Top 10 DataSet (Scalyr) Alternatives 2025

Scalyr, now known as DataSet, excels at real-time log analytics with lightning-fast searches and a security-first design. Still, one tool can’t cover every scenario—specialized needs, tighter budgets, or a preferred interface might call for something different.

The bright side? Many excellent alternatives are ready to step in or offer fresh perspectives on data analytics.

This article dives into the top 10 Scalyr(DataSet) alternatives, helping you find the perfect fit for your unique requirements.

Scalyr key features

DataSet’s unique parallel processing engine ensures super-fast searches, even for complex queries, so you never have to wait for results. It also offers unified observability by combining logs, metrics, and alerts for DevOps, IT, and security teams in one easy-to-use platform.

DataSet makes pricing simple with flexible options to suit various needs. You can get started for just $49 per month for a moderate amount of daily events, or choose a usage-based plan that scales seamlessly to handle billions of logs as your business grows.

Top 10 alternatives to Scalyr for 2025

Ready to explore alternatives to DataSet? Here's a quick glance at how various tools stack up regarding strengths and pricing:

1. Better Stack

Better Stack offers a friendly, all-in-one solution for managing logs, metrics, and incidents in real-time. It smartly turns raw logs into structured JSON using ClickHouse, a super-fast database that can dig through billions of log lines in seconds. You can quickly spot and investigate issues with collaborative dashboards without juggling multiple tools.

🌟 Key features

• Log management
• Infrastructure monitoring
• Uptime monitoring
• Website monitoring
  
• Incident management
• Status pages

➕ Pros

• Delivers high-speed SQL-based searches through structured JSON logs, making it easy for teams to sift through massive data volumes
• Shared dashboards and user-friendly interface features enable you to troubleshoot and manage incidents together without leaving the platform
• Real-time anomaly detection and incident silencing reduce alert fatigue
• Unifies log management, infrastructure monitoring, website monitoring, status pages, and incident management into one platform

➖ Cons

• Lacks advanced SIEM features

💲 Pricing

Better Stack offers a free plan with up to 3 GB of logs retained for 3 days, 2 billion metrics kept for 30 days, and 10 basic monitors. The Pay as You Go tier starts at $29/month, adding features like on-call incident management, private status pages, unlimited phone/SMS alerts, and more generous log retention.

Want more details? Check out the pricing page.

2. New Relic

New Relic is an all-in-one observability platform with comprehensive capabilities, from application performance monitoring (APM) to logs, infrastructure, and more.

It centralizes telemetry data—traces, metrics, logs—in a single dashboard, making it easier to spot issues and take action quickly.

🌟 Key features

• APM & distributed tracing
  
• Infrastructure monitoring
  
• Real-user monitoring
• Logs management
  
• Incident analysis
  

➕ Pros

• Offers over 30 integrated features, covering everything from APM and logs to serverless monitoring
  

• User-based pricing model helps you pay only for what they use

• Unlimited basic users let broader teams participate without extra fees

➖ Cons

• The sheer breadth of features is overwhelming if you only need a few specific tools
  

💲 Pricing

New Relic’s free plan includes 100 GB of data ingest per month with unlimited basic users. Beyond that, data is billed at $0.35/GB, and user tiers start at $10. Higher-tier plans, like pro and enterprise, unlock additional features, expanded data retention, and faster support response times.

3. Datadog

Datadog is an excellent observability platform with a rich ecosystem of out-of-the-box integrations that gather metrics and events across public clouds, on-prem, and containers. Advanced analytics also lets you drill down into logs, network traffic, and real-user monitoring details—all from a single dashboard.

🌟 Key features

• Infrastructure monitoring
  
• Application performance monitoring
• Network monitoring
  
• Real user monitoring
• Security insights

➕ Pros

• Provides 800+ integrations to connect with the most popular services and technologies smoothly
  
• Delivers extensive visibility for distributed systems through end-to-end request tracing and RUM
  
• Offers robust dashboards and alerting tools for proactive detection of anomalies
  
• Enables a unified view of metrics, logs, and traces, reducing context-switching

➖ Cons

• Costs can escalate quickly at scale

💲 Pricing

Datadog’s Infrastructure plan starts at $15 per host, per month (billed annually) with 15-month metric retention. Higher tiers offer machine learning–based alerts, live process monitoring, container entitlements, and volume discounts for larger deployments.

