Sentry vs Datadog
Sentry and Datadog start from opposite ends. Sentry is error tracking first: it tells developers which release broke which user, and can be self-hosted, but it carries no infrastructure metrics. Datadog is the widest platform in the category, spanning infrastructure, APM, logs and more, billed on many meters. Development teams choose Sentry; operations-led organisations wanting one console choose Datadog.
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Choose Sentry ifyour developers mainly need to know about exceptions quickly, with the stack trace and the release responsible, or you must keep exception payloads on your own servers.
Choose Datadog ifyou need infrastructure, application traces, logs and user monitoring together in one operations view, with integrations for your existing stack, and you have someone watching the usage meters.
Sentry and Datadog side by side
| Sentry | Datadog | |
|---|---|---|
| Our application performance monitoring rank | #7 of 15 | #13 of 15 |
| Established in | United States | United States |
| Pricing | Free plan for one user; paid plans with error, span and replay quotas, published; self-hosted available | Free tier to 5 hosts; per host per month plus per GB of logs and per custom metric, published |
| List price, 30 September 2026 | Team plan $26 per month billed annually, with 50k errors included and unlimited users | Infrastructure Pro from $15 per host per month billed annually; APM from $31 per host per month billed annually alongside Infrastructure |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Self-hostable | Yes | — |
| Built for | Development teams that want release-linked errors before they want traces | Organisations that want every observability product from one vendor |
| Not for | Infrastructure monitoring or a single-pane operations view | Teams that need the bill to be predictable month to month |
Both are reviewed in full in our application performance monitoring ranking: Sentry and Datadog.
Where they differ
Sentry 2 · Datadog 1 · open 2- 01
Tying an error to a release
This is Sentry's home ground. It reports that users are hitting an exception, attaches the stack trace and names the release that introduced it, and every plan is built around that workflow. Datadog has an Error Tracking product that groups errors from APM, RUM and logs into issues and points to suspect commits, but it is one module among many.
Edge: Sentry
- 02
Infrastructure and a single operations view
Sentry has no infrastructure metrics at all and its tracing is lighter than a dedicated APM product, so it is not the place for an operations overview. Datadog brings infrastructure, APM, logs, real user monitoring, synthetics and security into one console. Anyone who needs to see hosts and services together needs Datadog.
Edge: Datadog
- 03
Keeping the data in-house
Sentry publishes a self-hosted edition that runs on Docker Compose at no licence cost, with a stated minimum of 4 CPU cores and 16 GB RAM and no dedicated support. Its hosted service stores data in the United States or in Frankfurt. Datadog's documentation lists hosted sites in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia. For your own machines, Sentry qualifies.
Edge: Sentry
- 04
What a traffic spike does to the bill
Sentry's Team plan costs $26 a month on annual billing and includes 50k errors, 5M spans and 50 replays, with volume beyond that charged as pay-as-you-go. Datadog charges per host, then per GB of logs ingested, per million events indexed, and for custom metrics above the 100 included per host on Pro. A spike raises both bills.
Depends on the buyer
- 05
Entry price and who can log in
Sentry's free Developer plan allows one user and 5k errors; Team at $26 a month and Business at $80 a month, both billed annually, allow unlimited users. Datadog's free tier covers up to five hosts with one day of retention; after that Infrastructure Pro is $15 and APM $31 per host per month on annual billing. Sentry's price does not grow with servers.
Depends on the buyer
When neither fits
Neither fits a team whose main need is deep tracing of a distributed system, or a small team wanting application monitoring as a simple library. Honeycomb is built for querying wide events in distributed systems, and AppSignal serves small Ruby, Elixir, Node and Python teams.
Sentry or Datadog: questions
4 answersCan Sentry replace Datadog?
Only for part of the job. Sentry covers errors with release context, plus lighter tracing and replays.
It has no infrastructure metrics and is not suited to a single-pane operations view, which is what Datadog provides. Many needs Datadog covers fall outside what Sentry is built for.
Is Sentry cheaper than Datadog?
They meter different things. Sentry's Team plan is $26 a month billed annually with 50k errors and unlimited users.
Datadog lists APM at $31 per host per month billed annually alongside Infrastructure at $15 per host, plus logs per GB. For error tracking alone on several servers, Sentry's flat plan is the lower starting point.
Can Sentry or Datadog be self-hosted?
Sentry offers a free self-hosted edition under its Functional Source License, deployed with Docker Compose and supported by the community only; spike protection and its AI features are not included.
Datadog's documentation describes regional hosted sites, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia, chosen when the account is created.
Do Sentry and Datadog accept OpenTelemetry data?
Both do, with limits. Sentry ingests OTLP traces and logs in an open beta and states that it does not support OTLP metrics.
Datadog accepts OTLP through its Agent, an OpenTelemetry Collector or direct intake, but profiling, Database Monitoring and RUM are not supported on an OpenTelemetry-only setup.
Sources
Checked 30 September 2026- Sentry pricing page: plan prices, included quotas and user limits.
- Sentry self-hosted documentation: licence, system requirements, support terms and missing features of the self-hosted edition.
- Sentry data storage location documentation: hosted data is stored in the US or in Frankfurt.
- Sentry OTLP documentation: OTLP traces and logs in open beta, no OTLP metrics.
- Datadog pricing page: per-host prices, log pricing, custom metric allotments and the free tier.
- Datadog Error Tracking documentation: error grouping into issues from APM, RUM and logs with suspect commits.
- Datadog site documentation: the list of hosted Datadog sites and their locations.
- Datadog OpenTelemetry compatibility table: features unavailable with an OpenTelemetry-only setup.