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Datadog and Sumo Logic are both well-respected vendors that offer application performance monitoring (APM) features – which are highly important in the cloud era. Datadog is better established and is more of a broad APM platform. It is graded as a Leader in the latest Gartner APM Magic Quadrant (MQ). Sumo Logic isn’t part of the Gartner MQ for APM, as it is more of a log management tool that includes APM features.
While there are some similarities in terms of features and functionalities, there are plenty of differences. So how do users go about determining which one is best for their specific environment?
Here’s a look at both Datadog and Sumo Logic, how they compare, and their use cases.
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Datadog vs. Sumo Logic: Key Feature Comparison
Datadog is focused on cloud monitoring and security. It offers the ability to see inside any stack or application at any scale and in any infrastructure. Infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, device monitoring, cloud workload monitoring, server monitoring, and database monitoring fall within its feature set.
It is particularly astute at dealing with the performance and visibility of multiple clouds operating on the network and in managing cloud services. Datadog helps IT to drill down into performance data. It generates alerts about potential problems and helps IT to discover any underlying issues.
Datadog can assemble data from logs and other metrics to provide context that is helpful in minimizing incident response time. The user interface centralizes performance monitoring, alert management, and data analysis in one place. Recent additions to its platforms include network monitoring, security analysis, AIOps, business analytics, a mobile app, and an incident management interface.
Sumo Logic is characterized as a cloud log management tool for application logs and IT log data. It uses cloud-based machine data analytics to identify availability and performance issues lurking within the infrastructure. This can also help to improve the security posture and streamline application rollouts.
For troubleshooting, Sumo Logic is said to lower mean-time-to-resolution by up to 50%. Sumo Logic outdoes Datadog in terms of some capabilities, such as having a real-time continuous query engine, and constantly updated dashboards and reports for immediate visualization. Its anomaly detection engine, too, enables organizations to uncover events without having to write rules.
Overall, both platforms can perform basic APM functions, but Datadog is a more comprehensive platform when it comes strictly to traditional application monitoring. Both are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based applications.
Datadog has broader applicability in terms of APM capabilities as well as monitoring other areas, such as security, networking, and infrastructure. Yet Sumo Logic reigns supreme on log management as well as being able to monitor containerized environments, which are becoming more common. Sumo Logic also offers real-time monitoring, which is not available in Datadog. In terms of raw APM features, though, Datadog comes out ahead.
Is Datadog or Sumo Logic Easier To Use?
Datadog installation is straightforward via the deployment of agents, but some command line scripting is required. It is relatively easy to customize dashboards and interfaces to the way you want them. The main interface offers a lot of capability. It’s great for experienced users, but it might be tough for new users who may be overwhelmed by the number of options.
Some users find Sumo Logic relatively easy to use; other don’t. the company offers a comprehensive API to address a wide range of log sources, data sources, and search parameters. But detailed configuration work may be required to get the most out of it.
Overall, Datadog gets the nod on implementation and ease of use.
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Datadog vs. Sumo Logic: Support and Integration Comparison
Datadog can work with a reasonable set of data sources and formats, but it is not a platform that is set up deal with a large number of information sources. For instance, data formats like.xml, .csv, and .json are not supported. That said, it integrates well with other security and IT management tools. Datadog supports community APIs and extensions to integrate it into existing IT infrastructure.
Sumo Logic can collect data from on-premise sources as well as SaaS and PaaS environments, and private, public, and hybrid clouds. The company has support personnel available to help customers with implementation and integration, and users generally report a good experience with Sumo Logic support. The company also offers free training, which helps with some of the trickier implementation and integration issues.
There is little to choose between them on support and integration. But where Sumo Logic pulls ahead is support for Kubernetes and containers in general. Datadog is said to be slower in tracing customer issues in containerized environments.
Datadog vs. Sumo Logic: Security Comparison
There was a time – several years back – when you could provide application performance management tools and software without worrying too much about security. How times have changed. Most vendors now have to take care of security as a vital aspect of application development or face serious repercussions. Similarly, in APM, vendors now have to ensure they are providing a safe environment for users.
As a SaaS application, Datadog has had to intensify its focus on security. It has been steadily adding security features in recent years. It has gotten certified (SOC 2 Type 2, CSA STAR, HIPAA, FedRAMP-Moderate Authorized). But it has further to go. Its basic query language supports relatively simple logic/count functions in its detection rules. Additionally, it is not yet PCI compliant.
Sumo Logic, on the other hand, can detect threats and respond to security incidents courtesy of its quite capable security suite. On top of the certifications held by Datadog, Sumo Logic boasts PCI DSS 3.2, and Privacy Shield. Sumo Logic wins on security.
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Datadog vs. Sumo Logic: Comparing Telemetry and Troubleshooting
Datadog supports a variety of open standards, including OpenTelemetry and OpenTracing. But Sumo Logic offers three types of telemetry — logs, metrics, and traces. This helps it to provide strong observability and security monitoring.
Sumo Logic is also stronger than Datadog on search. The Sumo Logic query language allows searches across structured and unstructured data from metrics and traces to logs, without the need to sample data for full fidelity. Datadog has search, too, and can correlate sampled sets of data together using breadcrumbs. But its search capabilities aren’t as extensive.
What is the Price Comparison Between Datadog and Sumo Logic?
Datadog prices out at around $15 per user, roughly (it is $23 for the Enterprise version). Datadog has an open pricing policy with published prices, and generally low prices. Its pricing per-month options include per-host, per million events, and per GB of analyzed log files. But Gartner noted that some large deals entail large upfront spending. According to the analyst firm, this can lead to over- and under-provisioning.
Sumo Logic has a free version, but its Professional version is far pricier than Datadog at $90 per month. Datadog wins on pricing.
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Datadog vs. Sumo Logic: Bottom Line
There is no doubt that Datadog and Sumo Logic are both excellent tools. They can solve a great many challenges related to application performance monitoring, log management, and more.
Datadog is probably the platform to choose based solely on the need for mainstream APM functions. It takes an infrastructure monitoring approach geared toward analytics and application performance. It is focused on performance measurement for cloud services. And is particularly adept at measuring the performance of databases and servers, as well as measuring performance in a multicloud world.
Since Datadog is aimed at monitoring infrastructure at scale, it’s used primarily by mid-sized companies and large enterprises. It is also favored by DevOps and IT to address cloud and infrastructure performance.
Sumo Logic enters the APM sector, but its strengths lie in search, real-time functionality, Kubernetes, and log management. For those specifically in need of log monitoring and the monitoring of Kubernetes-based applications, Sumo Logic comes out ahead.