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Best Cloud Monitoring in 2026

Cloud monitoring options can be compared by the environments they cover and the kinds of monitoring they provide. Check cloud-provider support and Kubernetes monitoring, then consider serverless and synthetic monitoring capabilities. Metrics and log retention help distinguish how long data is kept, while free-plan availability and paid-from pricing provide cost context. Netdata and Checkmk are among the entries, along with Grafana Cloud Application Observability and VictoriaMetrics. Compare these details with the services and infrastructure you need to watch, and the retention periods that fit your work.

  1. 1

    Akamai Cloud Longview

    Free plan Open source APILinuxWeb
    9.2 Free plan Visit site
  2. 2

    Checkmk

    Free plan Open source AndroidAPIiPhone+5

    Checkmk offers broad infrastructure coverage and several monitoring methods, with a free Community option for smaller environments.

    9.2 Free plan · paid from €190/mo (annual) · 30-day trial Visit site
  3. 3

    Netdata

    Free plan Open source AndroidAPIiPhone+5

    Netdata combines infrastructure metrics, logs, alerts, and troubleshooting across cloud and on-premises deployment options.

    8.8 Free plan · paid from $4.50/mo (annual) · 14-day trial Visit site
  4. 4

    Azure Monitor

    Free plan APILinuxMac+2
    7.6 Free plan · 30-day trial Visit site
  5. 5

    Google Cloud Monitoring

    Free plan APILinuxWeb+1

    Google Cloud Monitoring brings metrics, uptime checks, dashboards, and alerting into a cloud service with support for hybrid and multicloud environments.

    7.5 Free plan Visit site
  6. 6

    Grafana Cloud Application Observability

    Free plan AndroidAPIExtension+5

    Grafana Cloud Application Observability brings several telemetry types and service-level views together for application investigation.

    7.4 Free plan · paid from $0.03 Visit site
  7. 7

    Mackerel

    Free plan APILinuxWeb+1

    Mackerel combines host and service metrics with cloud and container monitoring options.

    7.3 Free plan · paid from 2,180 JPY/mo · 14-day trial Visit site
  8. 8

    Nagios XI

    Free plan APILinuxMac+3

    Nagios XI offers self-hosted monitoring, a limited free edition, and perpetual paid licenses priced by node count.

    7.2 From $4,995 · 30-day trial Visit site
  9. 9

    Prometheus

    Free plan LinuxMacSelf-hosted+2

    Prometheus provides a free monitoring and alerting toolkit with flexible metric collection and querying. Its stated accuracy limitation makes it unsuitable for per-request billing workloads.

    7.1 Free plan Visit site
  10. 10

    Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Container Registry

    Free plan APILinuxWeb
    7.0 Free plan Visit site
  11. 11

    Pixie

    Free plan LinuxSelf-hostedWeb

    Pixie provides Kubernetes telemetry collection and script-based debugging, with both hosted and self-hosted deployment options.

    7.0 Open source Visit site
  12. 12

    Robusta

    Free plan APISelf-hostedWeb

    Choose Robusta if your team needs AI assistance investigating alerts and wants control over deployment and model choice.

    6.9 Pricing on request Visit site
  13. 13

    VictoriaMetrics

    by VictoriaMetrics
    Free plan APILinuxMac+3

    VictoriaMetrics offers open-source and managed deployment paths for metrics, logs, and traces. Cloud buyers should review tier limits and hourly usage metering alongside the listed starting prices.

    6.9 Free plan Visit site
  14. 14

    Zabbix

    Free plan APILinuxMac+3

    Zabbix covers a broad range of monitoring sources and methods, with synthetic browser checks and a free plan. Subscription support and server or proxy allowances vary by tier.

    6.9 Free plan · paid from $50/mo · 5-day trial Visit site
  15. 15

    Grafana Alerting

    Free plan LinuxMacWeb+1
    6.8 Free plan · paid from $20/user Visit site
  16. 16

    Datadog Infrastructure Monitoring

    Free plan LinuxMacWeb+1
    6.7 Free plan · paid from $15/mo (annual) · 14-day trial Visit site
  17. 17

    Chronosphere Application Observability

    Free trial APILinuxMac+2

    Chronosphere combines service views, telemetry correlation, and tracing for cloud-native systems. Budgeting requires a direct pricing discussion, and pilots beyond the typical scope may have a cost.

    6.5 Pricing on request Visit site
  18. 18

    Alibaba CloudMonitor

    Free plan LinuxWebWindows
    6.4 Free plan Visit site
  19. 19

    DigitalOcean Monitoring

    Free plan Web

    Choose DigitalOcean Monitoring if you need free web monitoring for DigitalOcean Droplet usage, metrics, alerts, or Kubernetes. Look elsewhere if synthetic monitoring is part of your requirements.

    6.4 Free plan Visit site
  20. 20

    Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring

    Free plan LinuxWebWindows
    6.3 Free plan · paid from $15/mo (annual) Visit site
  21. 21

    Mackerel

    Free plan LinuxWebWindows
    6.2 Free plan · paid from 2,180 JPY/mo · 14-day trial Visit site
  22. 22

    Komodor

    Free trial APISelf-hostedWeb

    Komodor pairs agent workflows with shared operational context, evaluation, and governance controls.

    6.1 Pricing on request Visit site
  23. 23

    HostedMetrics

    Free trial APIWeb

    HostedMetrics brings dashboarding, alerting, and several ingestion routes into a managed monitoring service. Check the plan metric and team allowances against your needs before choosing a tier.

    6.0 From $79/mo (annual) · 14-day trial Visit site
  24. 24

    Huawei Cloud Eye

    Free plan Web
    5.8 Free plan Visit site
  25. 25

    MetricFire

    Free trial APIWeb

    MetricFire offers managed Graphite and Grafana with multiple metric-ingest methods, integrations and alerting.

    5.8 From $19/mo · 14-day trial Visit site

#1Places #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 on this list can be bought by the makers of the software on it. See the price

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