We are using Datadog to improve our monitoring and observability so we can hopefully improve our customer experience and reliability.

I have been using Datadog to build better actionable alerts to help teams across the enterprise. Also by using Datadog we are hoping to have improved observability into our apps and we are also taking advantage of this process to improve our tagging strategy so teams can hopefully troubleshoot incidents faster and a much reduced mean time to resolve.

We have a lot of different resources we use like Kubernetes, App Gateway and Cosmos DB just to name a few.

As soon as we started implementing Datadog into our cloud environment people really like how it looked and how easy it was to navigate. We could see the most data in our Kubernetes environments than we ever could.

Some people liked how the logs were color coded so it was easy to see what kind of log you were looking at. The ease of making dashboards has also been greatly received as a benefit.

People have commented that there is so much information that it takes a time to digest and get used to what you are looking at and finding what you are looking for.

The selection of monitors is a big feature I have been working with. Previously with Azure Monitor we couldn't do a whole lot with their alerts. The log alerts can sometimes take a while to ingest. Also, we couldn't do any math with the metrics we received from logs to make better alerts from logs.

The metric alerts are ok but are still very limited. With Datadog, we can make a wide range of different monitors that we can tweak in real time because there is a graph of data as you are creating the alert which is very beneficial. The ease of making dashboards has saved a lot of people a lot of time. No KQL queries to put together the information you are looking for and the ability to pin any info you see into a dashboard is very convenient.

RUM is another feature we are looking forward to using this upcoming tax season, as we will have a front-row view into what frustrates customers or where things go wrong in their process of using our site.

The PagerDuty integration could be a little bit better. If there was a way to format the monitors to different incident management software that would be awesome. As of right now, it takes a lot of manipulating of PagerDuty to get the monitors from Datadog to populate all the fields we want in PagerDuty.

I love the fact you can query data without using something like KQL. However, it would also be helpful if there was a way to convert a complex KQL query into Datadog to be able to retrieve the same data - especially for very specific scenarios that some app teams may want to look for.

I've used the solution for about two years.

We previously used Azure Monitor, App Insights, and Log Analytics. We switched because it was a lot for developers and SREs to switch between three screens to try troubleshoot and when you add in the slow load times from Azure it can take a while to get things done.

I would advise taking a close look at logging costs, man-hours needed, and the amount of time it takes for people to get comfortable navigating Datadog because there is so much information that it can be overwhelming to narrow down what you need.

We did evaluate DynaTrace and looked into New Relic before settling on Datadog.

We use Datadog as our main log ingestion source, and Datadog is one of the first places we go to for analyzing logs.

This is especially true for cases of debugging, monitoring, and alerting on errors and incidents, as we use traffic logs from K8s, Amazon Web Services, and many other services at our company to Datadog. In addition, many products and teams at our company have dashboards for monitoring statistics (sometimes based on these logs directly, other times we set queries for these metrics) to alert us if there are any errors or health issues.

Overall, at my company, Datadog has made it easy to search for and look up logs at an impressively quick search rate over a large amount of logs.

It seamlessly allows you to set up monitoring and alerting directly from log queries which is convenient and helps for a good user experience, and while there is a bit of a learning curve, given enough time a majority of my company now uses Datadog as the first place to check when there are errors or bugs.

However, the cost aspect of Datadog is tricky to gauge because it's related to usage, and thus, it is hard to tell the relative value of Datadog year to year.

The feature I've found most valuable is the log search feature. It's set up with our ingestion to be a quick one-stop shop, is reliable and quick, and seamlessly integrates into building custom monitors and alerts based on log volume and timeframes.

As a result, it's easy to leverage this to triage bugs and errors, since we can pinpoint the logs around the time that they occur and get metadata/context around the issue. This is the main feature that I use the most in my workflow with Datadog to help debug and triage issues.

More helpful log search keywords/tips would be helpful in improving Datadog's log dashboard. I recently struggled a lot to parse text from raw line logs that didn't seem to match directly with facets. There should be smart searching capabilities. However, it's not intuitive to learn how to leverage them, and instead had to resort to a Python script to do some simple regex parsing (I was trying to parse "file:folder/*/*" from the logs and yet didn't seem to be able to do this in Datadog, maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the logs but didn't seem to easily find resources on how to do this either).

I've used the solution for 10 months.

Beware that the cost will fluctuate (and it often only gets more expensive very quickly).

The primary use case for this solution is to enhance our monitoring visibility, determine the root cause of incidents, understand end-user behaviour from their point of view (RUM), and understand application performance.

Our technical environment consists of a local dev env where Datadog is not enabled, we have deployed environments that range from UAT testing with our product org to ephemeral stacks that our developers use to test there code not on there computer. We also have a mobile app where testing is also performed.

Datadog has greatly improved our organization in many ways. Some of those ways include greater visibility into application performance, understanding of end-user behavior, and a single pane of glass view into our entire infrastructure.

