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Ranked list

Best Application & Infrastructure Monitoring Tools in 2026

Application and infrastructure monitoring

Key Takeaways
  • SolarWinds is our overall pick for monitoring in 2026. Hookdeck is our free pick. Overall pick: Cheapest paid plan Incident Response, $15/mo. Rated 4.3/5 across SourceForge and G2 (934 ratings, Sep 2026). Free pick: Free plan; cheapest paid plan Team, $39/mo. Rated 4.5/5 across G2 and Capterra (2,271 ratings, Oct 2026). Watch out: Pay-as-you-go for Team tier implies potential overage costs.
  • We evaluated 220 monitoring tools to create this ranking.
  • 6 of the 10 tools listed here have a free plan.
Publications that cover the tools tracked here
  • TechCrunch
  • Bloomberg
  • The Information
  • Fortune
  • The Verge
  • 220 tools evaluated
  • 10 top picks
  • 6 with a free plan

Monitoring/observability has consolidated into three buyer paths: full-suite commercial platforms (Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace), open-source stacks (Grafana + Prometheus + Loki + Tempo), and developer-focused entrants (Honeycomb, Axiom, Better Stack). Cost is the dominant variable: Datadog bills can surprise teams that don't actively control them.

Top 3 monitoring tools

  1. SolarWinds logo

    SolarWinds

    #1 Top pick

    Drive operational resilience with unified visibility and AI-powered insights across your IT environment.

    Starting price

    From $15 /mo

    Cheapest paid plan, monthly, as of October 2026

    4.3 /5 across SourceForge and G2 · 934 ratings, Sep 2026

    Our take

    Best overall

  2. Hookdeck logo

    Reliable event infrastructure for webhooks and external event streams.

    Starting price

    From $39 /mo

    Cheapest paid plan, monthly, as of October 2026

    4.5 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 2,271 ratings, Oct 2026

    Our take

    Best free tier

  3. UptimeRobot logo

    Monitor your websites, APIs, and servers from multiple locations

    Starting price

    From $12 /mo

    Cheapest paid plan, monthly, as of October 2026

    4.6 /5 across SourceForge, Trustpilot, G2 and more · 1,535 ratings, Sep 2026

    Our take

    Highest rated

10 top monitoring tools compared

Monitoring tools compared on our take, starting price (cheapest paid plan, monthly, as of October 2026), average user rating with each review site's own score, and the hidden cost to watch for.
SolarWinds logo
SolarWinds
Best overall Price: $15/mo 4.3 out of 5, from 934 ratings across SourceForge and G2 G2 4.3 · SourceForge 4.3
Hookdeck logo
Hookdeck
Best free tier Price: $39/mo 4.5 out of 5, from 2,271 ratings across G2 and Capterra Capterra 4.4 · G2 4.8 Watch out: Pay-as-you-go for Team tier implies potential overage costs.
UptimeRobot logo
UptimeRobot
Highest rated Price: $12/mo 4.6 out of 5, from 1,535 ratings across SourceForge, Trustpilot, G2 and more SourceForge 4.4 · Trustpilot 4.6
New Relic logo
New Relic
Price: $10/mo 4.4 out of 5, from 783 ratings across G2 and Capterra G2 4.4 · Capterra 4.5 Watch out: Data ingest overages at $0.40/GB (Standard)
Monte Carlo logo
Monte Carlo
Price: Contact sales 4.4 out of 5, from 488 ratings across SourceForge and G2 G2 4.3 · SourceForge 5.0
Dynatrace logo
Dynatrace
Price: $7/mo 4.5 out of 5, from 1,455 ratings across G2 and Capterra G2 4.5 · Capterra 4.6 Watch out: Add-ons significantly increase total spend
Datadog logo
Datadog
Price: $18/mo 4.4 out of 5, from 726 ratings on G2 G2 4.4 Watch out: APM requires Infrastructure Monitoring on the SAME hosts: you cannot buy APM alone.
Freshping logo
Freshping
Price: $11/mo 4.6 out of 5, from 993 ratings on G2 G2 4.6 Watch out: Potential overage fees for checks
Site24x7 logo
Site24x7
Price: $9/mo 4.6 out of 5, from 852 ratings across G2 and Capterra G2 4.6 · Capterra 4.7 Watch out: Overage fees for exceeding resource limits
Spiceworks logo
Spiceworks
Most affordable Price: $6/mo 4.3 out of 5, from 964 ratings across SourceForge, G2 and Capterra Capterra 4.4 · G2 4.3

