Logz.io vs Datadog: Log Pricing, Retention and AI Compared
Prices and facts checked on vendor pages on Nov 8, 2026.
Logz.io and Datadog both take in your logs, metrics and traces and let you search them in a hosted UI. Logz.io is a smaller vendor that prices logs per ingested GB and layers hot, warm and cold storage on top, with log search in OpenSearch Dashboards. Datadog is the wider product family, where logs are one meter next to hosts, APM and security, and where indexing is a separate decision from ingestion. Sazabi wrote this page, and every number comes from the vendors' own pages, checked on 2026-11-08.
The Short Answer
Pick Logz.io if you want one per-GB number for logs, an annual commitment, and tiered storage without deciding which events to index. Pick Datadog if logs are one input among infrastructure, APM, RUM and security, or if you want to filter heavily at index time and pay only for what you keep searchable. If your estimate is mostly log volume with little else, price both with the arithmetic below before you commit.
Logz.io vs Datadog at a Glance
How Logz.io Charges
Logz.io's pricing page lists log management at $0.92 per ingested GB, per day, with 7 days of retention. Longer retention is a separate line: $0.03 per additional day for a hot retention extension, $0.015 for warm and $0.001 for cold. Agentic observability is $10 per 1M tokens, or per AI agent workflow or invocation. Prices are billed annually, or monthly for 1.2 times the cost, and the page says its list prices reflect the aws-us-east region.
The page does not print a monthly total for the log unit. Here is one reading of it, which you should confirm in a quote: $0.92 for each GB you ingest, with 7 days of searchable data included. Under that reading, 300 GB in a month is $276 billed annually, or $331.20 billed monthly at 1.2 times.
How Datadog Charges
Datadog's price list splits logs into steps. Logs - Ingestion is $0.10 per GB. Indexed Log Events are priced per 1M events per month: $1.06 at 3 days, $1.27 at 7 days, $1.70 at 15 days and $2.50 at 30 days on annual billing. Flex Logs Starter is $0.60 per 1M events stored, for 6, 12 or 15 months. Beyond logs, Infrastructure Pro is $15 per host per month and APM is $31 per APM host per month, both annual. These are list prices checked on Nov 8, 2026.
Datadog's billing documentation says you set a monthly commitment on indexed events, and logs indexed above it are billed on demand. The indexes documentation describes exclusion filters, per-index retention and daily quotas, which are the controls that bring an indexed bill down.
A Worked Log Example
Assume 300 GB of logs per month at about 1 KB per event, which is roughly 300 million events. Retention is 7 days on both sides, billing is annual, and the totals exclude hosts, APM, seats and egress.
The gap is the indexing choice. Datadog charges ingestion on all 300 GB and indexing only on what you keep searchable, so the share you index drives the total. Logz.io's listed number does not ask you to pick, but it also does not give you a way to pay less for logs you never search. Change the event size and the share indexed, and the answer moves.
Where the Products Differ
Search and query. Logz.io's documentation says you search and query logs in OpenSearch Dashboards. Datadog uses its own log search syntax built from terms, quoted sequences and Boolean operators. If your team already writes OpenSearch-style queries, Logz.io will feel familiar. If your team already lives in Datadog dashboards and monitors, that is the stronger pull.
Retention and your data. Logz.io keeps recent data in a hot tier that its AI agent works on, with warm and cold tiers for older data. Datadog lets you index short, move long retention to Flex Logs, or archive to your own S3, Azure or Google Cloud Storage bucket and search it later through Archive Search or rehydration. BYOC Logs goes a step further by running log storage and queries in your own infrastructure.
Cost control tooling. Logz.io's Data Optimization hub gives recommendations from the last 24 hours of logs and a drop action per log type. Datadog's equivalents are index exclusion filters, daily quotas and Observability Pipelines at $0.095 per ingested GB on annual billing.
AI assistants. Logz.io's AI Agent answers from the data currently shown on your dashboard, and its documentation says that dashboard data is shared with Claude 3 once you interact with it. Its root cause analyzer works on exceptions in Explore. Datadog describes Bits Investigation as an autonomous agent that forms hypotheses and gathers telemetry to find root causes. They are metered differently: tokens or workflow invocations at Logz.io, AI Credits at Datadog.
