Architecture comparison

Datadog vs Grafana Labs

Grafana Labs runs closer to the foundational model (Direct API) than Datadog (Cloud-hosted (Bedrock/Vertex/Azure)). No shared foundational model — different bets.

Datadog

Observability

Proximity

Cloud-hosted (Bedrock/Vertex/Azure)

Models

Anthropic · Claude

Cloud · datastore

Multi-CloudPostgreSQLCassandraKafkaElasticsearch

Compliance

SOC 2HIPAAFedRAMPISO 27001

Architecture

Runs primarily on AWS with significant GCP presence; ingests trillions of points/day through Kafka into Cassandra and custom time-series stores. Bits AI / Watchdog use in-house anomaly ML plus LLMs.

Grafana Labs

Observability

Proximity

Direct API

Models

OpenAI · GPT

Cloud · datastore

Multi-CloudGrafana MimirGrafana LokiGrafana TempoPrometheusObject storage (AWS S3, GCS, Azure Blob)

Compliance

SOC 2ISO 27001GDPRHIPAA (partial/BAA for specific offerings)

Architecture

Grafana Cloud runs a SaaS observability platform built on its open source engines (Mimir, Loki, Tempo, Prometheus) deployed across major public clouds with object storage backends like S3/GCS/Azure Blob for long‑term data. The core Grafana server is a Go backend with a React/TypeScript frontend that acts as a visualization and control plane over these distributed storage and query services.

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