# Top 10 CloudWatch Alternatives in 2026

Amazon Cloudwatch Logs is a solution allowing you to monitor, store and access
log files from Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, AWS CloudTrail, Route 53, and more
sources. Using Amazon CloudWatch Logs, you can query data using their
purpose-built query language. ![AWS dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/999412da-d996-46ba-c5be-96dcb40f9c00/public =1312x768)

CloudWatch is capable of anomaly detection, alarming, logs and metrics
visualization and visual correlation, and trend detection and presents serious
competition to other [Cloud monitoring solutions](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/cloud-monitoring-tools/), with
the advantage of being made by, and for Amazon.

It provides sample queries, command descriptions, query autocompletion, and log
field discovery to ease the onboarding process. Cloudwatch Logs can track the
number of errors that occur in your application logs and send you a notification
whenever any monitored rate exceeds a threshold.

Using CloudWatch Logs, you can create CloudWatch alerts, store logs for an
unlimited amount of time, archive logs in highly durable storage, and access the
raw log data. However, there are plenty of other [logging
tools](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/log-management-and-aggregation-tools/) that can be used with or instead of
CloudWatch.

### ✅ Pros:

- Works very well with other Amazon-based services

### ❌ Cons:

- Latency in visualizing metrics
- Difficulties might occur when using tools from outside of the ecosystem
- Price

## The Best AWS Cloudwatch alternatives in 2026

Because of all of the above, we've decided to compile a list of the best
CloudWatch alternatives in 2026 sourced from our developers and engineers,
clients, and community.

## 1. Better Stack

![Better Stack Logs Dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/d37067eb-50ca-4644-91d8-9060f469f700/md1x =960x600)
[Better Stack](https://betterstack.com/logs) allows you to query your logs the
same way you'd query your database with SQL-compatible structured log
management. By offering integrations into stacks like Kubernetes, Heroku,
Logstash, Rails, Docker, and of course, AWS, you get a broad array of options
for monitoring. Thanks to custom-built technology on
[ClickHouse](https://clickhouse.com/), you can work with your logs more
efficiently and save funds compared. Better Stack Log sallows you to search & filter
petabytes of logs in a moment and set an anomaly detection alert to receive
alerts when your logs become out of the ordinary.

All the collected data are connected to Grafana for comprehensive visualization
and even more efficient intel management. Tighter security is one of the main
byproducts of log monitoring, and Better Stack itself is one of the most secure tools
available. Using industry-standard best practices and cooperating only with data
centers compliant with ISO/IEC27001 certifications, your data is safe during
both transit and storage.

If you need a log monitoring solution for your hobby project, Better Stack is
available for free. Without a credit card, you get access to 1 GB of storage a
month, with 3-day data retention. For $24/month, you get access to the
Freelancer package, with 30 GB of log storage and 15-day data retention.

### Main Benefits of Better Stack:

- [Better Stack Uptime](https://betterstack.com/uptime) integration for even better
  observability and incident management
- A one-click filter of logs in a structured format
- Advanced collaboration features

## 2. Logz.io

![Logz.io dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/1181c35f-e9d8-448d-5057-313f2a455000/public =700x436)

Logz.io is based on open source tools and heavily emphasizes the necessity of
"giving back to the community", maybe that's why their free subscription plan is
called Community. Logz.io is ELK-stack-based, which promises performance and
reliability at a certain price. Its crowdsourcing and machine learning features
can help you discover otherwise invisible events. It also provides a live tail
feature to observe data in real-time, providing you with an option to monitor
and analyze data from multiple sources at once.

Using query language, you can create custom and flexible alerts to be the first
one to know about any bugs, threats, or anomalies. Kibana's query language
provides you with multiple more features such as identifying specific events,
customizing alert formats, or grouping options by fields.

Logz.io provides a safe way to store your in-transit data with its support for
SSL encryption and robust AES 256-bit encryption.

### Main benefits of Logz.io:

- It's based on open source
- ELK-stack provides a wide array of tools
- Reasonable pricing model

## 3. Sematext

![Sematext Dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/a814e711-65ab-46c1-619f-fece02e4e300/public =1178x768) Sematext is a monitoring
and logging service. It uses a method of centralized logging and provides you
with a way to aggregate and store logs from any data source in one location. You
can collect data from servers, applications, databases, containers, systems, and
more. Sematext allows you to use live time viewing of your logs as they arrive
into the cloud from multiple data sources.