Regarding visibility, our organization previously used New Relic, and when incidents or regressions happened, New Relic's query language was very hard to use. End-user behavior in RUM has improved our ability to know what to focus on. Lastly, the single pane of glass view with maneuvering between products has helped us truly understand root causes after incidents.

APM has been a top feature for us. I can speak for all developers here: they use it more often than other products. Due to a standard in tracing (even though it is customizable), engineers find it easier to walk a trace than to understand what went wrong when looking at logging.

Another feature that I find valuable, though it isn't the first one that comes to mind, is Watchdog. I have found that has been a good source of understanding anomalies and where maybe we (as an organization) need more monitoring coverage.

I am not 100% sure how this is done or if it can be though I've had a lot of education I've had to do to ramp developers up on the platform. This feels like the nature of just the sheer growth and number of products Datadog now offers.

When I first started using the Datadog platform, I thought that was a big pro of the company that the ramp-up time was much quicker, not having to learn a query language. I still believe that to be true when comparing the product to someone like New Relic though with the wide range of products Datadog now offers it can be a bit intimidating to developers to know where to go to find what they want.

I have been using the solution at my current company for almost four years, and have used it at my previous company as well.

A while ago, we used New Relic, and we switched due to Datadog being a better product.

We did the implementation in-house.

The value compared to pricing is reasonable, though it can be a bit of a sticker shock to some.

We did not evaluate other options.

We use Datadog for log aggregation and management, metrics aggregation, application performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring (serverless (Lambda functions), containers (EKS), standalone hosts (EC2)), database monitoring (RDS) and alerting based on metric thresholds and anomalies, log events, APM anomalies, forecasted threshold breaches, host behaviors and synthetics tests.

Datadog serves a whole host of purposes for us, with an all-in-one UI and integrations between them built in and handled without any effort required from us.

We use Datadog for nearly all of our monitoring and information analysis from the infrastructure level up through the application stack.

Datadog provides us value in three major ways:

First, Datadog provides best-in-class functionality in many, if not all, of the products to which we subscribe (infrastructure, APM, log management, serverless, synthetics, real user monitoring, DB monitoring). In my experience with other tools that provide similar functionality, Datadog provides the largest feature set with the most flexibility and the best performance.

Second, Datadog allows us to access all of those services in one place. Having to learn and manage only one tool for all of those purposes is a major benefit.

Third, Datadog provides significant connectivity between those services so that we can view, summarize, organize, translate and correlate our data with maximum effect. Not needing to manually integrate them to draw lines between those pieces of information is a huge time savings for us.

I use log management and monitors most often.

Log management is a great way for me to identify changes in behavior across services and environments as we make changes or as user behavior evolves. I can filter out excess or not useful logs, in part or in full, I can look for trends and I can group by multiple facets.

Monitors allow me to rest easy knowing that I'll be alerted to unexpected changes in behavior throughout our environments so that I can be proactive without having to dedicate active cycles to watching all facets of our environments.

In my four years using the product, the only feature request I, or anyone on my team, has had was the ability to view query parameters in query samples.

Otherwise, improvements are already released faster than we can give them sufficient time and attention, so I'm very happy with the product and don't have any specific requests at this time.

The cost does add up quickly, so it can be some effort to justify the necessary outlay to those paying the bills. That said, Datadog provides sufficient benefits to warrant our continued use.

I've used the solution for four years.

In four years of daily use I haven't noticed any periods of downtime.

It's amazing to me how performant Datadog is given how much data we pass to it.

We've opened probably six or eight support tickets in four years of use. In some cases, the problem or question was complex and took some time to resolve. That said, customer support was always able to debug the issue and find a solution for us, so my experience has been very positive.

I've used New Relic, Honeycomb, Grafana, Splunk, Prometheus, Graylog and others.

Given the breadth of configuration options, the initial setup was fairly involved for us. We also use several services and deploy the agent in various ways because we're using traditional servers, serverless, and K8s.

We implemented the solution in-house.

The solution can be pricey if you're using many services and/or shipping lots of data, but in my opinion, the value is greater than the cost, so I would suggest doing an evaluation before making a decision.

From day one, we have seamlessly integrated our new product into Datadog, a comprehensive monitoring and analytics platform. By doing so, we are continuously collecting essential data such as host information, system logs, and key performance metrics. This enables us to gain deep insights into product adoption, monitor usage patterns, and ensure optimal performance. Additionally, we use Datadog to capture and analyze errors in real-time, allowing us to troubleshoot, replay, and resolve production issues efficiently.

It has proven invaluable in helping us identify early issues within the product as soon as they occur, allowing us to take immediate action before they escalate into more significant problems. This proactive approach ensures that potential challenges are addressed in real-time, minimizing any impact on users. Furthermore, the system allows us to measure product adoption and usage trends effectively, providing insights into how customers are interacting with the product and identifying areas for improvement or enhancement.

There isn't any single aspect that stands out in particular; rather, everything is interconnected and works together harmoniously. Each component complements the other, creating a cohesive system where data, logs, and metrics are seamlessly integrated. This interconnectedness ensures that no part operates in isolation, allowing for a more holistic view of the product's performance and health. The way everything binds together strengthens our ability to monitor, analyze, and improve the product efficiently.