Monitoring pricing compared

Monitoring pricing, as of October 2026
SolarWinds Cheapest paid plan: Incident Response, $15/mo Free plan: No Billing: Per user, billed monthly
Hookdeck Cheapest paid plan: Team, $39/mo Free plan: Yes (Developer) Billing: Billed monthly
UptimeRobot Cheapest paid plan: Solo, $12/mo (billed yearly) Free plan: Yes Billing: Billed yearly
New Relic Cheapest paid plan: Standard, $10/mo Free plan: Yes Billing: Billing term not published
Monte Carlo Cheapest paid plan: Not published Free plan: No Billing: Not published
Dynatrace Cheapest paid plan: Foundation & Discovery, $7/mo Free plan: No Billing: Billing term not published
Datadog Cheapest paid plan: Infrastructure Pro, $18/mo (billed yearly) Free plan: Yes Billing: Per user, billed yearly
Freshping Cheapest paid plan: Starter, $11/mo Free plan: Yes Billing: Billed monthly
Site24x7 Cheapest paid plan: Starter, $9/mo Free plan: No Billing: Billed monthly
Spiceworks Cheapest paid plan: Premium, $6/mo Free plan: Yes (Core) Billing: Per user, billed monthly

Toolradar pricing data, last verified October 2026. Prices are the cheapest paid plan converted to a monthly figure; "Not published" means the vendor publishes no price for a self-serve paid plan. 9 of 10 tools publish a paid price; median cheapest paid plan $11/mo.

Toolradar data

The monitoring tools market in numbers

Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 220 monitoring tools as of November 2, 2026. 65% of the monitoring tools on Toolradar are free, freemium or open source. The median cheapest paid plan for monitoring tools is $22/mo, across the 62 that publish a price. Toolradar re-checked the pricing of 80% of monitoring tools in the last 90 days. Toolradar aggregates 23,408 public user reviews (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and other review sites) across 126 rated monitoring tools. The most cross-shopped monitoring tool is Datadog, listed as an alternative to 127 other tools on Toolradar. The most compared monitoring tool on Toolradar over the last 90 days is Datadog, with 652 side-by-side comparisons. Computed from the Toolradar catalog and on-site activity.

  • 220 monitoring tools tracked
  • 65% are free, freemium or open source
  • $22/mo median cheapest paid plan, across the 62 monitoring tools that publish one
  • 80% of prices re-checked in the last 90 days
  • 23,408 public user reviews aggregated across 126 rated tools
Most cross-shopped monitoring tools on Toolradar, as of November 2026 Listed as an alternative to the most other tools on Toolradar
Rank Tool Listed as an alternative to
1 Datadog 127 tools
2 New Relic 81 tools
3 Dynatrace 72 tools
Most compared monitoring tools on Toolradar, last 90 days to November 2026 Side-by-side comparisons by visitors, last 90 days
Rank Tool Comparisons
1 Datadog 652
2 Grafana 482
3 Prometheus 340

Source and method: live monitoring tools statistics · Toolradar Research report

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.

CSV download of these Monitoring leaderboards, licensed CC BY 4.0

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.

Lowest entry price, plans with no stated unit, Monitoring tools on Toolradar, as of Nov 2026
# 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.

Lowest entry price, per-user plans, Monitoring tools on Toolradar, as of Nov 2026
# 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.

Most media coverage, last 30 days, Monitoring tools on Toolradar, as of Nov 2026
# 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.

How the top monitoring tools compare

6 of the 10 monitoring tools listed here have a free plan (Hookdeck, UptimeRobot, New Relic, Datadog, Freshping, Spiceworks); the other 4 (SolarWinds, Monte Carlo, Dynatrace, Site24x7) are paid only. Teams on a budget should start with Hookdeck, our free pick.

Rankings are computed from G2/Capterra review volume and rating, and media mentions. Editorial policy

Top monitoring tools

Order: Toolradar ranking score, which is the public review volume times the average rating on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and other review sites, plus media mentions (recent ones count more). Paid placements are labelled and never change the score. How we rank.

