Dash0 vs OpenObserve: Pricing and Ratings Compared (2026)
Entry prices and free plans as read on each vendor's pricing page, and user ratings as published on review sites, for Dash0 and OpenObserve side by side. This page compares data; it is not a hands-on review.
On the data: On the data below the two are close or not directly comparable, so we do not name a winner for this pair.
Short on time? Here's the quick answer
Based on published vendor pricing and features and on public review data, here's who should pick what:
Dash0
OpenTelemetry-native observability, simplified for logs, metrics, and traces.
Best for you if:
- • You want OpenTelemetry-native, promoting interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in
OpenObserve
Open source, petabyte-scale observability for logs, metrics, and traces at a fraction of the cost.
Best for you if:
- • You want significantly lower storage costs (up to 140x compared to Elasticsearch)
| At a Glance | OpenObserve | |
|---|---|---|
Starts at | From $10/user/mo, billed monthly AI Coding Insights plan | Not published |
Category | Monitoring Log Management | Monitoring Log Management |
Rating | 4.6/5 G2 4.8 · Trustpilot 3.2 44 reviews | n/a |
Free plan | No | No |
Watch out for | Logs and traces at $0.60/million add up faster than metrics at $0.20. Retention is 30 days vs 13 months for metrics. | Audit Trail is 2% of monthly spend. |
Choose Dash0 or OpenObserve?
Choose Dash0 if
- You want OpenTelemetry-native, promoting interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in
- You want transparent, usage-based pricing without hidden fees
Choose OpenObserve if
- You want significantly lower storage costs (up to 140x compared to Elasticsearch)
- You want high performance and scalability, capable of handling petabytes of data
In-Depth Analysis
Dash0
OpenTelemetry-native observability, simplified for logs, metrics, and traces.
Dash0 publishes consumption prices, not seats.
Watch out
Logs and traces at $0.60/million add up faster than metrics at $0.20. Retention is 30 days vs 13 months for metrics.
Strengths
- Pro: OpenTelemetry-native, promoting interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in
- Pro: Transparent, usage-based pricing without hidden fees
- Pro: Simplified setup and maintenance, providing full context across telemetry data
- Pro: Built by observability experts for engineers, focusing on productivity
- Pro: Supports open standards like PromQL and Perses for flexibility
Weaknesses
- Con: Dash0 is OpenTelemetry-native, so teams still running proprietary vendor agents such as the Datadog or New Relic agents must re-instrument their stack with OpenTelemetry, OTLP, or Prometheus to onboard, which is real migration work for anyone not already on OTel.
- Con: Logs, traces (spans), and web events are retained for only 30 days by default while metrics are kept for 13 months, so long-term incident forensics or compliance needs on trace and log data require exporting to a separate store.
- Con: Pricing is purely consumption-based at roughly 0.60 dollars per million log records and spans and 0.20 dollars per million metric data points, so bills scale directly with telemetry volume and can be hard to forecast in high-cardinality, high-log environments.
- Con: Dash0 emerged from stealth recently, so it carries a shorter production track record and a smaller integration and community ecosystem than entrenched incumbents like Datadog and Grafana.
Key features
OpenObserve
Open source, petabyte-scale observability for logs, metrics, and traces at a fraction of the cost.
OpenObserve's Pay As You Go model offers a fair and transparent pricing structure, especially for ingestion at $0.50 per GB and querying at $0.01 per GB, which can be competitive for high-volume users.
Watch out
Audit Trail is 2% of monthly spend.
Strengths
- Pro: Significantly lower storage costs (up to 140x compared to Elasticsearch).
- Pro: High performance and scalability, capable of handling petabytes of data.
- Pro: Open-source nature allows for community contributions, security audits, and full control.
- Pro: Unified platform for logs, metrics, and traces simplifies observability.
- Pro: Supports open standards and protocols for vendor-neutral integration.
Weaknesses
- Con: Pricing for advanced features like AI Assistant and AI SRE Agent is currently in preview, future costs are not fully detailed.
- Con: Requires some technical expertise for self-hosting and managing storage buckets.
Key features
Plans and prices: Dash0 vs OpenObserve
| Tool | Plans and prices | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Dash0 |
| dash0.com/pricing read Oct 22, 2026 |
| OpenObserve |
| openobserve.ai/pricing read Oct 22, 2026 |
Prices as read on each vendor's own pricing page on the date shown. Plans are listed per tool and are not matched against the other tool's plans: a plan name or price in one column says nothing about the same row in the other. Details on Dash0 pricing and OpenObserve pricing.
Key Takeaways
Dash0
- Choose if you want OpenTelemetry-native observability, simplified for logs, metrics, and traces
OpenObserve
- Choose if you want open source, petabyte-scale observability for logs, metrics, and traces at a fraction of the cost
What the data shows
On the data below the two are close or not directly comparable, so we do not name a winner for this pair.
- Only Dash0 has a published user rating (4.6/5 from 44 reviews); OpenObserve has none we can show.
- Dash0 starts at $10/user/mo, billed monthly; OpenObserve has no public paid plan price on file.
Criteria: user rating (only above 20 reviews on both sides, gap of 0.2 or more), entry price (only on the same billing basis), free plan. How we rate
Frequently Asked Questions
How do Dash0 and OpenObserve compare in 2026?
On the data below the two are close or not directly comparable, so we do not name a winner for this pair. Only Dash0 has a published user rating (4.6/5 from 44 reviews); OpenObserve has none we can show. Dash0 starts at $10/user/mo, billed monthly; OpenObserve has no public paid plan price on file.
What are Dash0 and OpenObserve used for?
Dash0: OpenTelemetry-native observability, simplified for logs, metrics, and traces. OpenObserve: Open source, petabyte-scale observability for logs, metrics, and traces at a fraction of the cost.
What does Dash0 cost vs OpenObserve?
Dash0's cheapest paid plan is AI Coding Insights at $10/user/mo, billed monthly. OpenObserve has no public paid-plan price on file. Prices read on the vendors' pricing pages, latest check Oct 22, 2026.
What's the main difference between Dash0 and OpenObserve?
Dash0's main strength: OpenTelemetry-native, promoting interoperability and avoiding vendor lock-in. OpenObserve's main strength: significantly lower storage costs (up to 140x compared to Elasticsearch).