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September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT › IT operations and endpoint › Observability › Small business · September 2026 Edition

Observability platforms for small business buyers

Asked as “observability platform”, and as “full-stack monitoring platform for logs, metrics and traces”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 60 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
32%
Grafana
Contested · New Relic 27%
32Grafana27New Relic12Better Stack30others

32% of first choices, contested.

ShowinginAll 136 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessGrafana32%ContestedThis pageMid-marketGrafana29%ContestedStanding →EnterpriseDatadog36%ContestedStanding →

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Grafana32%5%64endorsed leader
02New Relic27%16%56accepted challenger
03Better Stack12%0%31accepted challenger
04Datadog12%64%58criticized challenger
05SigNoz7%0%32accepted challenger
06Site24x77%0%13accepted challenger
07Uptrace2%0%16accepted challenger
08Honeycomb2%17%18accepted challenger
09Sentry2%0%11accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Splunk Observability Cloud0%91%11criticized challenger
11Dynatrace0%71%14criticized challenger
10Prometheus0%31%13criticized challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to head
Grafana vs New RelicGrafana vs DatadogGrafana vs SigNoz
Head-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not small business.
All fifteen head-to-head pages: the top six products, each against each
Grafana vs HoneycombGrafana vs OpenObserveNew Relic vs DatadogNew Relic vs SigNozNew Relic vs HoneycombNew Relic vs OpenObserveDatadog vs SigNozDatadog vs HoneycombDatadog vs OpenObserveSigNoz vs HoneycombSigNoz vs OpenObserveHoneycomb vs OpenObserve

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Grafana32%
02New Relic27%
03Better Stack12%
04Datadog12%
05SigNoz7%
06Site24x77%
07Uptrace2%
08Honeycomb2%
09Sentry2%
10Prometheus0%
11Dynatrace0%
12Splunk Observability Cloud0%

What they warned about

One of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Datadog
64%
37 of 58 labels negative · 11 of 12 models · 10 hard negative
“Avoid Datadog for now unless you have specific compliance requirements... it's typically 2x more expensive at small business scale.” Kimi K2, paraphrase prompt
Splunk Observability Cloud
91%
10 of 11 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 9 hard negative
“Frequently called "too expensive" in G2 reviews (16+ mentions); complex setup and steep learning curve... Better for large-scale log analytics, not simple monitoring.” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
Dynatrace
71%
10 of 14 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“Setting up tools like Dynatrace or AppDynamics is not "plug-and-play"... massive overkill for small businesses.” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
New Relic
16%
9 of 56 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“it's still fundamentally architected as an enterprise APM platform” Kimi K2, negative prompt

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

Sites the answers cite

65 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 919 links across 189 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

ir.com
49 answers · 49 citations · 11 models
toolradar.com
38 answers · 40 citations · 9 models
uptrace.dev
vendor site · Uptrace35 answers · 45 citations · 10 models
gartner.com
28 answers · 28 citations · 11 models
futurepicker.com
19 answers · 31 citations · 9 models
g2.com
vendor site · G218 answers · 25 citations · 9 models
grafana.com
vendor site · Grafana17 answers · 34 citations · 9 models
newrelic.com
vendor site · New Relic17 answers · 33 citations · 8 models
openobserve.ai
vendor site · OpenObserve17 answers · 26 citations · 7 models
cubeapm.com
vendor site · CubeAPM17 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
metoro.io
vendor site · Metoro17 answers · 17 citations · 10 models
coralogix.com
vendor site · Coralogix16 answers · 16 citations · 7 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

ir.com/guides/top-observability-tools-comparison-2026-smbs-vs-enterprise-pl…
49 answers · 11 models
toolradar.com/guides/best-observability-platforms
38 answers · 9 models
uptrace.dev/tools/top-observability-tools
29 answers · 10 models
gartner.com/reviews/market/observability-platforms
28 answers · 11 models
augmentcode.com/tools/best-observability-platforms
15 answers · 6 models
futurepicker.com/en/observability-tools-small-teams-2026-2
15 answers · 9 models
metoro.io/blog/best-observability-tools
15 answers · 10 models
tinyctl.dev/roundups/observability-tools
15 answers · 7 models
coralogix.com/guides/observability/observability-platforms
14 answers · 6 models
dupple.com/learn/best-observability-platforms
10 answers · 7 models

