groundcover

groundcover is an observability platform for production systems, using eBPF to gather telemetry across Linux and Kubernetes environments. It is best suited to teams that need broad visibility and control over where monitoring data is hosted. Its main appeal is unsampled collection paired with several deployment choices; per-host pricing and short free-plan retention are important trade-offs.

Overview

The eBPF sensor collects metrics, logs, and traces without application code changes or manual instrumentation. It processes data at the edge, and groundcover says ingestion is real time and unsampled. Distributed and transaction tracing, dependency mapping, real user monitoring, and log correlation make this a broad observability option rather than a tool focused on one telemetry type.

Deployment flexibility is a strength. Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) places the backend in the customer’s cloud, managed by groundcover, while groundcover hosts the UI. Fully On-Prem keeps both backend and UI on customer premises, including cloud or physical servers. Billing follows average monthly monitored Kubernetes nodes or Linux hosts, not telemetry volume: that can make host counts easier to budget, but costs may not track data generation.

Key features

• Edge-based telemetry: Collection of metrics, logs, and traces without manual instrumentation can suit teams seeking production visibility without code changes. Real-time, unsampled ingestion is a meaningful advantage when sampling would leave gaps, though the published pricing basis is hosts rather than volume.
• Deployment choices: BYOC offers a managed backend in the customer’s cloud with a groundcover-hosted interface. Fully On-Prem keeps both components on customer premises, which is the option for organizations that need the UI hosted alongside the backend.
• Integrations: Connections include Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Monitoring, Azure, MongoDB Atlas, Redis Cloud, Datadog, and GitHub. This range can help teams bring existing sources into the platform.
• Agent Mode: The AI agent can investigate telemetry and create dashboards, monitors, gcQL queries, and OTTL pipelines. It runs on Amazon Bedrock, OpenAI ChatGPT, or Anthropic Claude inside the customer’s cloud; prompts, logs, and traces stay within that infrastructure, according to groundcover.
• Security and support: The Trust Center covers CCPA, GDPR, HIPAA, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, SOC 2 Type 2, and PCI DSS topics and provides access to security documents. Standard support operates during business hours, with response targets ranging from under 8 hours for critical issues to under 72 hours for low-priority issues.

Pricing

groundcover uses freemium pricing, with paid plans billed per monitored host per month. The free plan is a useful way to start, but its 12-hour retention and Slack Community support make it a limited fit for teams needing longer history or formal support.

The higher tiers add retention, support, access controls, and deployment control, so the price step from Pro to Enterprise may matter most to teams with long-lived investigations or stricter access needs. The free tier’s 12-hour window is a substantial constraint for historical analysis.

Platforms

groundcover supports Linux, self-hosted deployment, and web access. Its hybrid deployment model allows a managed arrangement in the customer’s cloud or a fully on-premises setup.

Who it's for

groundcover is a strong candidate for infrastructure and platform teams monitoring Kubernetes or Linux hosts that want metrics, logs, and traces together, without adding instrumentation, and need a choice between BYOC and fully on-premises hosting. It is less compelling for buyers whose costs should scale with telemetry volume, or who need substantial retention and support but cannot justify per-host paid tiers.

Pros and cons

• Pro: eBPF collection covers metrics, logs, and traces without code changes or manual instrumentation, lowering the need for application-level changes to begin gathering telemetry.
• Pro: BYOC and Full On-Prem provide meaningful control over backend and UI placement for different infrastructure requirements.
• Pro: The paid tiers distinguish standard from unlimited retention and premium support, making the trade-up clear for teams with longer operational needs.
• Con: The free plan retains data for only 12 hours and provides Slack Community support, limiting its usefulness for extended incident review.
• Con: Per-host pricing is not tied to telemetry volume, which may be a mismatch for environments where host count is a poor proxy for monitoring cost.
• Con: The On Premise tier costs $50 a month per host, a material premium over Pro for teams that specifically need self-hosted data and UI.

Alternatives

For a wider view of the category, compare eBPF Observability Tools, Observability Platforms, Application Performance Monitoring, Metrics Monitoring Tools, Kubernetes Monitoring, and Log Management Software.

• Kubeshark is worth comparing for a free community plan capped at 3 nodes or 60 pods, with unlimited API call capacity and a requirement for internet connectivity.
• DeepFlow is an alternative for teams seeking a free open-source edition that supports Linux servers and selected Kubernetes, cloud, and container environments.
• Qpoint may suit teams focused on endpoint discovery and monitoring, with its community tier covering up to 25 endpoints and including policy plugins and source enforcement.
• Coroot offers a self-hosted Apache 2.0 Community Edition with core features; consider it when an open-source self-hosted starting point is preferable.
• Inspektor Gadget is a free open-source tools and framework option, with Linux 5.10+ and BTF required for project gadgets.
• Kindling is free forever, with no premium tiers, subscriptions, or feature gates.
• Odigos offers an open-source Apache 2.0 tier for core OpenTelemetry tracing with community support.
• Parca is another alternative.

Verdict

Choose groundcover if your team monitors Kubernetes or Linux hosts and wants unsampled eBPF telemetry with a path from BYOC to full on-premises hosting. The combination of broad telemetry and deployment control is its clearest reason to choose it. Look elsewhere if 12-hour free retention is too short, if per-host billing does not fit your workload, or if the paid support and retention tiers do not match your budget.