1
SolarWinds logo

Drive operational resilience with unified visibility and AI-powered insights across your IT environment.

4.3 /5 across SourceForge and G2 · 934 ratings, Sep 2026

SolarWinds provides a comprehensive suite of IT management solutions encompassing observability, database management, and IT service management. It is designed for organizations seeking to optimize the performance and reliability of their IT infrastructure, including networks, on-premise and cloud environments, applications, databases, and user experiences. The platform offers unified visibility and leverages AI-powered capabilities to proactively identify issues, accelerate resolution, and enhance decision-making. The product caters to a wide range of IT professionals, from network and infrastructure administrators to database managers and IT service desk teams. It helps address critical operational needs, security, and compliance requirements through flexible deployment options, including self-hosted and SaaS models. By integrating monitoring, diagnostics, and automation, SolarWinds empowers teams to maintain optimal performance, reduce downtime, and improve overall operational efficiency across complex IT landscapes. Key benefits include improved incident response times, enhanced database performance, streamlined IT service delivery, and the ability to scale operations effectively. The platform's AIOps capabilities and agentic AI design focus on safety, transparency, and human partnership, enabling more intelligent and efficient IT operations.

Used SolarWinds? Rate it
  • Pro: Comprehensive suite of IT management tools under one platform
  • Pro: AI-powered insights and automation for proactive issue resolution
  • Pro: Supports diverse IT environments including on-premise, cloud, and hybrid
  • Con: No free tier or trial explicitly mentioned for individual products
  • Con: Requires integration and setup for full benefit across complex IT landscapes
Good value

SolarWinds' pricing structure is quite varied, with 'Monitoring & Observability' at $7/node/month appearing fair for comprehensive visibility.

2
Hookdeck logo

Hookdeck

Free plan

Reliable event infrastructure for webhooks and external event streams.

4.5 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 2,271 ratings, Oct 2026

This platform provides robust event infrastructure designed to manage the full lifecycle of external events, from ingestion to delivery and observability. It ensures that every event, whether from third-party webhooks or outbound event streams, is received, processed, and monitored reliably at scale, offering complete visibility and control. It's built for engineering teams dealing with event-driven systems, offering features like built-in event queueing to handle traffic spikes and destination failures, automatic issue management with event replay capabilities, and flexible routing and transformation of events. The platform integrates seamlessly with any tech stack, supporting various backends and allowing declarative infrastructure definition through API or Terraform. The core value proposition is to eliminate the headaches associated with managing webhooks and external events, such as missed events, retries, and debugging. By providing a scalable, secure, and compliant solution, it allows developers to focus on building their applications rather than on the complexities of event infrastructure, ensuring peace of mind even with high volumes of event data.

Used Hookdeck? Rate it
Hookdeck screenshot
  • Pro: Eliminates missed events and ensures reliability at scale.
  • Pro: Simplifies debugging and issue resolution with automatic replay and persistent logs.
  • Pro: Reduces infrastructure overhead for managing webhooks and event streams.
  • Con: Advanced features like metrics export, SSO, and custom SLAs are limited to higher-tier plans.
  • Con: Usage-based billing for additional events and discarded requests can become complex for very high volumes.
Good value

Hookdeck's pricing is quite generous, especially with a free Developer tier offering 10,000 events.

Watch out

Pay-as-you-go for Team tier implies potential overage costs.

3
UptimeRobot logo

UptimeRobot

Free plan

Monitor your websites, APIs, and servers from multiple locations

4.6 /5 across SourceForge, Trustpilot, G2 and more · 1,535 ratings, Sep 2026

UptimeRobot is an uptime monitoring service used by millions of accounts. You watch HTTP(S) pages and endpoints, keywords, ping, ports, cron jobs, APIs, UDP, SSL, domains, and DNS from multiple locations. When something breaks you get real-time alerts on web and mobile, and you can publish public status pages. The free plan includes 50 monitors. Paid Solo, Team, and Scale plans add faster check intervals, more monitors, seats, and status-page options. Annual billing is advertised at a discount off monthly.

