Sazabi vs Google Cloud Operations: How They Compare for GCP Log Teams
Prices and facts checked on vendor pages on Nov 7, 2026.
Google Cloud Observability is Google's suite for logs, metrics, and traces on Google Cloud and beyond. It fits teams that run on GCP and want monitoring inside the same console and IAM model. Sazabi is AI-native observability and security for teams that want issues found and investigated from their logs. Sazabi wrote this page, so check each fact against the linked sources.
A naming note: Google's current pages call the suite Google Cloud Observability. The URL of this page uses the Google Cloud Operations name, and the text below uses the name on Google's pages.
At a Glance
How Google Cloud Observability Works and Charges
Cloud Logging collects audit, platform, and application logs from Google Cloud and from outside it. Every project gets a Required bucket with a fixed 400-day retention and a Default bucket. Log Analytics adds SQL queries on the same data. Cloud Monitoring handles metrics, dashboards, uptime checks, and alerting policies, including log-match conditions. All of it is described on the Google product page.
Cloud Logging prices below come from the Google pricing page, checked on November 7, 2026.
Routing a log entry to more than one log bucket can produce more than one storage charge and more than one retention charge. Vended network logs, such as VPC Flow Logs, are priced under network telemetry pricing instead. Prometheus-format metrics are charged by samples ingested, not bytes. This page covers logs only.
How Sazabi Works and Charges
Sazabi reads your logs and opens an issue when it finds a problem worth attention, with the evidence and root cause attached. It does not write code. It hands the investigation to your coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and others) through MCP, the CLI, or the API.
Hobby is $50, Startup is $200, and Growth is $1,000 per 30-day cycle. Each includes 200 GB of logs ingested, 50 GB of logs scanned, 20 issues, and 500 AI credits. After that, logs ingested and scanned cost $0.10 per GB, issues cost $4 each, and AI credits cost $0.01 each. Retention is 7, 30, and 90 days, and there is no yearly billing. See Sazabi pricing.
Worked Example: One Project at Two Volumes
Assumptions: one GCP project, a 30-day month, retention within the included 30 days, and 50% of ingested data scanned by queries. GiB and GB are treated as equal, which slightly favors Google at these sizes. The Sazabi column is Startup with no extra issues or AI credits. It excludes the Pub/Sub delivery charge Google bills for forwarding logs.
At 300 per month, Cloud Logging costs less. At 3,000 per month, Sazabi Startup costs less. Remember that Google keeps storing the logs it routes, so sending the same entries to Sazabi adds a second bill on top of the first unless you filter or change the default sink.
Key Differences for a Log-Centered Team
Storage in the cloud versus detection on top. Cloud Logging stores, routes, queries, and feeds alerting policies you write. Sazabi starts from the logs and decides which problems deserve an issue. If your team spends incidents writing log-match alerts, that is the work Sazabi is meant to remove.
Sazabi sits behind a Pub/Sub pipeline. When you connect a Google Cloud account with a service account key, Sazabi creates a Cloud Logging sink, a Pub/Sub topic, and a pull subscription for each project you select. Organization or folder streams use an aggregated sink limited to Cloud Audit Logs. Google bills Pub/Sub delivery and any egress to you. Data Access audit logs can be very high volume, so turn them on only for the services you need.
Logs only. The Sazabi docs say the Google Cloud log source covers Cloud Logging entries and does not forward Cloud Monitoring metrics or traces. The Sazabi agent can still query Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring, and BigQuery during an investigation through the Google Cloud MCP connector, using a short-lived access token you provide.
Where Google does more. Cloud Monitoring covers uptime checks, service monitoring with SLOs, and Managed Service for Prometheus. Cloud Trace covers latency reporting. Sazabi does not replace those.
Compliance. Sazabi holds SOC 2 Type II, SOC 1, ISO 27001 and ISO 27017 certifications. Anyone who signs an NDA, customer or not, can request the SOC 2 Type II report and ISO 27001 audit reports from the Sazabi Trust Center. HIPAA safeguards are available on select plans. BYOC is documented for AWS, not Google Cloud.
When to Pick Google Cloud Observability
- Your workloads run on Google Cloud and you want logs, metrics, and traces under one IAM and billing model.
- Your volume sits near the free 50 GiB per project allotment, or low enough that $0.50 per GiB beats a flat plan.
- You need uptime checks, SLO monitoring, or Prometheus-compatible metrics from the same vendor.
- You want to query logs with SQL through Log Analytics without paying an extra query fee.
- You must keep logs inside Google-managed buckets with fixed audit retention.
When to Pick Sazabi
- Your incidents begin with searching logs, and you want issues delivered with the root cause already investigated.
- You run workloads across clouds and SaaS tools and want one place to read all of them. See the integration catalog.
- You want coding agents to read production context through MCP or the CLI.
- Your volume is high enough that a flat plan with included retention costs less than per-GiB storage.
- You want to skip authoring log-match alert policies for failure modes you can predict.
Trying Sazabi Alongside Google Cloud Observability
Keep Cloud Logging as your system of record. Connect the Google Cloud integration for one project, and use a sink filter so only the entries you care about are forwarded. Compare the issues Sazabi opens over a week against the alerts your Monitoring policies fired. If you want to run the sink yourself, the docs also describe a path with your own Pub/Sub subscription and an OpenTelemetry Collector, described on the OpenTelemetry page.
Teams on more than one cloud can also read the CloudWatch comparison and the Azure Monitor comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Google call this product now?
Google's current product pages title the suite Google Cloud Observability and group Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring, Managed Service for Prometheus and Cloud Trace under it. This page uses that name, and its URL keeps the Google Cloud Operations slug.
How does Sazabi receive logs from Google Cloud?
Sazabi creates a Cloud Logging sink, a Pub/Sub topic and a pull subscription in each project, folder or organization you select. Google bills Pub/Sub delivery to your account, so use sink filters to forward only the logs you need.
Does Sazabi collect Cloud Monitoring metrics from Google Cloud?
The Google Cloud log source covers Cloud Logging entries only. Cloud Monitoring metrics and traces are not forwarded through it, although the Sazabi agent can read Cloud Monitoring through the Google Cloud MCP connector during an investigation.
What does Cloud Logging charge per GiB?
Google lists $0.50 per GiB for log storage, with the first 50 GiB per project per month free and up to 30 days of storage included. Retention beyond 30 days is $0.01 per GiB per month, checked in November 2026.
Sources
- Cloud Logging storage, retention and Log Router prices, free allotment per project, and the Required and Default log buckets (accessed Nov 7, 2026)
- Google Cloud Observability product scope: Cloud Logging, Log Analytics, Cloud Monitoring, Managed Service for Prometheus and Cloud Trace (accessed Nov 7, 2026)
- Log sinks, destinations including Pub/Sub, and the default routing to log buckets (accessed Nov 7, 2026)
- Sazabi plan prices, included usage, overage rates and retention (accessed Nov 7, 2026)
- Sazabi provisions a Cloud Logging sink, Pub/Sub topic and pull subscription per project, folder or organization, and the Pub/Sub cost note (accessed Nov 7, 2026)
- The Google Cloud MCP connector for Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring and BigQuery (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- BYOC availability on AWS (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Sazabi compliance wording (accessed Nov 8, 2026)