Alternatives
Best Papertrail alternatives in 2026
Data compiled by Toolradar Updated How we rate
Cite this list: Toolradar, best Papertrail alternatives 2026, toolradar.com/alternatives/papertrail
8 direct alternatives to Papertrail, compared on pricing, features, and best-for use cases. Pick the right replacement without the marketing fluff.
Quick answer
- New Relic is the top alternative to Papertrail on our list, followed by Datadog and Sumo Logic.
- 6 of the 8 alternatives have a free plan, starting with New Relic.
- Highest rated: Sentry, 4.6 out of 5 from 297 ratings, Sep 2026.
- 8 alternatives
- 6 with a free plan
Top 3 alternatives to Papertrail
New Relic
#1 Top pickFull-stack observability with 50+ monitoring capabilities
Starting price
From $10 /mo
Cheapest paid plan, monthly, as of November 2026
4.4 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 783 ratings, Sep 2026
Our take
Best overall
Datadog
#2Cloud monitoring, security, and AI investigations for DevOps
Starting price
From $18 /mo
Cheapest paid plan, monthly, as of November 2026
4.4 /5 on G2 · 726 ratings, Aug 2026
Sumo Logic
#3Cloud-native machine data analytics
Pricing
Contact sales
4.4 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 441 ratings, Sep 2026
Papertrail vs 8 alternatives
| Tool | Starting price (Nov 2026) | Free plan | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Price: $7/mo | Free plan: Yes | 4.4 out of 5, from 51 ratings on G2 (51) |
| Price: $10/mo | Free plan: Yes | 4.4 out of 5, from 783 ratings across G2 and Capterra (783) |
| Price: $18/mo | Free plan: Yes | 4.4 out of 5, from 726 ratings on G2 (726) |
| Price: Contact sales | Free plan: No | 4.4 out of 5, from 441 ratings across G2 and Capterra (441) |
 | Price: $26/mo | Free plan: Yes | 4.6 out of 5, from 297 ratings across G2 and Capterra (297) |
 | Price: $19/mo | Free plan: Yes | 4.5 out of 5, from 275 ratings across G2 and Capterra (275) |
 | Price: $89/mo | Free plan: Yes | 4.5 out of 5, from 171 ratings on G2 (171) |
 | Price: $79/mo | Free plan: No | 4.4 out of 5, from 13 ratings on Capterra (13) |
 | Price: $1.5/mo | Free plan: Yes | n/a |
Why people consider alternatives to Papertrail
Papertrail aggregates logs from servers, apps, and cloud services for troubleshooting and monitoring. DevOps teams search and analyze logs in real-time with instant alerts on patterns.
Teams most often switch away when one of these starts to bite:
- Pricing at scale as usage or premium tiers add up.
- Missing integrations with the rest of your stack.
- Performance or scale limits as your needs grow.
- A specific feature gap you have hit in monitoring.
The 8 alternatives below cover the same core job (monitoring) with different trade-offs.
Papertrail by the numbers
Toolradar data: Papertrail's entry paid plan ($7/mo, billed monthly) ranks #2 of 21 for price among the Log Management tools with a verified entry price and no stated unit, where the median is $25/mo. As of Nov 2026.
| Metric | Papertrail | Peer median | Position (1 is best) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | $7/mo, billed monthly | $25/mo | #2 of 21 tools with no stated price unit, verified price |
| Free plan | Yes | 62% have one | n/a |
| Listed as an alternative to | 6 tools | 3 | #19 of 60 (joint) |
| User rating | 4.4/5 (across the web, 51 ratings) | 4.5/5 | #21 of 31 (joint) tools with 20+ reviews |
| Compare-page visits, last 30 days | 28 visits | 34 | #14 of 21 (joint) tools with 20+ compare-page visits |
Listed as an alternative to: #17 on 2026-10-16 to #19 on 2026-11-02 (rank among 60 tools, 1 is best).
Each position is counted among the tools that have data for that row, as noted under it. A lower entry price ranks higher; prices are read on vendor pages and compared only with tools priced on the same basis. All Log Management data · How we compute this. Advertising and placement fees are not inputs to any position. Visit counts include visits from every source.
Cite this: Toolradar, “Papertrail by the numbers”, Nov 2026.
Monitoring leaderboards from Toolradar data
Toolradar ranks Monitoring tools on one measure at a time, only where at least 8 tools have data. As of Nov 2026.
