Who is each tool for?
Da
Datadog APM
Enterprises needing unified APM with infrastructure monitoring
Gr
Grafana Mimir
Teams needing horizontally scalable Prometheus storage
Pros and Cons
Da
Datadog APM
Pros
- Seamless infrastructure correlation
- Automatic instrumentation
- Excellent service maps
- Continuous profiling included
Cons
- Higher price point
- Requires Datadog ecosystem buy-in
- Can be overwhelming for small teams
Gr
Grafana Mimir
Pros
- Unlimited horizontal scalability
- 100% PromQL compatible
- Multi-tenant architecture
- Cost-effective long-term storage
Cons
- Complex to self-host at scale
- Requires Kubernetes expertise
- Steeper learning curve than SaaS options
Feature Comparison
Feature
Da
Datadog APMGr
Grafana MimirAPM
9.5
4
Log Management
8
3
Infrastructure Monitoring
9
9
Alerting
9
8
Integrations
9.5
8.5
Ease of Use
8
6.5
Support
8.5
7.5
Value for Money
7.5
9.5
Overall Score
9.1
8.7
Pricing
Da
Datadog APM
From $31/host/mo
Pricing varies by data volume and features. Contact Datadog APM for a custom quote.
Gr
Grafana Mimir
Free / Cloud from $49/mo
Pricing varies by data volume and features. Contact Grafana Mimir for a custom quote.
Our Verdict
Both Datadog APM and Grafana Mimir are excellent observability platforms. Datadog APM edges ahead with a score of 9.1/10, particularly excelling in APM and Log Management.
