Real-time insights have uncovered issues and helped reduce unnecessary resource usage
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Datadog is application and portal monitoring.
For application or portal monitoring, we have several monitors set up that give us a heads up early when we believe there's a problem with end users getting to the applications that are available to them on the portal. Just yesterday, we were able to identify an error in code that was throwing thousands of errors a day, and it was very simple for us to actually find it using Datadog analytics on the error and the Watchdog alerts.
I don't have anything else to add about my main use case, other than the ease with which we were able to identify an issue that we previously, when we didn't have Datadog, might not even be aware of, but was consuming resources that it didn't need to.
What is most valuable?
In my opinion, the best features Datadog offers are flexibility and extensive support. It can be a little overwhelming since there are so many features that come with Datadog, and I'm just scratching the surface of that. I also appreciate the support that our representative has provided to us, coming on-prem, providing training, being available to answer questions, and the extensive knowledge base documentation that I have been referred to, which has been extremely helpful also.
The flexibility I mentioned shows up in my day-to-day work because traditionally, I was using SolarWinds to monitor infrastructure health, but the polling period is lengthier than we would like to see. Datadog specifically has real-time monitoring, and the alerts that we have configured are coming to us much quicker. We're able to address an issue sooner rather than later, and when it comes to reviewing .NET code or application configuration, I only had limited visibility, but with Datadog doing the analysis of the IIS logs and any other application logs, it's also opened up visibility to me so that I can assist a developer in identifying the area of concern or where a code could be more efficiently written.
Datadog has positively impacted my organization by helping us make our web portals more efficient. Our portals and integrations are extremely complex, and as we get the agent installed on more devices, it's really provided us visibility that we haven't had in my entire career with Ace Hardware.
I cannot provide specific numbers for the improved performance, but Datadog has identified issues that we have in our data source area. We have implemented additional indexes and have plans for breaking out complex queries that are pulling data across multiple data sources. We're in the crawl, walk, run phase, so right now we're identifying and prioritizing the things that need to be fixed. A few of the things that we've already addressed include adding additional resources to servers, and we have noticed improved performance. I know someone has the statistics; I just don't have them available to me at the moment.
What needs improvement?
At this point, I'm not sure how Datadog can be improved, but maybe some initial intense training from the vendor before setting us loose with the application is the only thing I can think of.
I think it would be helpful to have an administrative page right from the portal that gives us links to the application documentation. I have separate URLs to get to the various locations that I need to go to, but unless I'm just not seeing them, I have to go to separate URLs. I cannot get to some of the documentation and various other components from my company-specific portal.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Datadog for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Other than being restricted by cost, Datadog's scalability has been a little bit of a challenge to do the initial installation of the agent. We have upgraded all of our agents so that we can do the upgrades remotely, but the initial install is still a little time-consuming and a little clunky.
How are customer service and support?
I think the customer support is great. I love the ability to send flares directly from the machine or device that's having an issue, and my tickets are always opened promptly. I usually get links to documentation about the specific feature or function that I'm trying to implement, and when I have additional questions, the ticket is updated with actual recommendations or suggestions pointing me in the correct direction.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We continue to use SolarWinds, although I can see the infrastructure monitoring component of SolarWinds being replaced with Datadog. We also used Catchpoint to run synthetic scripts from various locations throughout the country, and we use Pingdom for our e-commerce solution. We're trying to phase out Pingdom at this time with the help of Datadog engineers, and we have ceased using Catchpoint because we have created those synthetic scripts within Datadog.
What was our ROI?
At this point, I'm leaving the return on investment metrics to my manager and director. I'm just focused on getting it up and running, installed, upgraded, and helping to train other folks to use it. I know they're trying to keep metrics on all of those questions, but I'm just not focusing on that at this time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I was not included in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing decisions, but I have needed to gain more information about licensing and individual feature cost projections. Everybody wants the agent installed, but we only have so many dollars to spread across, so it's been difficult for me to prioritize who will benefit from Datadog at this time.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We use
Azure for our hybrid cloud setup.
What other advice do I have?
I'm excited to learn more about the application and can't wait as my knowledge expands, all the exciting things that we might be able to do with the tool.
I rate Datadog an 8 out of 10, only because I haven't had the ability to explore everything that I intend to explore, and some of the more complex monitors that I want to create I'm just not able to intuitively do. But that might be on me and not the product. The complexity and my lack of knowledge related to all the features and how I can use them keep it from being a 10 for me.