It uses Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana for collecting and transforming
data, searching, filtering and analyzing, and finally, data managing and
visualization. You can troubleshoot faster with real-time alerting on both
metrics and logs. Log analyzing and looking for anomalies are used to make the
whole process more quickly. You can integrate it with email, PagerDuty, Slack,
HipChat, BigPanda, OpsGenie, VictorOps, WebHooks, Nagios, Zapier, and more.

Sematext runs on AWS, whose infrastructure follows strict IT security best
practices. Your logs are encrypted via HTTPS and sent through TLS/SLL channels.
You can restrict specific permissions to some members of your team.

### Main Benefits of Sematext:

- It brings infrastructure and application performance monitoring together with
  log management
- Easy to use with good pre-configured dashboards and reports thus also quick to
  start

## 4. Splunk

![Splunk Logs Dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/30184809-cc09-4b6b-1058-77beb8149200/public =1000x491) Splunk is a relatively new and
modern log management and monitoring solution. You can also use it on mobile,
and it provides support for augmented reality.

Apart from log management, Splunk provides you with searching, filtering,
diagnosing, indexing, and reporting features. It also offers intuitive and
user-friendly dashboards which can be divided into multiple relevant sections.
Splunk uses distributed tracing, a method to monitor events, failures, or
performance issues.

Both tools are okay; however, they differ in some crucial aspects, and one or
the other is not suitable for everyone. Splunk provides multiple additional
features on the other hand. These include live logging, S3 backup, Heroku
support, Github integration, JIRA integration, and more.

### Main Benefits of Splunk:

- Support for various features like S3 backup, live, logging, Heroku, Github,
  and more
- Flexible GUI, support for a query language
- Complex, suitable for an enterprise solution

## 5. New Relic

![New Relic Dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/93924b78-d980-443a-856d-164b42382100/public =864x492)

New Relic's infrastructure monitoring offers faster visibility and
troubleshooting. New Relic One offers an all-in-one data observation tool
capable of correlation or drill-down from Kubernetes to specific log tracing in
only a few steps. New Relic is highly adjustable, so it does not matter if you
run from one or multiple clouds on-premise, you will have access to specific,
accurate, and custom metrics in real-time and on a limitless scale. New Relic is
an open and flexible integration network supporting all the most popular
integrations like AWS, Azure, GCP, MYSQL, NGINX, Kafka, and more. If you find an
integration that is not supported, you can build it from scratch with New
Relic's Flex integration builder.

You can get New Relic for free and access the basic logs management and
analyzing features. The rest of the packages are priced depending on your usage,
where you pay for everything you used on top of the free plan.

### Main Benefits of New Relic:

- Kubernetes monitoring Pixie
- Multiple by use case solutions

## 6. Datadog

![Datadog dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/8d7ff210-01bd-4145-6d37-a599f2a74400/public =878x484) Datadog allows you
to see your logs from multiple apps, systems, or services. Thanks to hundreds of
built-in and supported integrations, Datadog is both scalable and suitable for
most situations. You can track your entire service's performance from one place
thanks to auto-generated service views and a rather pleasant GUI.

Datadog automatically parses JSON logs and lets users choose how to parse
records from different formats via the Grok Parser. You can use MySQL, JSON,
Windows Event Logs, W3C Log Formats, and other various log formats throughout
the board. It also provides a view of all IIS log files, which can help you
discover multiple patterns and trends. You can search them by date, IP address,
and more, eliminating the need to search through many different files.

However Datadog comes at a [significant
cost](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/datadog-log-management-alternatives/), compared to AWS CloudWatch.

### Main Benefits of Datadog:

- Quick to start
- Team collaboration tools
- Full API access
- Alert notifications

## 7. SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor

![SAM dashboard](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/38633c83-084e-4f2e-52e6-f8421556e300/public =1024x640) SolarWinds is one of the biggest
players in the monitoring market, and their 1200+ integrations for performance
monitoring only prove that to be true. Server and Application Monitor (SAM) is
designed to unify multiple monitoring solutions under one roof.

SAM includes hundreds of out-of-the-box templates to monitor server and
application performance and the ability to display both real-time and historical
trends, helping you to better understand how your server performs in time.