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best observability platform”, “observability platform”, “observability platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Grafana grafana.com
Grafana 32%, Grafana Loki 0%, Prometheus + Grafana 0%		32%27740,5002,62784,520116
New Relic newrelic.com27%59514,80084383,276$412894
Better Stack betterstack.com12%3111,6001,01741,811119
Datadog datadoghq.com12%59074,0003,541159,408$633120
SigNoz signoz.io7%1792,400527,2441
Site24x7 site24x7.com7%3041,30061174,542$522120
Uptrace uptrace.dev2%2721037,088
Honeycomb honeycomb.io2%105135,00013,7326,60365
Sentry sentry.io2%26690,50021,086254,686120
UptimeRobot uptimerobot.com0%1586,60049287,44228

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 17 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (gartner.com, metoro.io, newrelic.com, openobserve.ai). The first result for “best observability platform” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best observability platform for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which full-stack monitoring platform for logs, metrics and traces would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top observability platforms for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best observability platform for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating an observability platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which observability platforms should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Better Stack
Three alternativesAtatus, Grafana, New Relic
DatadogChanged
Two alternativesGrafana, New Relic
against: Elastic StackBetter Stack
Three alternativesGrafana, Honeycomb, Metoro
New Relic, Uptrace
Three alternativesGrafana, Middleware.io, OpenObserve
no first choiceagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace, IBM Instana
GPT-5.4 miniGrafana, New Relic
One alternativeHoneycomb
against: DatadogNew RelicChanged
Two alternativesDynatrace, Grafana
Grafana, New Relic
Two alternativesHoneycomb, Sentry
against: DatadogGrafana, SigNoz
One alternativeOpenTelemetry
against: New Relicno first choiceagainst: AppDynamics, Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk Observability Cloud
Gemini 3.5 FlashBetter Stack
Four alternativesHoneycomb, OpenObserve, Sentry, SigNoz
against: Datadog, New RelicHoneycombChanged
Three alternativesGrafana, New Relic, SigNoz
against: DatadogBetter Stack
Three alternativesGrafana, Honeycomb, OpenObserve
against: Datadog, New RelicGrafana
Two alternativesBetter Stack, SigNoz
against: New Relic, PrometheusNew Relic
Six alternativesBetter Stack, Honeycomb, HyperDX, Sentry, SigNoz, groundcover
against: Datadogagainst: AppDynamics, Datadog, Dynatrace, Elastic Stack, Grafana, Jaeger, Prometheus, Splunk Observability Cloud
Perplexity SonarNew Relic
Two alternativesBetter Stack, Grafana
against: Grafana, OpenObserveNew RelicHeld
Two alternativesBetter Stack, Dash0
against: DatadogBetter Stack, Grafana
Two alternativesNew Relic, Uptrace
against: DatadogBetter Stack
Two alternativesGrafana, New Relic
against: Datadogno first choiceagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace, Honeycomb, LogicMonitor, Monte Carlo, Splunk Observability Cloud
Grok 4.20New Relic
Two alternativesGrafana, SigNoz
against: Datadog, Elastic Stack, PrometheusGrafanaChanged
Three alternativesBetter Stack, New Relic, SigNoz
against: DatadogGrafana, New Relic
Three alternativesBetter Stack, SigNoz, Uptrace
against: DatadogGrafana
Five alternativesGrafana Loki, New Relic, Prometheus, SigNoz, Tempo
against: DatadogGrafana, New Relic
Four alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog, SigNoz, Uptrace
against: Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Splunk Observability Cloud
Mistral SmallDatadog, Site24x7
Two alternativesGrafana, New Relic
DatadogChangedDatadog
Four alternativesBetter Stack, Grafana, New Relic, Uptrace
Grafana, Site24x7
Three alternativesSentry, VictoriaMetrics, Zabbix
Datadog, New Relic
Two alternativesGrafana, SigNoz
against: Honeycomb, Lightstepagainst: Datadog, Splunk Observability Cloud
DeepSeek V4 FlashSentry
Three alternativesGrafana, New Relic, Site24x7
against: DatadogGrafanaChanged
Two alternativesNew Relic, SigNoz
against: Datadog, Elastic ObservabilityGrafana, New Relic
Three alternativesHoneycomb, SigNoz, Uptrace
against: DatadogGrafana
Four alternativesBetter Stack, New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana, SigNoz
against: DatadogBetter Stack, Grafana, New Relic
One alternativeSentry
against: Datadogagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk Observability Cloud
Llama 4 MaverickDatadog, Site24x7no first choiceChangedno first choiceGrafana
Four alternativesDatadog, New Relic, Site24x7, Uptrace
no first choice
Two alternativesGrafana, SigNoz
against: Dynatrace, Splunk Observability Cloud
Qwen 3.7 FlashBetter Stack, Grafana
Two alternativesDatadog, Site24x7
GrafanaChanged
One alternativeNew Relic
against: DatadogGrafana
Five alternativesDatadog, Honeycomb, New Relic, Sentry, SigNoz
New Relic
Two alternativesGrafana, Uptrace
Datadog, New Relic
Four alternativesGrafana, Rollbar, Sentry, SigNoz
against: Elastic Stack, Elasticsearch, Grafana, Prometheusagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace, Elastic Stack, New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana, Splunk Observability Cloud
Kimi K2New Relic
Two alternativesGrafana, SigNoz
against: DatadogGrafanaChanged
Two alternativesHoneycomb, New Relic
against: DatadogBetter Stack, Grafana, SigNoz
One alternativeUptrace
against: Datadog, Dynatrace, New RelicSigNoz
Four alternativesBetter Stack, Grafana, New Relic, OpenObserve
no first choiceagainst: Datadogagainst: AppDynamics, Datadog, New Relic, Splunk Observability Cloud
GLM 4.7 FlashXGrafana, SigNoz
Three alternativesDatadog, Honeycomb, Splunk Observability Cloud
Better StackChanged
Two alternativesGrafana, New Relic
