Datadog vs PlanetScale: Pricing Comparison (2026)
Datadog starts at $18/mo. PlanetScale starts at $5/mo. PlanetScale is $13/mo cheaper on the entry tier than Datadog.
See price history: Datadog · PlanetScale
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.
Serverless MySQL platform built on Vitess (YouTube's original scaling infra). Positioned as the alternative to Amazon Aurora for teams that need horizontal scale with zero downtime schema changes. PS-5 cluster starts at $39/mo, HA clusters from $59/mo. Distinctive for branching + deploy requests (git-like workflow for schema changes). Killed its free tier in April 2024 — controversial move that drove users to Neon + Turso.
All plans compared
| # | Plan | Datadog monthly | Datadog annual | PlanetScale monthly | PlanetScale annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free / Hobby | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | Infrastructure Pro / $5 PlanetScale | 18 | 15 | 5 | 5 |
| 3 | Infrastructure Enterprise / Base (formerly Scaler Pro) | 27 | 23 | custom | custom |
| 4 | Enterprise | — | — | custom | custom |
What each is best for
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.
Serverless MySQL platform built on Vitess (YouTube's original scaling infra). Positioned as the alternative to Amazon Aurora for teams that need horizontal scale with zero downtime schema changes. PS-5 cluster starts at $39/mo, HA clusters from $59/mo. Distinctive for branching + deploy requests (git-like workflow for schema changes). Killed its free tier in April 2024 — controversial move that drove users to Neon + Turso.
At a glance
| Datadog | PlanetScale | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Entry price | $18/mo | $5/mo |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | — |
| Last verified | August 26, 2026 | August 23, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified August 26, 2026. Tracked daily.