Used UptimeRobot? Rate it
  • Pro: Free uptime monitoring
  • Pro: Simple to set up
  • Pro: Good for basic needs
  • Con: Basic features only
  • Con: Limited check intervals on free
Good value

UptimeRobot's pricing is generally fair, with a generous Free tier offering 50 monitors.

4
New Relic logo

New Relic

Free plan

Full-stack observability with 50+ monitoring capabilities

4.4 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 783 ratings, Sep 2026

New Relic is a full-stack observability platform offering 50+ monitoring capabilities in one platform with usage-based pricing and 100 GB of free monthly data ingest.

Used New Relic? Rate it
  • Pro: Generous free tier
  • Pro: Full-stack observability
  • Pro: AI insights
  • Con: Complex to set up
  • Con: Data can be expensive
Good value

New Relic's freemium model is generous, offering 100 GB/month and a full platform user for free.

Watch out

Data ingest overages at $0.40/GB (Standard)

5
Monte Carlo logo

Close the loop between data inputs and agent outputs with an end-to-end Data and AI Observability Platform.

4.4 /5 across SourceForge and G2 · 488 ratings, Oct 2026

Monte Carlo is an end-to-end Data and AI Observability Platform designed to help enterprise teams monitor, trace, and troubleshoot data inputs and AI agent outputs in production. It addresses the "Data + AI Trust Gap" by ensuring data quality and reliability for AI systems, preventing issues like drift, hallucination, or biased results from AI outputs, and incomplete, inaccurate, or delayed data inputs. The platform provides comprehensive visibility across the entire data and AI ecosystem, from ingestion to consumption. It empowers data engineers, analysts, and governance leaders to understand and take ownership of data and AI health, scale trust, reduce risk, and deliver better business outcomes. Monte Carlo aims to accelerate AI adoption and innovation by building trust in AI systems.

Used Monte Carlo? Rate it
  • Pro: Scales trust and reduces financial risks associated with unreliable AI.
  • Pro: Accelerates data engineers with programmatic monitoring and automated lineage.
  • Pro: Empowers data analysts with AI-enabled profiling and monitors.
  • Con: No explicit mention of a free tier or trial.
  • Con: Primarily focused on enterprise-level solutions, potentially less suitable for smaller teams.
Good value

Monte Carlo's pricing, while not publicly disclosed, appears to target larger enterprises given the 'Request pricing' model across all tiers and the extensive feature sets.

6
Dynatrace logo

Dynatrace

Paid

Full-stack observability and AIOps platform

4.5 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 1,455 ratings, Sep 2026

Dynatrace is an AI-powered observability platform offering infrastructure monitoring, APM, log analytics, digital experience monitoring, and application security with Davis AI for automated root cause analysis.

Used Dynatrace? Rate it
  • Pro: AI-powered observability
  • Pro: Full stack monitoring
  • Pro: Auto-discovery
  • Con: Very expensive
  • Con: Complex pricing
Fair value

Dynatrace's pricing is on the expensive side, particularly for Full-Stack Monitoring at $58/8 GiB host/mo.

Watch out

Add-ons significantly increase total spend

7
Datadog logo

Datadog

Free plan

Cloud monitoring, security, and AI investigations for DevOps

4.4 /5 on G2 · 726 ratings, Aug 2026

Datadog is a cloud monitoring and security platform providing infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, and AI-powered investigations for DevOps and security teams.

Used Datadog? Rate it
  • Pro: Comprehensive platform
  • Pro: Great visualizations
  • Pro: 700+ integrations
  • Con: Complex pricing
  • Con: Can be expensive
Fair value

Datadog is the most comprehensive observability platform, infrastructure monitoring, APM, logs, RUM, security, and 750+ integrations in one place.

Watch out

APM requires Infrastructure Monitoring on the SAME hosts: you cannot buy APM alone.

8
Freshping logo

Freshping

Free plan

Free website uptime monitoring

4.6 /5 on G2 · 993 ratings, Sep 2026

Freshping monitors website uptime for free. Check if your sites are up from multiple locations, get alerts when they're not-basic uptime monitoring without cost. The free tier monitors multiple sites. Alerts work reliably. Status pages are included. Anyone needing simple uptime monitoring without budget uses Freshping for free, reliable checks.

