Honeycomb vs OpenObserve — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Honeycomb starts at $150/mo. OpenObserve uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
See price history: Honeycomb · OpenObserve
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.
- Honeycomb (Per Usage) — Honeycomb bills on usage — $150/mo Pro base (50M events + 250M metrics data points, scales to 750M/3.75B) on top of a paid plan starting at $150/mo. The plan includes an allowance; anything beyond it is metered.
- OpenObserve (Per Usage) — OpenObserve bills purely on usage — $0.50/GB ingest + $0.01/GB query (30% off annual, no per-seat fees). There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Honeycomb is developer-first observability built for high-cardinality queries and distributed tracing. Free forever (20M events/mo + 100M metrics data points, 2 triggers); Pro from $150/mo (up to 750M events + 3.75B metrics data points + SSO + 2 SLOs); Enterprise custom (10B+ events/year base). Includes BubbleUp, Canvas AI Copilot, Honeycomb MCP, agent timeline, and OpenTelemetry-native support.
OpenObserve is a Datadog/Splunk/New Relic alternative positioned on transparent pay-as-you-go pricing with no per-seat or per-host fees. Cloud PAYG: $0.50/GB ingestion + $0.01/GB query (30% off with annual commit). Includes 15-month metrics retention + 30-day non-metrics retention default. Enterprise adds SSO/RBAC, AI SRE agent, BYO bucket infinite retention. Self-hosted OSS is free; Self-hosted Enterprise free up to 50GB/day.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Honeycomb monthly | Honeycomb annual | OpenObserve monthly | OpenObserve annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Free / Cloud Professional (PAYG) | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Entry paid | Pro / — | $150 | $150 | — | — |
| Enterprise | Enterprise / Cloud Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
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
Honeycomb is worth it if… Honeycomb is ideal for engineering teams doing distributed-systems debugging at scale who value high-cardinality queries and event-first thinking. Best if predictable event-based pricing beats per-host or per-GB for your workload.
OpenObserve is worth it if… OpenObserve is ideal for teams migrating off Datadog, Splunk, or New Relic who want radically transparent pay-per-GB pricing with no seat fees. Best if your telemetry cost is dominated by log and metric volume rather than user count.
Bottom line: Similar positioning, closer to a preference call than a strategic one.
Choose Honeycomb over OpenObserve if…
Choose Honeycomb if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, from $150/mo).
- You match the profile Honeycomb is built for: ideal for engineering teams doing distributed-systems debugging at scale who value high-cardinality queries and event-first thinking.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose OpenObserve if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile OpenObserve is built for: ideal for teams migrating off Datadog, Splunk, or New Relic who want radically transparent pay-per-GB pricing with no seat fees.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Honeycomb | OpenObserve | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Entry price | $150/mo | Free |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Per Usage |
| Verification | Pricing under review | Pricing under review |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 27, 2026. Tracked daily.