SAM's price starts at $1500, with the offer of a subscription and perpetual
licensing options. However, SAM makes every penny worth, with 68 use
cases available, including Agentless server, CentOS Server Management, and
Monitoring Tool, or IMAP Server Monitoring Tool, there is not a lot of things
that SAM can not do. However, if spending thousands of dollars on infrastructure
monitoring is not what you are looking for, keep scrolling.

### Main Benefits of SAM:

- Server Capacity Planning
- Custom App Monitoring
- Application Dependency Mapping

## 8. Dynatrace

![Dynatrace Dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/86928fab-06dc-446f-95a1-fffa30498300/public =800x450) Dynatrace is a monitoring
tool able to monitor metrics suitable for most of the server monitoring demands.
Dynatrace offers an all-in-one platform for full-stack monitoring and
out-of-the-box insights into your infrastructure. Advanced observability is
available at scale for all infrastructure and is fully automatic. Dynatrace
collects data from the cloud, hybrid, containers, VMs, network, servers,
storage, and many more.

Thanks to advanced observability across PaaS and container technologies like
AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, or Cloud Foundry, you gain access to process detection
and resource utilization, network usage, and performance, log monitoring. Or you
can use it to hold your partners accountable and verify their SLAs by
third-party data and event monitoring integration. However, bear in mind that
Dynatrace's complexity comes with a price, and fully plunging into how it works
takes time.

Dynatrace's pricing depends on the monitoring solution.
Their Full-stack monitoring starts at $69/month for 8 GB per
host. Infrastructure monitoring offering observability for cloud, containers,
and data center technologies, including AlOps, starts at $21/month.

Looking for tools similar to Dynatrace? Explore our [Dynatrace alternatives article](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/dynatrace-alternatives/).

### Main Benefits of Dynatrace:

- Unlimited AI-Assistance with anomaly detection and root-cause determination
- More than 560 integrations
- Unlimited ad-hoc analysis of log entries

## 9. Zabbix

![Zabbix dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/d85d4f7f-11d2-44a6-54b8-9de1e5eb5300/public =862x768)

Zabbix has a rich set of features to enable users to monitor more than just
hosts and offers great flexibility to admins. Zabbix allows you to control many
possible metrics and incidents when it comes to servers like High CPU or memory
usage, Packet Loss Rate, or Disk Space. Zabbix's out-of-the-box templates allow
you to monitor all popular servers and OS.

Zabbix allows you to collect metrics from Network devices, Cloud, containers and
virtual machines, Databases, Applications, HTTP(s) endpoints, and many more.
Alerting is handled by multiple platforms, including On-Call, Opsgenie,
Pagerduty, Slack, MS Teams, Telegram, or Webhooks.

Zabbix offers a full set of education courses and materials with recognized
certificates, confirming a certain level of expertise in Zabbix's function.
Zabbix is really lightweight but offers support for almost every aspect of
infrastructure aspects.

Zabbix is open-source, so there are no subscription packages. You can enroll in
one of their courses or purchase advice in the form of technical support or
consulting.

### Main Benefits of Zabbix:

- Flexible notifications
- Remote command execution

## 10. Netdata Cloud

![NetData dash](https://imagedelivery.net/xZXo0QFi-1_4Zimer-T0XQ/48e95b99-63fb-4880-3c89-e1543d28ea00/public =1366x768) Netdata allows you to monitor the health of
your entire IT infrastructure from any browser. You can monitor metrics in
per-second frequency for every system and app in real-time. Netdata is free yet
delivers a powerful cloud monitoring solution that is heavily scalable.

Netdata Cloud is a free, closed source SaaS solution that brings metadata from
all tour endpoints running the Netdata Agent - their own free, open-source
software licensed under GPL v3.0. It's perfect for single-node monitoring,
lightweight and performant. In the future, the developers plan to deploy a paid
plan for enterprise users.

### Main Benefits of Netdata:

- Free and powerful tool

## Conclusion

In this article, we introduced AWS Cloudwatch, its features, limitations, and
the main complaints from its users. Then we proposed a list of the Best
CloudWatch alternatives for those who decided it’s time for a change.

Other useful resources if you are considering Cloudwatch alternatives:

- [Cloudwatch vs Cloudtrail](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/cloudwatch-vs-cloudtrail/)
- [Cloudwatch vs Datadog](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/datadog-vs-cloudwatch/)
- [Best AWS Monitoring Tools](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/aws-monitoring-tools/)
- [Getting Started with Collecting and Managing AWS Logs](https://betterstack.com/community/guides/logging/aws-logging/)