Overview
Datadog is the broader platform, with more than a decade of integrations and a very large ecosystem. TrueWatch fits teams that want usage-based pricing without per-host charges, data stored in Southeast Asia, or AI agent observability in the same platform as their infrastructure.
Side by side
| TrueWatch | Datadog | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based, billed daily by data volume | Per host for infrastructure and APM, plus per GB and per event for logs |
| Infrastructure | Billed by metric volume, no per-host fee | $15 per host per month (Pro, annual); $18 on demand |
| APM | $1.3 per million traces per day at 7-day retention | $31 per APM host per month (annual, with Infrastructure); $36 standalone |
| Logs | $0.4 per million log rows per day at 7-day retention | $0.10 per GB ingested, plus $1.70 per million indexed events (15-day, annual) |
| Real user monitoring | $0.43 per 10,000 page views per day at 7-day retention | $0.15 per 1,000 sessions for RUM Measure; $3.00 for RUM Investigate (annual) |
| Regions in Asia-Pacific | Singapore, Jakarta | Japan (AP1), Australia (AP2) |
| Private deployment | Private SaaS inside your own VPC | SaaS; logs can stay in your own cloud with BYOC Logs |
| Open ingestion | OpenTelemetry, DataKit, open APIs | Datadog Agent, OpenTelemetry |
| AI assistant | Toby AI TruePilot and Toby AI Agents | Bits AI |
| Free option | Free credits to start | Free infrastructure tier, up to 5 hosts |
Datadog prices from datadoghq.com/pricing/list and regions from Datadog site docs, checked 29 September 2026. TrueWatch prices are Hong Kong and Global rates.
1. Pricing: per host versus per unit of data
Datadog charges infrastructure and APM mainly per host. Your bill follows the number of servers, containers-per-host limits and APM hosts, then adds log and event charges on top.
TrueWatch charges for what your agents actually report each day: metric volume, traces, log rows, page views. There is no per-host or per-seat fee for standard monitoring. Longer retention costs more per unit, and every rate is published.
Neither model is cheaper for everyone. Many small hosts with modest data favour usage-based pricing. A few large hosts sending very heavy data can favour per-host pricing. Do compare your own line items.
2. Data residency in Southeast Asia
Datadog's Asia-Pacific sites are in Japan and Australia, and each site is independent. A company that must keep data in Singapore or Indonesia has no in-country Datadog site.
TrueWatch runs regional SaaS in Singapore and Jakarta, plus Frankfurt, Oregon and Johannesburg. It can also run as private SaaS inside your own VPC.
3. AI and LLM observability
Both platforms can trace LLM applications. TrueWatch treats AI agents as one more layer of the same data foundation, so an agent's execution, its LLM calls and the infrastructure underneath sit on one timeline.
Toby AI TruePilot answers questions about your own telemetry in natural language. Toby AI Agents investigate incidents within permissions you set, and every action is recorded.
4. Ecosystem and maturity
Datadog has one of the largest integration catalogues in the market and a long track record with global enterprises. If you depend on a niche integration, check that TrueWatch supports it before migrating.
Who should choose which
- Choose TrueWatch if you need data kept in Singapore or Indonesia, want a bill tied to data rather than hosts, or want AI agent observability in the same tool.
- Choose Datadog if you rely on its integration catalogue, already run most of your stack on it, or your workloads sit in US, EU, Japan or Australia regions.
FAQ
Is TrueWatch cheaper than Datadog? It depends on your workload mix. Map your Datadog hosts, log GB and indexed events to TrueWatch's units using the pricing calculator.
Can I migrate from Datadog without re-instrumenting? If your services already emit OpenTelemetry data, you can point it at TrueWatch. Datadog Agent-specific setups need DataKit or an OpenTelemetry collector.
Does Datadog have a Singapore data centre? Not as of September 2026. Its Asia-Pacific sites are AP1 in Japan and AP2 in Australia.