Used Freshping? Rate it
  • Pro: Uptime monitoring
  • Pro: Free tier
  • Pro: Simple setup
  • Con: Limited features
  • Con: Better alternatives exist
Good value

Freshping's Free tier is quite generous with 50 URL checks and 5 status pages, making it excellent for small projects or personal use.

Watch out

Potential overage fees for checks

9
Site24x7 logo

Site24x7

Paid

Full-stack monitoring and observability

4.6 /5 across G2 and Capterra · 852 ratings, Sep 2026

Site24x7 monitors websites, servers, and applications. Full-stack monitoring from one platform-infrastructure visibility. The coverage is comprehensive. The features are many. The pricing is competitive. IT teams wanting comprehensive monitoring consider Site24x7 for full-stack visibility.

Used Site24x7? Rate it
  • Pro: Good monitoring platform
  • Pro: All-in-one
  • Pro: Fair pricing
  • Con: UI dated
  • Con: Learning curve
Good value

Site24x7 offers a fair pricing structure, especially with its generous Free tier and competitive Starter plan at $9/month for basic website monitoring.

Watch out

Overage fees for exceeding resource limits

10
Spiceworks logo

Spiceworks

100% free

Free IT help desk and network monitor

4.3 /5 across SourceForge, G2 and Capterra · 964 ratings, Sep 2026

Spiceworks provides free IT help desk software and network monitoring tools. Includes ticket management, inventory tracking, and a community of IT pros.

Used Spiceworks? Rate it
Spiceworks screenshot
  • Pro: Provides a large, active community for IT professionals to share expertise, ask questions, and get recommendations.
  • Pro: Offers free, easy-to-use online IT software tools for help desk, inventory, monitoring, and remote support.
  • Pro: Delivers tech news, insights, and research reports to help IT professionals stay informed and make confident business decisions.
  • Con: The article on data visibility suggests that even with existing licenses, manual effort is often required to achieve comprehensive data visibility, indicating a potential limitation in fully automated solutions.
  • Con: While offering free tools, the platform's business model includes advertising, which might be a drawback for some users seeking an ad-free experience.
Great value

Spiceworks offers an incredibly generous Core tier at $0, providing unlimited tickets and asset tracking, making it an excellent entry point for small businesses.

Why other monitoring tools didn't make our top 10

We evaluated 220 tools in this category and these 20 ranked 11 through 30. They're solid options that fell short on one or two axes (review depth, pricing transparency, feature parity), but worth a look if the leaders don't fit your stack or budget.

Datadog MCP Server logo
Datadog MCP Server
Datadog MCP Server bridges your Datadog observability platform with AI assistants through the Model Context Protocol.
Auvik logo
Auvik
Gain real-time network visibility and automate management to fix issues faster and prevent downtime.
Sumo Logic logo
Sumo Logic
Cloud-native machine data analytics
Uptime.com logo
Uptime.com
Ensure your website and services are always available and performing optimally.
Uptime Kuma logo
Uptime Kuma
Self-hosted uptime monitoring with beautiful status pages
N-able logo
N-able
End-to-end cybersecurity and IT management solutions for managed service providers and IT departments.
PRTG logo
PRTG
All-in-One Network Monitoring Software to stay ahead of IT infrastructure issues.
ManageEngine logo
ManageEngine
Monitor, manage, and secure your IT infrastructure with enterprise-grade, AI-powered solutions.
Checkmk logo
Checkmk
Comprehensive IT monitoring platform for cloud, hybrid, and data center infrastructures.
Better Stack logo
Better Stack
Unified observability for uptime, incidents, and logs
Rollbar logo
Rollbar
Real-time error tracking and debugging
Instana logo
Instana
Full-stack observability powered by agentic AI for faster incident investigation and resolution.
Coralogix logo
Coralogix
Complete observability for all your data, with zero compromises on cost or control.
Instabug logo
Instabug
Agentic AI for mobile observability and experience, proactively detecting and resolving issues.
Sentry logo
Sentry
Application monitoring & error tracking
Zabbix logo
Zabbix
The universal, open-source observability solution for IT & OT infrastructure.
Grafana logo
Grafana
Observability and visualization platform
Grafana Cloud logo
Grafana Cloud
Unify metrics, logs, traces, and dashboards for complete observability across your stack.
NodePing logo
NodePing
Reliable website and service uptime monitoring with unlimited notifications and flexible check types.
Naverisk RPA logo
Naverisk RPA
Streamline IT services and cut costs with an all-in-one automation suite for MSPs and IT Pros.

