CloudKnife vs Datadog
CloudKnife and Datadog are both uptime & monitoring tools. CloudKnife is aimed at developers and small businesses, while Datadog is aimed at enterprise and developers. Both have a free plan.
Azure FinOps tool that finds waste and applies approved fixes
Cloud monitoring and security platform
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium · $18 |
| Starting price | Not published | $18/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses, Enterprise | Enterprise, Developers |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | BE | US · 2010 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose CloudKnife if
Azure-centric companies, especially in Europe, that want cost recommendations with evidence and help executing them.
- Every recommendation shows its reasoning and data
- Changes start as proposals you approve, automation is opt-in
- Free plan for Azure spend up to €5k a month
Look elsewhere if: Teams running mostly on AWS or Google Cloud, or wanting cost data inside an existing observability stack (Datadog).
Choose Datadog if
Scale-ups and enterprises running complex cloud infrastructure with budget for observability.
- Broadest observability coverage in one tool
- Excellent dashboards and correlation
- 900+ integrations
Look elsewhere if: Startups and small teams (Grafana Cloud free, Better Stack, Sentry).
CloudKnife vs Datadog pricing
CloudKnife
- Free€0Up to €5k cloud spend, 3 Azure subscriptions, 2 users
- Standard€100/mo1% of spend (shown at €10k), up to €50k; 10 subs, 10 users
- Full€400/mo4% of spend (shown at €10k), up to €50k, all recs, 100 subs/users
- EnterpriseCustomTailored contract, billing and limits; onboarding with the team
Datadog
- Free$0Up to 5 hosts, 1-day metric retention
- Infrastructure Pro$18/host/moOn-demand; $15 billed annually
- Infrastructure Enterprise$27/host/moOn-demand; $23 billed annually
- APM$36/host/moOn-demand; $31 billed annually with Infrastructure
- Log Management$0.10/GB ingestedIngest only; indexing billed separately
CloudKnife · Key features
- Workload-aware rightsizing across VM families, not just smaller sizes
- Scheduling that shuts down resources on nights and weekends
- Detection of orphaned disks, old snapshots and unused commitments
- Commitment simulation for reservations and savings plans before buying
- Cost allocation by application, team or customer
- Spend alerts delivered with their root cause
Cons
- Supports only Azure today; AWS and Google Cloud are not yet available
- Price grows with your cloud spend (1% or 4%)
- Standard plan gives only an optimisation preview
Datadog · Key features
- Infrastructure metrics and host maps
- APM, distributed tracing and continuous profiler
- Log management with pipelines and archives
- RUM, session replay and synthetic monitoring
- Security monitoring and cloud SIEM
- Incident management and Bits AI
Cons
- Expensive and complex pricing
- Costs grow with hosts and log volume
- Easy to overspend on custom metrics
CloudKnife vs Datadog: FAQ
Do CloudKnife and Datadog have a free plan?
Yes, both CloudKnife and Datadog have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.
Which is better for small businesses, CloudKnife or Datadog?
CloudKnife lists small businesses as a core audience, while Datadog is aimed more at enterprise and developers.