vioscale
Comparison

Datadog Logs vs Grafana Loki

On the evidence we track, Grafana Loki leads this comparison with a composite score of 73/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Datadog Logs full profile →Grafana Loki full profile →
Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
Attribute comparison across 2 tools
Attribute68Datadog Logs73Grafana LokiLeader
Vioscale score68 / 100low · 46%73 / 100low · 47%
Commits last 30d-100
Github stars-28,652
Options{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}
LongDatadog Logs is a centralized log management and analytics platform that collects, stores, and searches logs across infrastructure and applications. Supports both cloud and self-hosted deployments through CloudPrem.Grafana Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available log aggregation system designed to be cost-effective and easy to operate. It indexes only labels rather than full log contents, enabling efficient storage and query performance at petabyte scale.
Capabilities{"hosting":"both","alerting":true,"log_role":"platform","dashboards":true,"otel_support":"ingest","pii_redaction":true,"full_text_search":true,"structured_parsing":true}{"hosting":"both","alerting":true,"log_role":"backend","live_tail":true,"dashboards":true,"query_language":"LogQL","full_text_search":false,"retention_tiering":true,"structured_parsing":true,"object_store_backed":true}
Count1,000100
List[{"name":"OpenTelemetry"}][{"name":"Linux"},{"name":"Windows"},{"name":"Docker"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Apache Spark"},{"name":"Apache Cassandra"},{"name":"Jenkins"},{"name":"GitLab"},{"name":"GitHub"},{"name":"Jira"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"Splunk"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"New Relic"},{"name":"Dynatrace"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Grafana Agent"},{"name":"Grafana Alloy"},{"name":"Grafana Loki"},{"name":"Grafana Mimir"},{"name":"OpenSearch"},{"name":"InfluxDB"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"Azure"},{"name":"Google Cloud"},{"name":"Cloudflare"},{"name":"NGINX"},{"name":"Apache HTTP Server"},{"name":"HAProxy"},{"name":"Traefik"},{"name":"Node.js"},{"name":"Java JVM"},{"name":"Spring Boot"},{"name":"Oracle Database"},{"name":"SQL Server"},{"name":"CockroachDB"},{"name":"Snowflake"},{"name":"Databricks"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Honeycomb"},{"name":"Sumo Logic"},{"name":"HashiCorp Vault"},{"name":"Istio"}]
Primary-Go
Spdx-AGPL-3.0
Availability{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}
Support{"web":true}{"cli":true,"web":true}
Pricing-{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Always free, no credit card required","features":["All Grafana Cloud services with limited usage","Community support","14 days retention for metrics, logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Perfect for personal projects, exploring new ideas, and early-stage startups","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"retention":"14 days","logs_ingested":"50 GB/mo","metrics_series":"10k active series"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"From $19/month + usage with volume discounts","features":["Pay as you go above the Free tier","8X5 email support","13 months retention for metrics","30 days retention for logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests","Automatic volume discounts"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":19,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.05,"currency":"USD","description":"Process rate (logs)"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.4,"currency":"USD","description":"Write rate (logs)"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.1,"currency":"USD","description":"Retain rate (logs)"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"1k series"},"kind":"metered","amount":6.5,"currency":"USD","description":"Metrics (overage)"}],"description":"Ready for scaling with more retention, basic support, and usage-based pricing","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"retention":"30 days","logs_ingested":"50 GB/mo included","metrics_series":"10k active series included"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"From $25,000/year minimum commit with custom pricing","features":["Premium support","Custom retention","Deployment flexibility (Public Cloud, Federal Cloud, Bring Your Own Cloud)","Scalable pricing based on annual commit and volume discounts"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"1k series"},"kind":"metered","amount":3,"currency":"USD","description":"Metrics (as low as with volume discount)"}],"description":"Full-service offering for companies with security, compliance, and deployment requirements","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"minimum_annual_spend":"$25,000"}}],"summary":"Free tier available. Pro from $19/month + metered usage with volume discounts. Enterprise from $25,000/year.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://grafana.com/oss/loki/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T13:24:26.849Z","startingPrice":{"amount":0.05,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}
Free tier-Yes
Modelcommercialfreemium
Price level-low
Starting gbp-0.05
Transparent-Yes
Cadence days-14
Status pageYesYes
Disclosure policyYesYes
Fedramp-Yes
GdprYesYes
Iso27001YesYes
Pci-Yes
Soc2YesYes

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for log management software. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capability comparison for Log Management Software
CapabilityDatadog LogsGrafana Loki
Core
Pipeline roleEnd-to-end platformBackend
Search
Full-text log search✓✗
Live tail / stream-✓
Processing
Structured parsing✓✓
PII redaction at ingest✓-
Ops
Log-based alerting✓✓
Dashboards / visualisation✓✓
Storage
Retention tiering-✓
Object-store columnar backend-✓
Interop
OpenTelemetry logsOTLP ingest-
Query language-LogQL
Deployment
HostingCloud + self-hostedCloud + self-hosted

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.

Datadog Logs vs Grafana Loki: an evidence-based comparison · Vioscale