CloudWatch vs Azure Monitor vs Cloud Monitoring — Observability Compared
Compare AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, and Google Cloud Monitoring for cloud observability. Metrics, logs, alerts, and pricing.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Amazon CloudWatch | Azure Monitor | Google Cloud Monitoring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Log ingestion cost | $0.50/GB | $2.76/GB (pay-as-you-go) | $0.50/GB |
| Free tier (logs) | 5GB/mo | 5GB/mo | 50GB/mo first project |
| APM | X-Ray + Application Insights | Application Insights | Cloud Trace |
| Alert cost | $0.10/alarm/mo | Varies by type | Free |
Service Details
Amazon CloudWatch
Unified monitoring for AWS resources. Metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards, and Application Insights in one service.
- Unified metrics + logs + alarms
- Application Insights for APM
- Contributor Insights for top-N analysis
- Cross-account observability
- Log Insights query costs add up
- Custom metric pricing scales linearly
- Dashboard UI less polished than competitors
Azure Monitor
Full-stack monitoring with Log Analytics, Application Insights, and Azure Workbooks. Strong enterprise integration.
- Application Insights (best-in-class APM)
- KQL for powerful log queries
- Azure Workbooks for rich dashboards
- Commitment tiers for log cost savings
- Log Analytics ingestion is expensive
- Complex pricing tiers
- Many sub-products to understand
Google Cloud Monitoring
Part of Google Cloud Operations Suite. Metrics, uptime checks, dashboards, and alerting with PromQL support.
- Generous free tier
- PromQL support for Prometheus users
- Free alerting
- Clean, simple UI
- Less feature-rich than CloudWatch/Azure Monitor
- Application-level tracing less mature
- Fewer dashboard customization options
When to Use Which
Choose CloudWatch for unified AWS monitoring without third-party tools. Choose Azure Monitor for best-in-class APM with Application Insights. Choose Cloud Monitoring for the most generous free tier and simplest pricing.
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