4. Splunk

Splunk is a data analytics powerhouse that handles everything from logs and metrics to security events and incidents. Its unified approach streamlines troubleshooting, enabling teams to identify root causes and uncover actionable real-time insights. Advanced AI/ML capabilities automate anomaly detection and drive faster resolutions.

🌟 Key features

• Log and event management
  
• Security information and event management (SIEM)
  
• Advanced search and analytics
  
• Real-time monitoring
  
• AI/ML-based anomaly detection
  

➕ Pros

• Its powerful search engine simplifies pinpointing issues across massive datasets.
• Offers advanced security solutions, including behavioral analytics and automated threat detection.
• Broad ecosystem of apps, add-ons, and integrations enhances flexibility

➖ Cons

• Licensing and storage expenses can escalate rapidly in high-ingest environments.

💲 Pricing

Splunk’s Observability Cloud starts at $15 per monthly host (billed annually), with specialized tiers like app & infra at $60 and end-to-end at $75 per host. For infrastructure-specific solutions, Splunk infrastructure monitoring begins at $15 per host, while Splunk APM starts at $55 per host.

5. SigNoz

SigNoz is an open-source observability platform that combines logs, metrics, and traces in one place. Built on OpenTelemetry standards, SigNoz lets you debug faster by connecting various data streams in real-time. With flexible deployment options and the super-speedy ClickHouse backend, it's a fantastic choice if you're looking for a cost-effective, vendor-neutral alternative to DataSet.

🌟 Key features

• APM & distributed tracing
  
• Metrics & dashboards
  
• Log management
  
• Infrastructure monitoring
  
• Alerts management
  
• Service dependency visualization
  

➕ Pros

• Open-source foundation avoids vendor lock-in and supports transparent development
  
• Usage-based pricing (no user- or host-based fees) can significantly cut costs
  
• Quick to deploy and scale, thanks to ClickHouse’s high-performance storage
  
• Strong correlation of different telemetry signals for accelerated root-cause analysis
  

➖ Cons

• May require extra effort to fine-tune self-hosted setups for large-scale usage
  

💲 Pricing

SigNoz offers a free community edition you can self-host and a cloud plan starting at $199/month, covering up to 15 days of log and trace retention.

6. SolarWinds

SolarWinds combines monitoring, observability, and IT service management into one intuitive platform. With a long-standing reputation in network and infrastructure monitoring, it now covers applications, databases, and digital experiences.

🌟 Key features

• Log management
  
• Network performance
  
• Traffic monitoring
  
• Database performance analysis
  
• Distributed tracing for applications
  
• Integrated IT service management
  

➕ Pros

• Strong network monitoring pedigree aids in proactively resolving performance bottlenecks
  
• Dashboards streamline troubleshooting and reduce issue resolution times
  
• Integrates well with other SolarWinds modules
  
• Offers both SaaS-based and on-prem solutions for flexible deployments
  

➖ Cons

• Complex environments may require additional configuration to achieve full-stack visibility
  

💲 Pricing

SolarWinds Observability offers flexible solutions. If you choose their SaaS, pricing starts at $12/month per network device or host for network and infrastructure observability and $27.50/month per application instance for application observability.

7. Logz.io

Logz.io was built on open-source technologies and gives you real-time visibility into your entire stack—minus the headache of a self-managed setup. The data optimization hub keeps costs in check by filtering unnecessary data at the source, making Logz.io a budget-friendly observability choice.

🌟 Key features

• Log management
  
• Unified metrics and distributed tracing
  
• Data optimization hub
  
• Rich visual dashboards
  
• Multiple storage tiers
  
• Infrastructure monitoring
  

➕ Pros

• Reduces MTTR by automating anomaly detection and root cause analysis
  
• Open-source foundation lowers barriers to adoption and eases migration
  
• Flexible pricing bills ingested data by volume, without per-user or per-host fees
  
• Cost-management tools like sub-accounts and usage caps help control spending
  

➖ Cons

• Data ingestion can get pricey for very high log volumes, requiring careful filtering
  
• Advanced features like multi-region or compliance add-ons may raise costs for large deployments
  

💲 Pricing

Logz.io offers both subscription and consumption pricing models. For log management, prices start at $0.92 per ingested GB (billed daily), while infrastructure monitoring costs $0.40 per thousand time-series metrics per day.

8. Sematext

Sematext is another platform that brings logs, metrics, and user monitoring data together in a single cloud-based platform. It is designed with scalability and offers a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model, so you only pay for what you use.