against: DatadogBetter Stack
Five alternativesDatadog, Grafana Cloud / LGTM, Honeycomb, New Relic, SigNoz
Grafana, New Relic
Five alternativesBetter Stack, Prometheus + Grafana, Sentry, SigNoz, Site24x7
no first choiceagainst: AppDynamics, Broadcom DX APM, Datadog, Dynatrace, Honeycomb, Splunk Observability Cloud
MiniMax M2.5SigNoz, Site24x7
Three alternativesBetter Stack, Datadog, Grafana
Better Stack, GrafanaChanged
Two alternativesCoralogix, New Relic
against: DatadogBetter Stack
Four alternativesGrafana, New Relic, SigNoz, Uptrace
against: DatadogGrafana, New Relic
One alternativeSite24x7
Datadog, Grafana, New Relic
Two alternativesUptrace, self-hosted Prometheus+Grafana
against: Datadog, New Relic
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:11yes159 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:12yes46 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:17yes1629 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:57yes207 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 08:18yes1410 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:22yes55 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:25yes811 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:58yes73 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:23yes842 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:44yes1330 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:21yes1532 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:19yes1040 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:00no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:12yes36 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:32yes1325 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:30yes177 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 08:42yes4420 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:28no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:52yes2021 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:36yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:56yes1031 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:27yes2028 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:27yes25141 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:51yes2088 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:18yes910 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:50yes47 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:29yes1828 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:22yes207 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 08:57yes4216 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:44yes57 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:17yes2022 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:30yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 09:07no041 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:37yes1023 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:50yes830 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:06yes731 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:21yes169 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:05yes55 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:57yes2226 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:02yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 08:56yes4216 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:07yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:12yes1825 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:28yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:54yes2062 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:25yes1020 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:47yes1543 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:55yes513 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:58no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:04no011 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:50yes1024 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:05yes209 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 08:47yes1511 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:58no013 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:22yes1017 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:47yes610 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:51no042 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:11yes960 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:24yes1837 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:45yes520 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:02yes1810 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:27yes36 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:51yes1321 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:22yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 09:03yes3417 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:38yes831 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:43yes2623 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:27yes54 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:57yes1049 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:57yes1563 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:33yes2652 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:20yes535 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
ELK read as Elastic Stack
ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) read as Elastic Stack
Elastic Cloud read as Elastic Observability
Grafana Cloud read as Grafana
Grafana Cloud (LGTM Stack) read as Grafana
Grafana Cloud (LGTM stack) read as Grafana
Grafana Cloud (LGTM) read as Grafana
Grafana stack read as Grafana
Splunk read as Splunk Observability Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
managed Prometheus/Loki stacks
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in it operations and endpoint

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
← M365 managementPatching →