Lowest entry price, plans with no stated unit
Cheapest standard paid plan per month (annual prices divided by 12), read on vendor pages and compared only with tools priced on the same basis.
Counted among 72 tools with no stated price unit, verified price.
| # | Tool | Entry plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coroot | $1/mo, billed monthly |
| 2 | LogDNA | $1.50/mo, billed monthly |
| 3 | PeakHour 6 | $1.67/mo, billed yearly |
| 4 | Level | $2/mo, billed monthly |
| 5 | exit1.dev | $3/mo, billed monthly |
Lowest entry price, per-user plans
Cheapest standard paid plan per month (annual prices divided by 12), read on vendor pages and compared only with tools priced on the same basis.
Counted among 11 tools priced per user, verified price.
| # | Tool | Entry plan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | traceAI | $4/user/mo, billed monthly |
| 2 | VictorOps | $5/user/mo, billed monthly |
| 3 | Spiceworks | $6/user/mo, billed monthly |
| 4 | Opsgenie | $9.45/user/mo, billed monthly |
| 5 | Dash0 | $10/user/mo, billed monthly |
Most media coverage, last 30 days
Number of distinct articles published in the last 30 days by independent press, blogs and newsletters that mention the tool. A story carried by several outlets counts once; the vendor's own blog, review sites, forums and republishing sites do not count.
Counted among 8 tools mentioned in the last 30 days.
| # | Tool | Articles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | SolarWinds | 5 articles |
| 2 | Elementary Data | 3 articles |
| 2 | Monte Carlo | 3 articles |
| 4 | OpenTelemetry | 2 articles |
| 5 | Dash0 | 1 article |
A position exists only when at least 8 tools have data for that metric. 83 of 220 Monitoring tools have a verified price; the others publish none we could read (often "contact sales"). Advertising and placement fees are not inputs to any position. Visit counts include visits from every source. How we compute this. Cite this: Toolradar, “Monitoring leaderboards”, Nov 2026. Data licensed CC BY 4.0. All Monitoring statistics.
8 alternatives to Papertrail
Ranked by G2 and Capterra ratings, media mentions, and editor review, plus how directly they replace Papertrail.
- 1
New Relic
Free planFull-stack observability with 50+ monitoring capabilities
4.4 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 783 ratings, Sep 2026
From $10/mo; free plan available
- 2
Datadog
Free planCloud monitoring, security, and AI investigations for DevOps
4.4 /5 on G2 · 726 ratings, Aug 2026
From $18/host/mo, billed yearly; free plan available
- 3
Sumo Logic
PaidCloud-native machine data analytics
4.4 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 441 ratings, Sep 2026
Price not published
- 4
Sentry
Free planApplication monitoring & error tracking
4.6 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 297 ratings, Sep 2026
From $26/mo, billed yearly; free plan available
- 5
Grafana
Free planObservability and visualization platform
4.5 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 275 ratings, Sep 2026
From $19/mo, billed monthly; free plan available
- 6
Logz.io
Free planCloud observability platform on Elastic
4.5 /5 on G2 · 171 ratings, Sep 2026
From $89/mo, billed monthly; free plan available
- 7
Loggly
PaidCloud-based log management service
4.4 /5 on Capterra · 13 ratings, Sep 2026
From $79/mo, billed monthly
- 8
LogDNA
Free planCloud-native log management platform
From $1.50/mo, billed monthly; free plan available
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Papertrail?
Based on real-signal scoring (G2 and Capterra ratings, media mentions, and editorial review), the top alternatives to Papertrail are New Relic, Datadog, Sumo Logic. Each solves the same core job with different trade-offs on pricing, features, and integrations.
Is there a free alternative to Papertrail?
There is no fully free alternative in this list. New Relic is freemium: a permanent free tier plus paid plans (Full-stack observability with 50+ monitoring capabilities).
Why do people look for Papertrail alternatives?
Common reasons teams switch away from Papertrail: pricing that scales aggressively, missing integrations with the rest of their stack, performance or scale limits, or a specific feature gap in monitoring. The alternatives on this page solve the same core problem with different trade-offs.
Side-by-side comparisons
In-depth comparison pages for Papertrail versus each alternative.
Review Papertrail, get a free AI guide
Share your experience and we will send you Improve Your Thinking Patterns Using ChatGPT, free.
Still considering Papertrail?
See the full review, pricing breakdown, and community feedback before you decide.