At the moment, nothing specific comes to mind. Everything seems to be functioning well, and there are no immediate concerns or issues that I can think of.

The system is operating as expected, and any challenges we've faced so far have been successfully addressed. If anything does come up in the future, we will continue to monitor and assess it accordingly, but right now, there’s nothing that stands out requiring attention or improvement.

Datadog is too pricey when compared to its competitors, and this is something that its always on my mind during the decision-making process.

I've used the solution for nearly two years now.

Our primary use case for Datadog is monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing the performance and health of our applications and infrastructure.

We leverage its logging, metrics, and tracing capabilities to pinpoint issues, track system performance, and improve overall reliability. Datadog’s ability to provide real-time insights and alerting on key metrics helps us quickly address issues, ensuring smooth operations.

It’s integral for visibility across our microservices architecture and cloud environments.

Datadog has been incredibly valuable to our organization. Its ability to pinpoint warnings and errors in logs and provide detailed context is essential for troubleshooting.

The platform's request tracing feature offers comprehensive insights into user flows, allowing us to quickly identify issues and optimize performance.

Additionally, Datadog's real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities help us proactively manage system health, ensuring operational efficiency across our applications and infrastructure.

Being able to filter requests by latency is invaluable, as it provides immediate insight into which endpoints require further analysis and optimization. This feature helps us quickly identify performance bottlenecks and prioritize improvements.

Additionally, the ability to filter requests by user email is extremely useful for tracking down user-specific issues faster. It streamlines the troubleshooting process and enables us to provide more targeted support to individual users, improving overall customer satisfaction.

The query performance could be improved, particularly when handling large datasets, as slower response times can hinder efficiency. Additionally, the interface can sometimes feel overwhelming, with so much happening at once, which may discourage users from exploring new features. Simplifying the layout or providing clearer guidance could enhance user experience. Any improvements related to query optimization would be highly beneficial, as it would further streamline workflows and boost productivity.

I've used the solution for five years.

Our primary use case is custom and vendor supplied web application log aggregation, performance tracing and alerting. We run a mix of AWS EC2, Azure serverless, and colocated VMWare servers to support higher education web applications.

Managing a hybrid multi-cloud solution across hundreds of applications is always a challenge. Datadog agents on each web host, and native integrations with GitHub, AWS, and Azure gets all of our instrumentation and error data in one place for easy analysis and monitoring.

Through use of Datadog across all of our apps we were able to consolidate a number of alerting and error tracking apps and Datadog ties them all together in cohesive dashboards.

Whether the app is vendor-supplied or we built it ourselves, the depth of tracing, profiling, and hooking into logs is all obtainable and tunable. Both legacy .NET Framework and Windows Event Viewer and cutting edge .NET Core with streaming logs all work.

The breadth of coverage for any app type or situation is really incredible. It feels like there's nothing we can't monitor.

When it comes to Datadog, several features have proven particularly valuable. The centralized pipeline tracking and error logging provides a comprehensive view of our development and deployment processes, making it much easier to identify and resolve issues quickly.

Synthetic testing has been a game-changer, allowing us to catch potential problems before they impact real users. Real user monitoring gives us invaluable insights into actual user experiences, helping us prioritize improvements where they matter most. And the ability to create custom dashboards has been incredibly useful, allowing us to visualize key metrics and KPIs in a way that makes sense for different teams and stakeholders.

Together, these features form a powerful toolkit that helps us maintain high performance and reliability across our applications and infrastructure, ultimately leading to better user satisfaction and more efficient operations.

I'd like to see an expansion of the Android and IOS apps to have a simplified CI/CD pipeline history view. I like the idea of monitoring on the go yet it seems the options are still a bit limited out of the box. While the documentation is very good considering all the frameworks and technology Datadog covers, there are areas - specifically .NET Profiling and Tracing of IIS-hosted apps - that need a lot of focus to pick up on the key details needed. In some cases the screenshots don't match the text as updates are made. I spent longer than I should figuring out how to correlate logs to traces, mostly related to environmental variables.

I've used the solution for about three years.

We have been impressed with the uptime and clean and light resource usage of the agents.

The solution is very scalable, very customizable.

Service is always helpful in tuning our committed costs and alerting us when we start spending outside the on-demand budget.

We used a mix of a custom error email system, SolarWinds, UptimeRobot, and GitHub actions. We switched to find one platform that could give deep app visibility regardless of whether it is Linux or Windows or Container, cloud or on-prem hosted.

The setup was generally simple. However, .NET Profiling of IIS and aligning logs to traces and profiles was a challenge.

We implemented the solution in-house.

I'd count our ROI as significant time saved by the development team assessing bugs and performance issues.

Set up live trials to asses cost scaling. Small decisions around how monitors are used can have big impacts on cost scaling.

NewRelic was considered. LogicMonitor was chosen over Datadog for our network and campus server management use cases.

I'm excited to dig further into the new offerings around LLM and continue to grow our footprint in Datadog.