling.

While the logs module is not activated, we are using all other modules.

What needs improvement?

The correlation between the logs and the metrics needs improvement as most cases, we might use another logging tool (that is cheaper in cost) which then we have to link together. 

They can improve the SSO logging as well. Currently, we are logging in every two to three days by sending the login link explicitly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is awesome. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are expanding beyond observability right now.

How are customer service and support?

They offer pretty awesome customer support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented the solution with the help of a vendor team.

What was our ROI?

I'd rate the ROI ten out of ten.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would recommend Datadog to others.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also evaluated ECE and Splunk.

What other advice do I have?

The solution has a great support model.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Great network monitoring, testing, and integration tools
Pros and Cons
  • "The visibility into our network has allowed for quick diagnosis of failures, identification of underutilized or over-utilized resources, and allowed for cloud cost optimization opportunities."
  • "I would love to see more metrics or analytics in IoT devices."

What is our primary use case?

This solution is for physical device monitoring across breweries, including PLCs, HMI Cameras, RFID panels, scales, etc. We want to gain visibility into these devices to influence predictive maintenance and unscheduled downtime. We want to monitor physical devices across the zone from a control tower perspective for end users and support teams alike. Understanding more about the performance of the devices and mechanical components will allow us to schedule downtime to fix imminent catastrophic failures and prevent unplanned downtime and lost revenue.

How has it helped my organization?

Previously, we had no visibility into the architectural layout of our infrastructure. The UI of Datadog has allowed for increased visibility and access to broken or underperforming resources or critical pieces of infrastructure. Beyond this, it has allowed us to identify areas where we can optimize cost in our cloud infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features I have found are network monitoring, testing, and integration tools. The visibility into our network has allowed for quick diagnosis of failures, identification of underutilized or over-utilized resources, and allowed for cloud cost optimization opportunities. The ability to correlate metrics has proven useful in determining downstream or upstream issues influencing the device, machine, or database having issues.

What needs improvement?

I would love to see more metrics or analytics in IoT devices. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for approximately two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never experienced an issue or outage.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is very scalable and developed in a fashion that provides the ability to scale easily.

How are customer service and support?

Customer service has been outstanding. They have been timely and knowledgeable with all of my questions.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used a different product for the total stack solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the setup process in-house.

What was our ROI?

I'm unsure as to if we've seen an ROI.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate SolarWinds.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
ITOPS and SRE Manager at Ticket
User
Good observability, available on the cloud, and capable of scaling
Pros and Cons
  • "The observability on offer is the most useful aspect of the product."
  • "The FinOps needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for observability.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has helped with our POV phase.

What is most valuable?

The observability on offer is the most useful aspect of the product.

What needs improvement?

The FinOps needs improvement. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used AppDynamics and Dynatrace.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also evaluated AppDynamics and Dynatrace.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sr. Manager - DevOps at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Excellent RUM, session replay, and APM
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution has helped out organization gain improved visibility."
  • "The product needs a better Datadog agent installation."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for logging and APM, and for real user metrics.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has helped out organization gain improved visibility.

What is most valuable?

The most useful aspects of the solution include RUM, session replay, and APM.

What needs improvement?

The product needs a better Datadog agent installation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for one year.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used App Dynamics.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing Datadog, we looked at Splunk.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
James Baird - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Easy to use, simple to set up, and allows for easy visibility
Pros and Cons
  • "Datadog has so far been a breeze to use and set up."
  • "One thing we have run into is that it is so easy to add monitoring that we turn on things without really understanding the costs."

What is our primary use case?

We currently use it for log aggregation and SEIM. We send logs from our AWS account (particularly our Cloudtrail and S3 logs) and use them to give us security signals. 

This has helped with our SOC2 certification process and has given us a window into our processes and the security holes in our system. 

We are also considering using the APM features to help with our development effort. We want to be able to profile all of our code and see what is going on with it.

How has it helped my organization?

It has allowed us to see into our systems with ease. We are a very small startup (Less than 30 people, and most of them are in sales and marketing). 

When it comes to managing systems, we just don't have time to do everything. However, Datadog has allowed us to do much more with fewer people and still sift through our data with ease. 

We hope to start using the APM feature set to extend this to our dev teams as well.

What is most valuable?

The ease of use is the primary aspect. I have used, at previous jobs, the ELK stack and Splunk for log management. Both of them were useful, yet required a lot of manual effort to get set up (and a lot of continuing effort to tweak. A simple monitoring solution turned into a full-time job! However, Datadog has so far been a breeze to use and set up. It looks at what I am sending it and figures out what it is almost by magic. Even the manual configuration makes sense and gives very fast and thorough results

What needs improvement?

One thing we have run into is that it is so easy to add monitoring that we turn on things without really understanding the costs. 

I would like a way to show a continuous indication of what my setup will cost on a daily or weekly basis.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for six months.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Datadog Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Datadog Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.