With a wide range of integrations—from Docker and AWS to Nagios and OpenSearch—it’s easy to pull data from almost any environment.

🌟 Key features

• Log management
  
• Automated agent management
  
• Infrastructure monitoring
  
• Real user monitoring
  
• Synthetic monitoring
  
• Correlation & dashboards
  
• Alerting & collaboration
  

➕ Pros

• Emphasis on cost transparency lets you set daily volume limits to avoid surprise bills
  
• Broad integrations cover everything from containerized workloads to legacy infrastructure
  
• Responsive support and consulting services for open-source technologies
  

➖ Cons

• Some features, such as specialized consulting or training, can increase overall costs if hands-on help is needed
  

💲 Pricing

Sematext offers a usage-based model that starts with free trials, and no credit card is required upfront. Pricing varies by data source type—logs, metrics, RUM, etc.—and daily ingest volume.

9. Sumo Logic

Sumo Logic delivers a cloud-native platform for log analytics, infrastructure monitoring, and security operations. It helps you sift through large data volumes and quickly surface critical insights. Sumo Logic streamlines your toolset while maintaining real-time visibility by unifying logs, metrics, traces, and SIEM functionality.

🌟 Key features

• Comprehensive log analytics
  
• Real-time alerting
  
• Log management
  
• Infrastructure monitoring
  
• Cloud SIEM

➕ Pros

• All-in-one platform unifies observability and security to cut down tool sprawl
  
• Flexible “Freemium” model suits different team sizes and budgets
  
• Extensive integrations with AWS, Kubernetes, Linux, PCI compliance, and more
  
• Offers data retention models for cost control
  

➖ Cons

• Costs can rise significantly if data ingest and analytics usage spike without careful planning
  

💲 Pricing

Sumo Logic provides a free tier capped at 1 GB/day of logs, 3,000 DPM/day for metrics, and 1.5 GB/day of tracing data. They offer essentials and enterprise suite plans for more capacity and features.

10. Loggly

Loggly specializes in centralized log management, helping teams quickly troubleshoot issues across distributed environments.

With an agentless, SaaS-based design, sending data from virtually any source—containers, servers, cloud services, or IoT devices—is easy without complex setups.

Loggly’s intuitive dashboards and automated parsing features give you a clear picture of system behavior to spot problems early and fix them faster.

🌟 Key features

• Agentless log collection
• Dynamic field Explore
• Dashboards, charts, and powerful search
• Application performance monitoring
• Log management

➕ Pros

• Fast setup with no proprietary agents required
• User-friendly analysis through automated parsing, filters, and dynamic exploration
  
• Scalable SaaS grows with your environment without extra maintenance
  
• Integrations connect seamlessly with key DevOps tools for better collaboration
  -Archive to Amazon S3 for long-term data retention
  

➖ Cons

• Volume-based plans can become pricey if log data spikes significantly
  
• Some advanced features, like unlimited source groups, custom parsing rules, or anomaly detection, require higher-tier plans
  

💲 Pricing

Loggly offers four main tiers. The lite plan is free, while standard starts at $79/month (billed annually), pro from $159/month, and enterprise from $279/month.

Final thoughts

This article explores various alternatives to Scalyr (DataSet). When choosing a tool, consider factors like ease of setup, scalability, integrated features, and how each platform manages costs. Taking advantage of free plans is a great way to get a feel for what suits your needs. This hands-on approach helps you understand the user experience before committing.

Article by

Stanley Ulili

Stanley Ulili is a technical educator at Better Stack based in Malawi. He specializes in backend development and has freelanced for platforms like DigitalOcean, LogRocket, and AppSignal. Stanley is passionate about making complex topics accessible to developers.

Got an article suggestion? Let us know

Explore more

10 Best New Relic Alternatives in 2023

There are many alternatives to New Relic's APM offering a better, less complicated and more reliable solution to application monitoring.

Top 10 Honeycomb Alternatives 2024

Looking for the top alternatives to Honeycomb for distributed tracing? Check out our guide to the best 10 tools to enhance your observability and monitoring

10 Best Datadog Alternatives to Consider in 2023

Datadog is one of the most potent and versatile players on the market, but they have their fair share of downsides. The monitoring and observability space is quite competitive, so we will discuss 10 of the best Datadog alternatives and compare their pros and cons to determine which is better suited for your needs.

Top 10 Honeybadger Alternatives 2024

This article explores the top 10 alternatives to Honeybadger.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.