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Datadog is the broadest observability suite on the market, and its bill is shaped by hosts, agents and add-on products. Maple is an open-source observability platform for traces, logs and metrics that ingests OpenTelemetry directly and bills on data volume. Below: where the two differ, where Datadog is ahead, and what the same month costs on each.
Differences
Every cell is a sentence. The gutter says who has the edge on that row; rows where both tools do the same thing are collapsed into one line at the end.
| Topic | Maple | Datadog | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where they differ | |||
| Pricing model | $39 a month with 100 GB per signal included, then $0.30 per GB. Browser sessions are the only other meter: 5,000 a month included, then $0.002 each. | Infrastructure from $15 per host, APM from $31 per host, logs $0.10 per GB ingested plus $1.70 per million indexed events at 15-day retention. Custom metrics, RUM and each add-on product are priced separately. 1 | Maple |
| Per-host fees | None. A hundred containers on one host or one process on a hundred hosts cost the same at equal volume. | Infrastructure and APM are both metered per host, and containers draw down a per-host allotment. 1 | Maple |
| Agents | None. Any OpenTelemetry SDK or the OpenTelemetry Collector sends OTLP straight to Maple. | The Datadog Agent and Datadog tracing libraries. OTLP is accepted through the Agent, the Collector's Datadog exporter or direct OTLP intake, and some features need the Agent. 2 | Maple |
| Source code | On GitHub under FSL-1.1, converting to Apache 2.0 two years after each release. | Proprietary. The Agent is open source; the platform is not. | Maple |
| Self-hosting | Yes. Run the whole platform on your own infrastructure, including your own ClickHouse. | No. SaaS only. | Maple |
| Retention | 30 days on the cloud plan, longer on Enterprise, and your call when you self-host. | Indexed logs are priced at the retention you pick, 3 to 30 days; the $1.70 list rate is the 15-day option. Each other product carries its own retention. 3 | Maple |
| Time to first trace | Point an OTLP exporter at Maple. First traces arrive within minutes. | Roll out the Agent per host or as a DaemonSet, then enable and configure each product. | Maple |
| AI and agents | Built-in diagnostics plus a hosted MCP server, so Claude, Cursor or any agent can query your telemetry. | Bits AI across the platform and an MCP server. 4 | Even |
| Where Datadog is ahead | |||
| Synthetic monitoring | Not available. Alerts evaluate real traffic only. | API and browser tests from managed locations, priced per ten thousand runs. 1 | Datadog |
| Security and network products | Not available. | Network Performance Monitoring, Cloud SIEM, Cloud Security and CI Visibility: a product for each layer, each on its own meter. 1 | Datadog |
| Integration catalog | OpenTelemetry receivers plus a catalog of connected providers: Cloudflare, Prometheus, PlanetScale, WarpStream, Hazel and GitHub. Kubernetes and Docker are agent installs. | More than 800 vendor-maintained integrations, many for systems that never emit OpenTelemetry. 5 | Datadog |
| Frontend and mobile | Session replay correlated with backend traces, web analytics from the browser SDK, and a Swift SDK. | Full RUM with funnels, heatmaps and error tracking, plus mobile RUM for iOS and Android. 1 | Datadog |
| Compliance attestations | SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification in progress. Maple Cloud runs in the US or the EU (Frankfurt), and self-hosting keeps the data in your own audited environment. | SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and FedRAMP attestations with regional sites. 6 | Datadog |
Price
A reference workload priced on both at list price. Change the sliders underneath for your own numbers.
Reference workload Infrastructure hosts 15 hosts · APM hosts 10 hosts · Log volume 100 GB/mo · Team size 10 users
$84 per month
| Startup plan 100 GB per signal included | $39 |
|---|---|
| Overage 150 GB over × $0.30 | $45 |
| Team seats No per-seat fees | Free |
| Total | $84 |
$571 per month
| Infrastructure 15 hosts × $15 | $225 |
|---|---|
| APM 10 hosts × $31 | $310 |
| Log management 100 GB ingested + indexing | $36 |
| Total | $571 |
$487 less per month on Maple · $5.8k a year
Adjust for your usage
List prices checked September 2026. Sources at the foot of the page. Maple pricing based on the Startup plan ($39/mo with 100 GB included per signal (logs, traces, metrics), then $0.30/GB, billed per signal), metered on uncompressed (decoded OTLP) bytes. Trace volume is estimated at about 25 GB of spans per APM host a month. Datadog log indexing assumes 1 KB per event with 15% of events indexed.
Migration
Telemetry moves with one exporter change. Dashboards and alert rules don't cross vendors, so plan those as the real work.
Services already on OpenTelemetry SDKs need no code change. Add Maple as a second OTLP exporter and ship to both backends while you compare.
Where the Datadog Agent is the only source, run the OpenTelemetry Collector with the same receivers, host metrics, Kubernetes and file logs, and export OTLP to Maple.
Dashboards and monitors don't cross vendors. Maple's builder and alert rules cover the common set, and the MCP server can draft both from a description.
exporters: datadog: api: key: ${env:DD_API_KEY} otlphttp/maple: endpoint: https://ingest.maple.dev headers: x-maple-ingest-key: ${env:MAPLE_INGEST_KEY} service: pipelines: traces: exporters: [datadog, otlphttp/maple] logs: exporters: [datadog, otlphttp/maple] metrics: exporters: [datadog, otlphttp/maple]Sources
Vendor facts on this page link to the vendor's own pages and carry the month they were last checked. If one is stale, tell us.
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Point one exporter at Maple and run both for a week. The free trial needs a card, with no charge until it ends.