# How obs-unified compares (/docs/comparison)





<Callout type="info" title="Reviewed 2026-10-13 · 81 of 90 vendor cells directly source-checked · next review 2027-01-13">
  Every third-party claim on this page was re-checked on **2026-10-13** by reading the vendor's own live page (docs, pricing, product page, official repo, or official blog). "Source-checked" means the historical claim was compared with the live page and corrected where the vendor had changed (of the 90 historical claims, 59 were still accurate, 12 were tightened, 9 were outdated, and 1 was wrong). Nine further cells are **inferential negatives** ("the vendor does not market this") and are shown as &#x2A;Not marketed†* rather than as checked facts. The full per-cell ledger with URLs, verdicts, and verbatim excerpts is tracked in [`docs/comparison-full-audit-2026-10-13.md`](https://github.com/dev-sawan-ruparel/obs-unified/blob/main/docs/comparison-full-audit-2026-10-13.md). We build obs-unified, so read [how we keep this honest](#provenance) and [what we corrected](#corrections).
</Callout>

## What this page is [#what-this-page-is]

A long-form companion to the comparison table on [obsunified.com](https://obsunified.com#compare). The landing-page table is terse; each vendor column footnote-links to the matching section here, where every cell carries the source URL and a short excerpt. Use this page to verify a claim, read one vendor's profile, or see what was deliberately *not* compared.

## Scope [#scope]

* **Vendors (9):** Datadog, Sentry, PostHog, Honeycomb, New Relic, Grafana Cloud (LGTM stack), SigNoz, Uptrace, HyperDX.
* **Axes (10):** hosting model, pricing model, traces / APM, structured logs, AI / LLM observability, session replay, product analytics, alerting, cross-signal correlation, data ownership.
* **Out of scope:** infrastructure-only tools (Prometheus, Zabbix, Nagios), incident-response platforms (PagerDuty, Opsgenie), single-signal frontend tools (LogRocket, FullStory, Highlight), legacy enterprise suites (Splunk Observability Cloud, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Elastic Observability), and cross-vendor performance benchmarks.

## How to read the cells [#how-to-read-the-cells]

* Each vendor table below lists the **claim as reviewed on 2026-10-13**, the **primary source** read, and a **short excerpt** from that page.
* **Not marketed†** means we read the vendor's product index, docs navigation, or sitemap on 2026-10-13 and found no such product. It is not an explicit vendor statement, and it is not a demerit.
* Pricing is volatile. Prices are quoted as shown on the review date and may already have changed.
* Cells are descriptive, not scored. A vendor that does not sell a capability is not worse; it is a different shape of product.

***

## obs-unified [#obs-unified]

Self-hosted on Cloudflare Workers + D1 + R2, or Node + PostgreSQL + S3-compatible storage (including a zero-clone all-in-one Docker image on GHCR). Ships OTLP/HTTP ingestion for traces, logs, and metrics; structured logs; session replay (rrweb); AI / LLM and agent observability ([Agent Action Graph](/docs/agent-action-graph)); [compressed context retrieval (CCR)](/docs/evidence-retrieval); [AutoSRE causal ontology](/docs/autosre) (change correlation, traffic-normalized cohort lift, noisy-neighbor contention checks, recurring incident memory, counterfactual eval verification, and pre-execution cryptographic remediation grants); usage analytics; alerts; CPU/off-CPU profiles; and a 26-tool [MCP server](/docs/mcp-server), all joined through one identity chain (`user_id → session_id → interaction_id → trace_id → span_id → action_id`). MIT-licensed; you pay only your own infrastructure bill. Limitations and what teams need to configure are listed in [Where obs-unified fits](#where-obs-unified-fits).

***

## Datadog <a id="src-datadog" /> [#datadog-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                                                  | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | SaaS across independent regional sites, plus **BYOC Log Management** that keeps logs in your own environment | [Datadog Sites](https://docs.datadoghq.com/getting_started/site/): "Each site is completely independent, and you cannot share data across sites." · [BYOC Log Management](https://www.datadoghq.com/product/byoc-logs/): "lets you keep your logs in your own environment while using the Datadog platform for querying, analytics, and investigations." |
| Pricing           | Per host (Infrastructure, APM) plus per signal (GB, events, sessions)                                        | [Pricing](https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/): Infrastructure Pro "$15 Per host, per month" (annual; $18 on-demand); APM from "$31 Per host, per month"; Logs "$0.10 Per ingested or scanned GB" and "$1.70 Per million log events" (15-day indexing); RUM "Per 1,000 sessions".                                                                         |
| Traces / APM      | Yes. OTLP via Agent/Collector (recommended) or direct intake endpoints                                       | [OTLP Intake Endpoint](https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/setup/otlp_ingest/): "Datadog recommends sending OpenTelemetry data through a Datadog Agent or OpenTelemetry Collector." Direct `/v1/traces`, `/v1/logs`, `/v1/metrics` endpoints are documented without preview gating.                                                                 |
| Structured logs   | Yes; ingestion decoupled from indexing                                                                       | [Log Management](https://docs.datadoghq.com/logs/): "decoupling log ingestion from indexing"; "unifies logs, metrics, and traces in a single view".                                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| AI / LLM          | **Agent Observability** (formerly LLM Observability)                                                         | [Agent Observability](https://www.datadoghq.com/products/ai/agent-observability/): "Evaluate, improve, and trace your AI agents with offline experimentation and production observability in one platform."                                                                                                                                              |
| Session replay    | Yes (RUM Session Replay)                                                                                     | [Session Replay](https://www.datadoghq.com/product/session-replay/): "Jump from session replays to backend traces for full-stack visibility".                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| Product analytics | Yes: funnels, Sankeys, cohorts                                                                               | [Product Analytics](https://www.datadoghq.com/product/product-analytics/): "Optimize user journeys with sankeys, funnels, and conversion analysis"; "a single SDK for RUM and Product Analytics".                                                                                                                                                        |
| Alerting          | 30+ monitor types incl. Anomaly, Forecast, Outlier, Composite, Watchdog                                      | [Monitor Types](https://docs.datadoghq.com/monitors/types/): "Watchdog: Get notified when Watchdog detects anomalous behavior."                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| Cross-signal      | Within platform, tag-based                                                                                   | [Platform](https://www.datadoghq.com/product/): "Navigate seamlessly between logs, metrics, and request traces".                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| Data ownership    | Datadog regional site; BYOC object storage for logs                                                          | [BYOC Log Management](https://www.datadoghq.com/product/byoc-logs/): "Retain logs entirely within your own infrastructure in regions like India, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil, South Africa, and Canada".                                                                                                                                            |

