Continue vs Datadog — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Datadog starts at $18/mo. Continue uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Continue (Per Seat) — Continue bills on a fixed plan, so the listed price is what you pay regardless of volume.
- Datadog (Per Usage) — Datadog bills on usage — host on top of a paid plan starting at $18/mo. The plan includes an allowance; anything beyond it is metered.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Open-source AI code assistant that runs as an extension in VS Code, JetBrains, and other editors. Individual use is free (BYOK for LLM). Continue for Teams costs $10/user/mo and adds shared prompts, custom AI blocks, and analytics. Enterprise adds SSO, on-prem, and custom integrations. Positioned as the open-source alternative to GitHub Copilot with full customization of models and prompts.
The dominant cloud observability platform (metrics, logs, traces, APM), publicly traded (DDOG), ~$45B market cap. Positioned as the alternative to New Relic + Splunk + PagerDuty stitched together. Distinctive for its notorious usage-based pricing that has surprised engineering teams with 6-figure monthly bills (Coinbase's leaked contract was ~$65M/year in 2022). Priced by seat + host + volume across 20+ meters. Popular with engineering teams; feared by finance teams.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Continue monthly | Continue annual | Datadog monthly | Datadog annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | — / Free | — | — | Free | Free |
| Entry paid | — / Infrastructure Pro | — | — | $18 | $15 |
| Enterprise | — / Infrastructure Enterprise | — | — | $27 | $23 |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Continue is worth it if… developers and teams that want to customize their AI coding stack — choose your own model, write custom prompts, share blocks across the team. Individual tier is free with BYOK; Teams ($10/user/mo) is the cheapest way to standardize prompts across a team.
Datadog is worth it if… infrastructure teams (10+ engineers) that need APM + logs + metrics + synthetics + RUM in one platform — the observability default at mid-market and enterprise scale. Infrastructure covers hosts; APM, Logs, RUM, Synthetics, Database Monitoring each priced separately per module.
Bottom line: Choose based on how you want to pay — Continue is per seat, Datadog is per usage.
Choose Continue over Datadog if…
Choose Continue if…
- You want fixed-price predictability (per seat, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile Continue is built for: developers and teams that want to customize their AI coding stack — choose your own model, write custom prompts, share blocks across the team.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose Datadog if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, from $18/mo).
- You match the profile Datadog is built for: infrastructure teams (10+ engineers) that need APM + logs + metrics + synthetics + RUM in one platform — the observability default at mid-market and enterprise scale.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Continue | Datadog | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Entry price | Custom pricing | $18/mo |
| Enterprise available | No | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Seat | Per Usage |
| Verification | Pricing under review | Pricing under review |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 26, 2026. Verification cadence varies by tool; check each tool page.