Popular monitoring comparisons

See how the leading monitoring tools stack up head-to-head.

Compare all 220 monitoring tools side by side

Pricing breakdowns for monitoring tools

Real plans and the hidden costs for each tool.

Browse all monitoring tools

220 tools
Metaplane logo
Metaplane
End-to-end data observability platform that catches silent data quality issues before they impact your business.
Free plan · Web
Oh Dear logo
Oh Dear
Website health monitoring for your entire site, not just the homepage.
Paid · Web
Obkio Network logo
Obkio Network
Proactive network performance monitoring and troubleshooting for modern, distributed network architectures.
Free plan · Web
Opsgenie logo
Opsgenie
On-call alerting by Atlassian, end of sale since June 2025 and shutting down April 5, 2027
Paid · Web
Logz.io logo
Logz.io
Cloud observability platform on Elastic
Free plan · Web
Catchpoint logo
Catchpoint
Monitor every layer of the Internet Stack to ensure optimal performance and user experience.
Free plan · Web
Grafana OnCall logo
Grafana OnCall
On-call management for Grafana
Free plan
Sysdig logo
Sysdig
Cloud and container security platform
Paid · Web
Atatus logo
Atatus
Full-stack application monitoring and error tracking
Paid · Web
BigPanda logo
BigPanda
Proactive ITOps automation with an AI-powered knowledge graph
Paid
Calibre logo
Calibre
Web performance monitoring and optimization
Paid · Web
Dash0 logo
Dash0
OpenTelemetry-native observability, simplified for logs, metrics, and traces.
Paid · Web
Uptrends logo
Uptrends
Website and API monitoring platform
Paid · Web
Raygun logo
Raygun
Error and performance monitoring
Paid · Web
LightRun logo
LightRun
See your code in action, across any environment, with AI-powered runtime debugging.
Free plan · Web
Netdata logo
Netdata
Autonomous monitoring and troubleshooting with self-learning AI across your entire stack.
Free plan · Web, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, macOS
Elastic Observability logo
Elastic Observability
Full-stack observability solution built on a Search AI Platform, enabling faster troubleshooting with agentic AI.
Paid · Web
Centreon logo
Centreon
Simple, scalable, and cost-effective observability for IT infrastructure and digital experience.
Paid · Web
GTmetrix logo
GTmetrix
Test, monitor, and optimize your website's speed and performance.
Paid · Web
Scout APM logo
Scout APM
Hassle-free application monitoring for faster clarity on errors, logs, and performance.
Paid · Web
Sematext logo
Sematext
End-to-end visibility for modern teams with robust IT system monitoring tools.
Paid · Web
Apollo Graphql logo
Apollo Graphql
The definitive platform for building and operating GraphQL
Free plan · Web
Sterling logo
Sterling
A global solutions integrator for complex technology challenges
Paid
CubeAPM logo
CubeAPM
Full-stack observability and APM platform with unlimited retention, hosted inside your cloud.
Paid · Web

Showing the top 24 of 220. Filter to narrow down.

In-depth: why these tools made the cut

New Relic logo

New Relic pivoted to a usage-based pricing model (data ingest + user count) in 2020 that's been more friendly to teams who couldn't justify Datadog's bill. Feature parity is close on core APM/infrastructure/logs; the UI has improved but feels less polished than Datadog. For teams price-sensitive on monitoring, New Relic is worth evaluating.

New Relic hasn't kept pace with Datadog on adjacent products (security, CSPM, broader platform). Pick New Relic when you want a Datadog alternative at lower cost and accept slightly less breadth; pick Datadog when feature completeness matters more.

Datadog logo

Datadog became the default because the breadth-and-depth combination is hard to match: APM, logs, metrics, RUM, security, synthetic monitoring, and dashboards all in one platform with consistent UI and agent. For growth-stage and enterprise teams that value integration over best-of-breed per category, Datadog is the rational pick.

