Datadog vs Prometheus
Self-hosted for $4/mo on hetzner CAX11, versus $15-$34/user/mo on Datadog.
Side-by-side
| Datadog | Prometheus (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $15-$34/user/mo | $4.13/mo flat (any team size) |
| Hosting | Datadog's servers | Your VPS (hetzner CAX11) |
| Data ownership | Datadog controls the data | Your disk, your encryption |
| Source code | Closed | Open (Apache-2.0) |
| Customization | API + integrations only | Full source access; modify freely |
| Maintenance burden | Zero | Backups + updates (manual) |
| Health score (ossreplace) | — | 76 / 100 |
Why teams leave Datadog
- Per-host + per-feature pricing stacks aggressively
- Log ingestion fees compound fast at scale
- Custom-metric pricing surprises during traffic spikes
- Vendor lock-in across logs, metrics, traces
Prometheus answers this by: Grafana + Prometheus + Loki + Tempo give the same dashboards + metrics + logs + traces on infra you already pay for.
The cost math
Assumes 5-person team using Datadog at the midpoint price ($24.5/user/mo).
| Period | Datadog | Prometheus on hetzner | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $122.5 | $4.13 | $118.37 |
| Yearly | $1470 | $49.56 | $1420.44 |
| 3 years | $4,410 | $149 | $4,261 |
Deploy Prometheus now
One-click deploys at the cheapest provider for this workload:
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Common questions
Is Prometheus a good alternative to Datadog?
Prometheus is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Datadog with an ossreplace health score of 76/100 — a composite of project activity, maturity, community, security, and adoption. It runs on your own hetzner VPS from $4.13/mo with full source access under the Apache-2.0 license, versus Datadog's $15–34/user/mo hosted plans.
How much cheaper is Prometheus than Datadog?
A 5-person team pays about $122.5/mo on Datadog. Self-hosting Prometheus on hetzner CAX11 costs a flat $4.13/mo regardless of team size — roughly $4,261 less over three years (97% lower).
Is Prometheus hard to self-host?
Prometheus self-hosts on your own VPS. You handle the install, backups, and updates yourself in exchange for full data ownership and no per-seat fees.
Do you keep control of your data with Prometheus vs Datadog?
Yes. Because Prometheus runs on your own server, the data lives on your disk under your encryption. With Datadog, Datadog controls the hosting, storage, and access.