Prometheus vs Datadog
Open-source pull-based metrics versus commercial SaaS observability.
Overview
What is being compared
Prometheus is the CNCF standard for Kubernetes monitoring, pulling metrics and querying them with PromQL. Datadog is a commercial SaaS that ingests Prometheus metrics next to its own agents' data. The choice is full control with operational overhead versus managed simplicity at commercial prices.
- Kind — Open-source CNCF standard — Commercial SaaS
- Collection — Pull, scraping targets — Its own agents, plus Prometheus metrics
- Query language — PromQL — Datadog's own syntax
- Storage, dashboards, alerting — You run them — Unified and managed
- Trade-off — Full control, operational overhead — Managed simplicity, commercial pricing
How metrics flow
Prometheus pulls: the server scrapes each target's /metrics endpoint and hands alerts to Alertmanager. Datadog pushes: the Datadog Agent sends metrics to the Datadog SaaS, which stores them, draws the dashboards and runs the alerts.
What running Prometheus grows into
Each phase below is something Datadog provides as part of its SaaS; with Prometheus, your team adds and runs it. Blue cells are the phases in order, yellow cells are the pieces you run in each.
> [!TIP] The two stacks side by side, what happens when a service stops reporting, and the choice between them play step by step in Visual Explanation below.
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