Datadog's bills are legendary. The pricing model has many dimensions (hosts, custom metrics, log ingestion, log retention, APM hosts) that compound, and surprise bills are common. Cost engineering (cardinality limits, sampling, log filtering) needs to be an explicit ownership area, not an afterthought. Many teams that consider Grafana Cloud or self-hosted are reacting to a Datadog bill.

How to choose monitoring software

Most monitoring decisions are reactive to incidents rather than proactive. Pick before you need it, instrument what matters, and aggressively delete what you don't use, observability bills compound on noise.

  1. Decide on commercial vs open-source

    Commercial (Datadog, New Relic): fast time-to-value, predictable agent install, expensive at scale. Open-source (Grafana stack, OpenTelemetry): heavy operational ownership but dramatically cheaper at high cardinality. Hybrid (Grafana Cloud, hosted Prometheus): middle ground that's gaining traction.

  2. Audit cardinality and volume implications

    Datadog and others price on hosts/metrics/logs volume. High cardinality (per-user, per-deployment tags) and verbose logs explode costs. Define what you'll instrument BEFORE buying; many teams blow their budget by instrumenting everything 'just in case.'

  3. Match tool to your stack maturity

    Early-stage (no SRE team): Better Stack, Sentry, basic uptime monitoring + APM. Growth-stage (dedicated SRE): Datadog or Grafana stack. Enterprise (multiple SRE teams, complex environments): Datadog, Dynatrace, or full self-hosted observability. Buying enterprise tools too early creates operational drag without ROI.

  4. Plan for the long tail of monitoring

    Beyond APM/logs/infra: synthetic monitoring (Pingdom, Checkly), real-user monitoring (Sentry, LogRocket), error tracking (Sentry, Rollbar), incident management (PagerDuty, FireHydrant). Each adds vendor count; some bundle. Datadog bundles many; specialists are usually deeper.

Honorable mentions

Tools that didn't crack the headline list but deserve a look depending on what you optimize for.

  • Loki logo
    Loki Best open-source log aggregation

    Grafana Loki is the log component of the Grafana stack, log aggregation that's cheap to run because of its index-less design. Pair with Prometheus and Tempo for full open-source observability.

Best Monitoring for

How we ranked these monitoring tools

We rank by real-world signal: G2/Capterra review volume and rating, and media mentions (volume and recency). Pricing is re-checked and the ranking refreshed monthly.

Tools evaluated
220
With free plan
60%
119 of the 199 tools we rank
Last updated
October 2026

Toolradar Research

The data behind monitoring tools

First-party analyses built from our full catalog, methodology published.

All Toolradar research

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best monitoring tool in 2026?

Based on our analysis of 220 monitoring tools, SolarWinds is our overall monitoring pick. The next tools on the list are Hookdeck, UptimeRobot, New Relic. Rankings use G2/Capterra review volume and rating, and media mentions.

What are the top 3 monitoring tools?

The top 3 monitoring tools in 2026, ranked by Toolradar, are: 1) SolarWinds, Drive operational resilience with unified visibility and AI-powered insights across your IT environment. 2) Hookdeck, Reliable event infrastructure for webhooks and external event streams. 3) UptimeRobot, Monitor your websites, APIs, and servers from multiple locations.

Are there free monitoring tools?

Yes. Hookdeck is our free monitoring pick (free plan alongside paid plans). 6 of the 10 tools on this page have a free plan. Among the 199 monitoring tools we rank, 119 have a free plan.

How do I choose the right monitoring tool?

Start by defining your team size, budget, and must-have features. SolarWinds is our overall monitoring pick. Hookdeck is our free monitoring pick. Compare all 220 options side by side on Toolradar.

Cite this page: Toolradar, "Best Application & Infrastructure Monitoring Tools in 2026", updated October 2026, https://toolradar.com/best/monitoring

Monitoring statistics catalog size, ratings and pricing data, updated monthly

What Are Monitoring & Observability Tools?

Monitoring tools ingest telemetry from your applications, infrastructure, and dependencies, then turn it into dashboards, alerts, and answers when production goes sideways. The category covers metrics (host CPU, request rate, queue depth), logs (structured events from services), traces (request flow across distributed systems), profiles (in-process CPU and memory), and increasingly RUM and synthetic monitoring for the user-facing side.