I would advise others looking into using Datadog to do more training and become much more familiar with the product before going live with it. There are so many wonderful things that can be done with it that it's a little overwhelming to only attempt to configure those or investigate them when the product's already live.
I'm excited to continue to learn and explore the tool. It's giving me some insight into systems that I have not had for the past 17 years, so it's exciting to be able to see that and put it to use almost immediately.
Powerful and User friendly Observability Platform
What do you like best about the product?
Datadog is very easy to use and provides a unified platform for monitoring, metrics, logs, and traces. I really like the Log Explorer, it’s powerful and flexible, especially when building complex queries to filter and analyze data. The Metric Explorer and APM features are excellent for tracking performance and identifying bottlenecks across different services. User management is straightforward, and setting up monitors is quick and reliable. Integration is also straightforward, in our case, we use it with Microsoft Teams and Azure without any issues. Their customer support has always been responsive and helpful whenever we’ve needed assistance. Overall, it’s a powerful and easy-to-use observability platform that provides deep visibility across systems and applications.
What do you dislike about the product?
Dashboards can feel limited at times, building more advanced or highly customized visualizations isn’t always straightforward.
Another drawback is the cost as Datadog can become extremely expensive if not managed carefully, especially when log volumes or monitored hosts grow quickly.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Datadog helps us centralize monitoring across all our infrastructure and applications. We use it to collect logs, metrics, and traces in one place, making it much easier to detect and troubleshoot issues before they impact users. With APM and monitors, we can quickly identify performance bottlenecks and track down root causes. The integration with Azure and Microsoft Teams allows us to get alerts and insights directly where we collaborate, improving response times. Overall, Datadog gives us better visibility, faster incident resolution, and a clearer understanding of system health across environments.
Powerful monitoring and observability platform
What do you like best about the product?
Datadog offers a comprehensive set of monitoring tools that make it easy to visualize, alert, and analyze performance metrics in real time. I particularly like how seamlessly it integrates with various cloud platforms and services. The dashboards are customizable and give great visibility into system health, which helps our team react faster to issues.
What do you dislike about the product?
Datadog can get expensive as usage scales, especially with multiple integrations and high data ingestion. The pricing model isn't always transparent, and configuring some advanced features can be a bit complex without strong technical knowledge or documentation.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Datadog helps us monitor infrastructure, applications, and logs in real time, all in one place. It reduces downtime by alerting us quickly to issues and provides visibility across distributed systems. This centralized observability improves team efficiency and helps us deliver better performance to end users.
great cross-platform observability
What do you like best about the product?
unified observability view and observability backend features
What do you dislike about the product?
need cost-effective solution and need better documentation
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
aggregate observability data from various platforms
Exp here
What do you like best about the product?
The dashboard demo, the service map, and the people here
What do you dislike about the product?
The front desk did not have my registration data when I arrived this morning
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The niche market data analysis, log data analysis, and alert messages to customers
One stop shop for all my observability
What do you like best about the product?
Love how it integrates all of our different software surfaces: mobile apps, databases, APIs, and internal tools. And there are always more features coming out.
What do you dislike about the product?
There are so many features! It can be hard to figure out exactly how to get the most out of it.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We're a lean software team and datadog helps me get to the root cause of customer issues quickly.
Great amount of tools for debugging issues
What do you like best about the product?
Love using their RUM events feature to debug slow pages, overall the metrics are reliable and great to work with.
What do you dislike about the product?
Hard to onboard if a new user, but overall has a lot of tools just wish I could onboard onto them faster
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Helping me debug performance issues with our website at different urls
One Platform to rule them all!
What do you like best about the product?
- integration of various modules are finally coming together
- the graphing capabilities are great
- response time
What do you dislike about the product?
- some of the features are not as reliable or working, as promised. For example, BitsAI is solid on hype but short on delivering in production incident scenarios. Many of the DataDog's own product do not provide BitsAI integration so one has to still stitch the information together across the modules.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
- it is a single product to help detect, troubleshoot and resolve any production problems
SRE
What do you like best about the product?
Single panel for all issues ,monitoring , alerts
What do you dislike about the product?
Cost is more compared to other traditional monitoring
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Day to day monitoring
Datadog review
What do you like best about the product?
The easy on negative on APM trace/logs, and easy to apply filters
What do you dislike about the product?
trick to find the setting/app I am looking for
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We use datadog dashboard and alerts, it's straightforward to view the metrics and investigate the abnormal