Getting data in. Logz.io's Telemetry Collector covers Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, Azure and localhost, and its integrations hub lists 300-plus shipping methods. Datadog's OpenTelemetry documentation offers the Datadog Agent, the OpenTelemetry Collector or direct OTLP ingestion.
When to Pick Logz.io
- Logs are most of your bill and you would rather negotiate one per-GB number than model indexing.
- You are comfortable with an annual commitment, or you accept the 1.2 times month-to-month premium.
- Your team knows OpenSearch Dashboards queries.
- You want hot, warm and cold tiers priced as day-based retention extensions.
When to Pick Datadog
- You need infrastructure monitoring, APM, RUM, security and incident tooling from one vendor, and logs are one signal among them.
- You want to index a small share of your volume and archive the rest to your own bucket.
- You need log storage in your own cloud account through BYOC Logs.
- Your engineers already work in Datadog and want an investigation agent inside it.
Where Sazabi Fits
Sazabi is AI-native observability and security that can run beside either tool. Its agent investigates in Slack and opens issues for problems it finds in your logs, and it ingests logs through the OpenTelemetry Collector, where an otlphttp exporter sits next to your current exporters. Sazabi ingests OpenTelemetry metrics (Prometheus metrics through an OpenTelemetry Collector) and OTLP traces through the same intake as your logs. It stores each metric data point and each span as a log record that its agent queries alongside your logs, so there is no separate metrics store to run. If you are choosing between these two, send a copy of your logs to Sazabi for a trial period and keep the incumbent in place. See Sazabi vs Datadog, Sazabi vs Logz.io, the Datadog alternatives list and Sazabi pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Logz.io cheaper than Datadog for logs?
It depends on how much you index. Logz.io lists $0.92 per ingested GB with 7 days of retention, while Datadog lists $0.10 per ingested GB plus $1.27 per million indexed events for 7 days, annual billing. If you index only a slice of your volume on Datadog, the Datadog total drops. If you index everything, the totals land closer together, so run your own volume through both price lists.
Does Logz.io charge extra for month-to-month billing?
Yes. Its pricing page says prices are billed annually, or monthly for 1.2 times the cost. Datadog also has a month-to-month column on its price list, for example $1.52 instead of $1.27 per million indexed events at 7-day retention.
Which one gives you more control over long-term log retention?
Both have tiers. Logz.io describes hot, warm and cold storage and lists extension prices per additional day. Datadog offers Flex Logs for long retention, archives to your own S3, Azure or Google Cloud Storage bucket, and BYOC Logs that runs in your infrastructure.
Can I use Logz.io and Datadog together?
Yes. Datadog has an integration page for viewing Logz.io alerts in Datadog, and an OpenTelemetry Collector can send one copy of your telemetry to both vendors through two exporters.
Sources
- Log management at $0.92 per ingested GB per day with 7 days retention, retention extension prices, annual versus 1.2x monthly billing, agentic observability price, AWS us-east price basis (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Hot, warm and cold storage tiers, the AI agent working on hot data, 14-day free trial (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- AI Agent answers from dashboard data, shares that data with Claude 3, and the root cause analyzer for exceptions in Explore (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Log search and querying happens in OpenSearch Dashboards (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Data Optimization hub: recommendations from the last 24 hours of logs and a drop action (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Telemetry Collector supports Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, Azure and localhost, plus 300-plus shipping methods (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- OpenTelemetry Collector exporter that sends logs to Logz.io (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Datadog integration for viewing Logz.io alerts in Datadog (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Log ingestion, indexed log event, Flex Logs, Observability Pipelines, infrastructure host, APM host and AI Credit list prices (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Monthly commitment on indexed log events and on-demand usage above it (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Indexes, exclusion filters, per-index retention and daily quotas (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Archives to your own S3, Azure or Google Cloud Storage bucket, searchable through Archive Search and rehydration (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Log search syntax built from terms, sequences and Boolean operators (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Datadog accepts OpenTelemetry data through the Agent, the OpenTelemetry Collector or direct OTLP ingestion (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Bits Investigation described as an autonomous AI agent for production issues (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Adding an otlphttp exporter so the Collector fans out to Sazabi next to existing destinations (accessed Nov 8, 2026)