Observability platforms (Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace, Honeycomb, Grafana Cloud, Splunk) bundle most or all of these signals into a single backend. Open source stacks (Prometheus + Grafana + Loki + Tempo, OpenTelemetry collectors feeding ClickHouse or SigNoz) match many features at lower cost but require more operational investment. The right pick depends almost entirely on whether you have the engineering capacity to operate a stack or you would rather pay to make the problem go away.

The dirty secret of the category is that cost scales with logging and trace cardinality, not with sticker price. A team that adds a high-cardinality tag (per-user request ID, per-tenant trace) to Datadog's pipeline can multiply their bill 10x in a quarter without realizing it. Cost predictability matters more than feature checklists, and the best platforms surface what is driving the bill before it explodes.

Editor's Take

“After evaluating 220 monitoring tools, SolarWinds stands out as our top pick, ahead of Hookdeck. For budget-conscious teams, Hookdeck (free plan alongside paid plans) delivers strong value. The competition is fierce, the gap between top tools is narrower than ever, so the best choice comes down to your team's specific workflow and priorities.”

Key Data Points

220
Tools evaluated
6 of 10
Listed tools with a free plan

Toolradar data: 6 of the 10 tools listed on this page (60%) have a free plan, out of 220 tools tracked in this category. SolarWinds leads the list.

Key Features to Look for in Monitoring Tools

Metrics + logs + traces in one query plane

When an alert fires, you want to pivot from a metric anomaly to the relevant traces to the underlying log lines without re-authenticating to different tools or copying timestamps around. Datadog, New Relic, and Grafana Cloud do this well; many cheaper tools force you to wrangle multiple UIs.

Distributed tracing with sampling control

Trace every request and pay for it, or sample intelligently and risk missing the rare failure. Honeycomb's BubbleUp and Datadog's intelligent sampling are the strongest implementations. OpenTelemetry support is now table stakes; reject any tool that does not support it natively.

Alert quality and noise control

An alerting system that pages on real incidents and stays quiet otherwise is more valuable than any single dashboard. Look for anomaly detection, composite alerts (multiple signals required), maintenance windows, and integration with PagerDuty or Opsgenie. Bad alerting trains teams to ignore alerts within months.

Cost predictability and visibility

Most monitoring bills are non-linear and surprise teams in quarter 2 of a contract. The strong vendors expose what is driving cost in real time (cardinality, log volume, trace ingestion) before you sign. Datadog's cost explorer and Honeycomb's query-based pricing are the cleanest implementations.

Open standards & portability

OpenTelemetry support means you can switch vendors without re-instrumenting your code. Tools that ship custom agents and proprietary SDKs (older Datadog tracers, older New Relic agents) create lock-in. Modern stacks are migrating to OTel-first.

User experience and RUM

Real user monitoring catches what synthetic tests cannot: actual page performance on user devices, JS errors in production, Core Web Vitals by geography and connection type. Datadog RUM, Sentry Performance, and New Relic Browser are the leaders. Honeycomb is weak here by design.

Who Uses Monitoring Tools?

Different roles and team sizes need very different things:

Platform and SRE teams: Need deep distributed tracing, cardinality control, and SLO tooling. Datadog, Honeycomb, and Grafana Cloud are the strong picks. Run-it-yourself stacks (Prometheus, Tempo, Loki) suit teams that want full control.
Application engineers: Need fast iteration on logs and traces during debugging, ideally without filing a ticket. Sentry, Honeycomb, and Datadog APM all serve this well. The friction of getting to the data matters as much as the data itself.
DevOps in mid-sized companies: Care about infrastructure health (Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, GCP), database performance, and pager noise. Datadog and New Relic are the defaults; budget-conscious teams move to Grafana Cloud or self-hosted stacks.
Front-end and product engineers: Want RUM, JS error tracking, session replay, and Web Vitals. Sentry, LogRocket, and Datadog RUM compete here. Many teams pair Sentry (errors and performance) with a wider observability tool for the backend.
Solo developers and small teams: Need something that works out of the box without an SRE on staff. Sentry Free, Better Stack, and BetterUptime cover the basics for uptime, errors, and basic metrics. Avoid the heavy platforms; the per-host pricing eats you alive.

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