Sazabi vs Grafana Cloud: Loki, Dashboards and AI Investigation Compared
Prices and facts checked on vendor pages on Nov 8, 2026.
Grafana Cloud is a composable stack: Loki for logs, Prometheus-compatible metrics, Tempo for traces, and Grafana for the dashboards that tie them together. Sazabi is AI-native observability and security built around logs, with detection and investigation as the main surface instead of dashboards. Sazabi wrote this page, so check each Grafana detail against the sources below.
At a Glance
How Grafana Cloud Works and Charges
On its pricing page, checked November 8, 2026, Grafana Cloud's Free plan covers 50 GB of logs ingested per month with 14-day retention and community support. Pro has a $19 monthly platform fee, which includes 50 GB ingested, 30-day retention, and 8x5 email support, then pay as you go. Enterprise is custom, with a $25,000 per year minimum commit, custom retention, and a choice of Public Cloud, Federal Cloud, or Bring Your Own Cloud.
Pro log pricing is split three ways, each per GB: starting at $0.05 to process, $0.40 to write, and $0.10 to retain. Grafana states that volume discounts apply automatically. Grafana also sells Adaptive Logs, which it says recommends dropping unused telemetry and can cut log ingest by up to 50%.
Grafana's AI features are sold separately. Assistant on Pro starts at $20 per active AI user, which includes 40M tokens, and $2 per 1M tokens beyond that. Investigations has no separate subscription, and Grafana says you pay for the tokens it uses. Grafana's docs add that some advanced Assistant features, including investigations and Grafana Cloud MCP connections, need the full Grafana Cloud feature set.
Loki is open source under the AGPLv3 license, according to Grafana. It indexes a set of labels for each log stream rather than the full text of each line, so queries filter on labels first. Persistence goes to object storage.
How Sazabi Works and Charges
Sazabi takes logs as they are sent. It watches incoming data, opens an issue when it detects a problem, and attaches the investigation, including the evidence it used. Repeats of one problem are grouped into a single issue. You can also ask questions in plain language, search logs, and build dashboards, with notifications in Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email.
Sazabi connects to your repositories so it can tie a failure to the code behind it, and it scans those repositories for vulnerabilities. It does not write fixes. It hands root cause to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or another coding agent through MCP, CLI, or API.
Plans are $50 (Hobby), $200 (Startup), and $1,000 (Growth) per 30-day cycle, as shown on the pricing page. Each includes 200 GB ingested, 50 GB scanned, 20 issues, and 500 AI credits. After that: $0.10 per GB ingested, $0.10 per GB scanned, $4 per issue, and $0.01 per credit. Details are on Sazabi pricing.
Key Differences for a Log-Centered Team
Where the work happens. Grafana's strength is the dashboard and the query language behind it. Assistant Investigations starts when you describe a problem, or when an alert or IRM webhook triggers it. Sazabi opens issues from live logs without a rule behind them.
Meters. Grafana charges separately for processing, writing, and retaining a GB, then separately for AI tokens. Sazabi charges for GB ingested, GB scanned by queries, issues, and AI credits.
Query cost. Sazabi meters query scans on their own line, with 50 GB included. Grafana's logs FAQ lists a definition of query alongside process, write, and retain, so confirm how it applies to your usage before estimating either one.
Existing Grafana investment. If your team lives in Grafana dashboards, Sazabi does not replace them. It can read them through MCP and add issue detection on top.
Worked Example
Assumptions: 300 GB of logs ingested in a month, nothing else counted, Grafana at starting rates with no volume discount, and no query overage on either side.
Grafana's retain rate of $0.10 per GB is not included above because the page does not say how retained volume is measured. Sazabi's plans also include issues and AI credits, which on Grafana map to separately priced AI token usage. Treat the table as a worksheet for your own volumes, not a ranking.
When to Pick Grafana Cloud
Pick Grafana Cloud when dashboards are your main interface and you want metrics, logs, traces, and profiles under one login. Pick it if you already run Prometheus or Loki and want a managed home for them, or if you want an open source path with Loki that you can run yourself. The free tier is large for small projects. Enterprise also lists Federal Cloud, which matters for some regulated buyers.
When to Pick Sazabi
Pick Sazabi when you want problems found in your logs without writing alert rules for each failure mode, and you want the result sent to a coding agent. It suits teams that prefer one plan per 30-day cycle with included usage over several per-GB meters. For other options, see Grafana alternatives.
Trying Sazabi Alongside Grafana
If you run Alloy, add an otelcol.exporter.otlphttp component next to your current exporters. Sazabi's Alloy source covers logs and traces from any otelcol receiver. Loki sources cannot route through that exporter, so tail files with otelcol.receiver.filelog instead. Setup is on the Grafana Alloy integration page.
The Sazabi agent can also read your stack through the Grafana Cloud MCP connector. The Grafana integration page shows the prerequisites. See also Sazabi and OpenTelemetry.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Grafana Alloy send logs to Sazabi?
Yes, for otelcol components. Sazabi documents an otelcol.exporter.otlphttp exporter that sits beside your existing exporters. Loki sources (loki.source) are not OTLP-compatible and cannot route through it, so logs must come from an otelcol receiver such as filelog.
How does Grafana Cloud charge for logs?
Grafana lists three meters: processing, write, and retention, each per GB, with starting rates of $0.05, $0.40, and $0.10. The Pro plan adds a $19 monthly platform fee that includes 50 GB ingested and 30-day retention. Volume discounts apply automatically.
Is Grafana Loki open source?
Grafana states Loki is released under the AGPLv3 license and that it indexes labels for each log stream rather than the full text of the log lines. Grafana Cloud is the managed service built on it.
Can the Sazabi agent read my Grafana data?
Yes. A Grafana Cloud MCP connector lets the agent browse dashboards, run Prometheus and Loki queries, inspect Tempo traces, and review alert rules and incidents. It requires a Grafana Cloud stack and a role that allows MCP access.
Sources
- Logs plan limits and starting rates, platform fee, retention, Assistant and Investigations pricing, Enterprise minimum commit and deployment options (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Loki licensing, label-only indexing, object storage persistence (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- What Grafana Assistant is, and which features need the full Grafana Cloud feature set (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- How Assistant Investigations work, credentials used for manual and automated runs, Sift as a separate feature (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Sazabi plan prices, included usage, overage rates and retention per plan (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Forwarding logs and traces from Grafana Alloy to Sazabi, and the loki.source limitation (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Grafana Cloud MCP connector tools available to the Sazabi agent (accessed Nov 8, 2026)
- Sazabi BYOC on AWS under an enterprise agreement (accessed Nov 8, 2026)