Trusted by more than
2,500 customers globally
Why is Sumo Logic a better alternative than Datadog?
$0 ingest and credit licensing
Flex Licensing decouples log ingest from budgets, eliminating data gaps during troubleshooting
One integrated log analytics platform
A single source of truth for development, security and operations teams
Cloud-native SIEM
Speed up incident investigations by automatically triaging alerts and correlating threats through log analytics
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Full stack observability
Both Sumo Logic and Datadog provide unified observability across metrics, logs, and traces, with powerful dashboarding capabilities. The key differentiator is Sumo Logic’s strength in handling unstructured data, making it especially well-suited for complex environments and security-driven use cases. | Sumo Logic | Datadog |
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Integration ecosystem
Sumo Logic offers an extensive integration ecosystem, including native support for major cloud and security platforms, and seamless compatibility with OpenTelemetry (OTel) standards. Datadog also supports a wide range of integrations but relies more heavily on proprietary agents and data formats, which can limit flexibility and increase vendor lock-in. | Sumo Logic | Datadog |
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Advanced security use cases
Sumo Logic unifies full-stack observability with robust security analytics, SIEM, and SOAR—all within a single platform. Datadog lacks native SIEM and SOAR capabilities, making it less equipped for advanced security operations. | Sumo Logic | Datadog |
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Flexible licensing
Sumo Logic’s Flex Licensing decouples data ingestion from cost, allowing teams to ingest everything without worrying about budget overruns—ideal for troubleshooting and forensic analysis. Datadog licenses each product separately, and while entry pricing may appear low, costs can quickly escalate due to add-ons, retention fees, and custom metric charges | Sumo Logic | Datadog |
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Global presence and data residency
Sumo Logic supports regional compliance and local data residency needs with data centers in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Japan, the USA, and South Korea. Datadog offers fewer regional options, with data centers limited to the USA, Germany, and Japan. | Sumo Logic | Datadog |
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Training and support
Sumo Logic provides free training and certification for all user levels—from beginner to advanced—ensuring fast onboarding and adoption. In contrast, Datadog charges for most training and support services, which—while relatively low-cost—can still contribute to a higher total cost of ownership over time. | Sumo Logic | Datadog |
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Why Sumo Logic?
Log Analytics
Sumo Logic excels in log analytics with powerful real-time search, flexible ingestion, and native support for unstructured data. It’s purpose-built to handle high-volume, diverse log sources without requiring extensive reformatting or enrichment.
Observability
Sumo Logic offers a truly unified observability experience by bringing together logs, metrics, and traces in one platform with native OpenTelemetry (OTel) support. This enables seamless correlation across telemetry types and reduces the need for stitching together separate tools.
Security
Sumo Logic’s cloud-native SIEM includes built-in automation, threat intelligence, UEBA, and MITRE ATT&CK mapping. It enables fast, contextualized threat detection and investigation, all within a unified platform.
Platform
Sumo Logic delivers a consistent experience across observability and security, with centralized data processing, dashboards, and alerting in a single, multi-tenant platform; reducing operational overhead and enabling teams to collaborate with shared context.
Make app reliability and security a team sport
Sumo Logic’s full-stack observability suite provides:
Unified Application Observability
- Adaptive analytics
Analytics on all structured and unstructured application data including transaction traces, logs and metrics. - Powerful query language and user-friendly UX
Explore all data and find the unknown unknowns using pattern detection with AI/ML. - Open source collection
Works with OpenTelemetry, Telegraf, and other open source tools.
Sumo Logic’s licensing model differs from Datadog:
Simple and transparent licensing
- Price transparency
Eliminates license waste and on-demand overage bills. - Simplicity
Single licensing model — no need to license every product or functionality. - Flex Licensing
Cost-effectively index all your data without sacrificing performance on our secure and compliant platform.
Sumo Logic supports the entire spectrum of security use cases:
Most comprehensive security portfolio
- Logs for Security
Out-of-the-box apps and integrations for security and compliance content, for both cloud and on-premise data sources. - Cloud SIEM
Automatically triage alerts and correlate threats across your entire environment. - Cloud SOAR
Take your security to the next level with security orchestration, automation and response.
FAQ
Still have questions?
Sumo Logic offers unified observability and security on a single platform, with native support for SIEM, SOAR, and unstructured data analysis—capabilities not found in Datadog.
Yes. Sumo Logic has native support for OpenTelemetry, enabling open standards-based instrumentation and avoiding vendor lock-in.
Absolutely. Sumo Logic was designed to process and search both structured and unstructured data at scale—ideal for modern environments and security use cases.
Sumo Logic’s Flex Licensing decouples data ingestion from cost, so you can ingest all your data without worrying about budget overruns. You pay based on what you use, not just what you collect.
Yes. Sumo Logic provides free training, certifications, and support for users at all levels. Datadog charges for many of these services.
Sumo Logic supports regional compliance with data centers in the USA, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.
Yes. Sumo Logic consolidates full-stack observability, security analytics, SIEM, and SOAR into one unified, cloud-native platform—reducing complexity and cost.
Most teams can get started in minutes using our pre-built integrations and dashboards. Our onboarding experience and free training help you see value fast.
Sumo Logic is trusted across regulated and data-intensive industries like financial services, healthcare, government, media, and technology. Its strengths in security analytics, compliance, and unstructured data processing make it ideal for organizations with complex observability and security requirements.
Yes. Sumo Logic offers hundreds of native integrations with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), security tools, CI/CD pipelines, and third-party services. It also supports OpenTelemetry, allowing seamless integration with existing observability standards and tools—without being locked into proprietary agents.
Both Sumo Logic and Datadog are FedRAMP Moderate authorized and maintain a strong set of security and compliance certifications, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI and HIPAA.
Where Sumo Logic differentiates is in data residency options across more regions (including Canada, Ireland, South Korea, and Australia) and its deep integration of security analytics and compliance features directly into the platform—making it particularly effective for regulated industries.
While Datadog performs well for telemetry in cloud-native environments, Sumo Logic provides greater flexibility, deeper log analytics, and more powerful correlation across data types, especially in complex or hybrid environments, including both structured and unstructured logs.
Many organizations that start with Datadog eventually switch to Sumo Logic due to Datadog’s high total cost of ownership and complex, opaque licensing model. With Sumo Logic, customers gain a more predictable pricing structure, flexible licensing, and native SIEM capabilities—all within a single, unified platform. This not only reduces cost but also simplifies operations and improves visibility across their environment.
Sumo Logic helps you monitor, troubleshoot, and secure your applications with a single SaaS analytics platform.
- One SaaS analytics platform for observability and security
- Cloud-native architecture — dynamic scale
- Patented ML-based analytics — ingest and analyze any type of data fast
- Flexible licensing and data tiering
- Out-of-the-box audit and compliance, including PCI DSS, FedRAMP Moderate, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2
Sumo Logic applies best-in-class technologies and a rigorous process to put the safety of your data first, including encryption-at-rest and security attestations. Compliance attestations and certifications held by Sumo Logic include PCI, HIPAA, FISMA, SOC2, GDPR and FedRAMP — at no additional charge.
Try the leading analytics platform for reliable and secure cloud-native apps.
Sumo Logic. Championing your digital experience.
