Matt Turley, Continuum. Updated 2026-11-05.
We sell Continuum Keep it running, so we say where the other options fit better. Links to other companies go to their own sites and carry no affiliate codes.
No single monitoring tool is best for everyone. Better Stack suits small teams that want uptime checks, on-call alerts and error tracking from one vendor. Datadog suits teams running multiple hosts that want one platform across infrastructure, APM and logs; per-host pricing makes it harder to estimate for very small apps. Grafana Cloud suits teams that already use Grafana dashboards or open-source Prometheus and Loki. New Relic suits teams whose monthly data volume stays within its free allowance and who need one full user. Three more are covered below. The list is alphabetical and is not a ranking.
This covers tools a small team uses to learn that an app is down or throwing errors. We only feature a tool when a page owned by the vendor backs our description of it, and we leave out products that have shut down.
We do not rank them. Each entry says what the sources report, where it falls short, and who it suits, so you can match one to your own situation. Where a competitor of ours is the better fit, we say so.
We read each source on 2026-11-05. Prices and limits change often, so confirm on the vendor's own page before you buy. A figure marked "one source only" was not matched by a second publisher.
| Tool | What it is | Confirmed price | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Better Stack | Uptime monitoring, logs and error tracking | Free $0 [1]; Responder seat $34 per month billed monthly; $29 per month billed yearly [1] | Small teams that want uptime checks, on-call alerts and error tracking from one vendor |
| Datadog | Full-stack observability platform | Infrastructure Pro $15 per host per month billed annually; $18 on demand [2]; APM (with Infrastructure attached) $31 per host per month billed annually; $36 on demand [2] | Teams running multiple hosts that want one platform across infrastructure, APM and logs; per-host pricing makes it harder to estimate for very small apps |
| Grafana Cloud | Managed observability stack (metrics, logs, traces) | Free $0 [3] | Teams that already use Grafana dashboards or open-source Prometheus and Loki |
| New Relic | Full-stack observability platform | Free $0 [4]; Standard overage $0.40 per GB beyond 100 GB (sources also show $0.35 and $0.30) [5] | Teams whose monthly data volume stays within its free allowance and who need one full user |
| PostHog | Product analytics with session replay and error tracking | Free allowance (monthly) $0 [6]; Usage above free $0.005 per recording after the first 5k [7] | Teams that want product analytics, replay and error tracking under one usage-based bill |
| Sentry | Error tracking and application performance monitoring | Developer $0 [8]; Team $26 per month billed annually; $29 per month billed monthly [8] | Teams that want error tracking with usage-based overage billing |
| UptimeRobot | Uptime monitoring | Free $0 [9]; Enterprise no published price [9] | Small sites that need basic uptime checks and a larger free monitor count |
| Continuum Keep it running (ours) | Managed monitoring and patching | Keep it running $500/mo [10] | A founder who wants someone else to watch the app and respond when it breaks |
Better Stack combines uptime monitoring, status pages, incident alerting, logs, traces, error tracking and session replay in one product.[1]
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for Better Stack:
Plan limits are longer than fit here and some sources disagree on them, so read the limits on the vendor pricing page.
Suits small teams that want uptime checks, on-call alerts and error tracking from one vendor. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
Datadog is a monitoring platform sold as separate per-host and usage-based products such as Infrastructure Monitoring and APM.[2]
What the sources say:
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for Datadog:
Suits teams running multiple hosts that want one platform across infrastructure, APM and logs; per-host pricing makes it harder to estimate for very small apps. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
Grafana Cloud is Grafana Labs' hosted observability platform for metrics, logs, traces and dashboards.[3]
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for Grafana Cloud:
Suits teams that already use Grafana dashboards or open-source Prometheus and Loki. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
New Relic is an observability platform with a usage-based model priced on data ingest and users.[4]
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for New Relic:
Suits teams whose monthly data volume stays within its free allowance and who need one full user. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
PostHog is a product analytics platform that also offers session replay, error tracking and feature flags, with usage-based pricing.[6]
What the sources say:
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for PostHog:
Suits teams that want product analytics, replay and error tracking under one usage-based bill. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
Sentry captures errors and performance data from applications, with session replay, logs and metrics available on its paid plans.[8]
What the sources say:
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for Sentry:
Suits teams that want error tracking with usage-based overage billing. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
UptimeRobot checks websites and services at set intervals and sends alerts and status pages when they are down.[9]
What the sources say:
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for UptimeRobot:
Suits small sites that need basic uptime checks and a larger free monitor count. That is our reading of the facts above, not something a source says.
Start from your situation, not from the list:
Open the vendor pricing page for your shortlist before you decide, since plans change.
We make Continuum Keep it running. Weigh what we say here with that in mind. The tools above are the better choice when you want software you run yourself; ours is the better choice when you want a person to do or read the work.
A monthly retainer where a person handles monitoring, security and dependency patching, and incident triage for an app.[10]
What our own page says:
Limits and things to check:
Pricing as reported for Continuum Keep it running:
Suits a founder who wants someone else to watch the app and respond when it breaks.