## Sentry <a id="src-sentry" /> [#sentry-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                               | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | SaaS, or Fair Source (FSL-1.1) self-host scoped to low-volume deployments | [getsentry/self-hosted](https://github.com/getsentry/self-hosted): "feature-complete and packaged up for low-volume deployments and proofs-of-concept". [Licensing](https://open.sentry.io/licensing/): FSL "is not among the OSI-approved licenses … turning into a bare Apache" after two years. |
| Pricing           | Tiered base (Team $26/mo, Business $80/mo) plus per-unit overage          | [Pricing](https://sentry.io/pricing/): "+$0.50/GB additional" (logs), "+$0.0315/hr" (continuous profiling), "+$1.00/uptime alert", "+$0.78/monitor"; "Seer: AI debugging agent (subscription required)".                                                                                           |
| Traces / APM      | Tracing; OTLP traces and logs in open beta, no OTLP metrics               | [OTLP](https://docs.sentry.io/concepts/otlp/): "This feature is currently in open beta." "Sentry does not support OTLP metrics at this time."                                                                                                                                                      |
| Structured logs   | Yes, trace-connected                                                      | [Logs](https://docs.sentry.io/product/logs/): "searchable, trace-connected, and viewable alongside your errors".                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| AI / LLM          | **Agent Tracing** plus **Seer** debugging agent                           | [Agents](https://docs.sentry.io/product/agents/): "Monitor agent runs, tool calls, model interactions, token usage, and errors." [Seer](https://sentry.io/product/seer/): "Seer is Sentry's debugging agent."                                                                                      |
| Session replay    | Yes, web and mobile (GA)                                                  | [Session Replay](https://docs.sentry.io/product/session-replay/): "Web … and Mobile (Android, iOS, React Native, and Flutter). Both are generally available and stable."                                                                                                                           |
| Product analytics | Not marketed†                                                             | [Product index](https://sentry.io/welcome/) lists Error Monitoring, Logs, Seer, Session Replay, Tracing, Agent Tracing, Profiling, Cron Monitoring, Uptime Monitoring.                                                                                                                             |
| Alerting          | Issue alerts, uptime, crons                                               | [Alerts](https://docs.sentry.io/product/monitors-and-alerts/alerts/): "An alert can send notifications, create tickets, call webhooks, or use other integrations for issues coming from projects or Monitors."                                                                                     |
| Cross-signal      | Within platform via trace ID                                              | [Tracing](https://docs.sentry.io/concepts/key-terms/tracing/): "The trace ID connects all the actions that take place, starting from the moment a user performs an action on the frontend".                                                                                                        |
| Data ownership    | Sentry cloud or your self-hosted install                                  | [getsentry/self-hosted](https://github.com/getsentry/self-hosted) (Docker Compose distribution).                                                                                                                                                                                                   |

## PostHog <a id="src-posthog" /> [#posthog-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                                     | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Hosting           | Cloud-first; OSS self-host is a hobby deployment, officially unsupported, no paid-plan features | [Self-host](https://posthog.com/docs/self-host): "self-hosted deployments are officially unsupported"; "free Docker Compose deployment under an MIT license"; "All paid-plan features are Cloud-only."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| Pricing           | Per-unit, per product, each with a monthly free tier                                            | [Product analytics](https://posthog.com/product-analytics/pricing): "1,000,000 events free every month, then starting at $0.0000500/event". [Replay](https://posthog.com/session-replay/pricing): "$0.0050/recording". [Logs](https://posthog.com/logs/pricing): "$0.25/GB". [AI Observability](https://posthog.com/ai-observability/pricing): "$0.000350/event". [Error tracking](https://posthog.com/error-tracking/pricing): "$0.000370/exception". |
| Traces / APM      | **OTLP distributed tracing, beta since July 2026** (was LLM-scoped only)                        | [Tracing is now in beta](https://posthog.com/blog/traces-beta) (2026-07-16): "Distributed tracing is now in beta." [Docs](https://posthog.com/docs/distributed-tracing): "works with the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP)".                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| Structured logs   | Yes, OTLP-native, GA since 2026-01-29                                                           | [Logs GA](https://posthog.com/blog/logs-ga): "Logs is generally available, and it lives in the same place as your errors, session replays, and product data."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| AI / LLM          | **AI Observability** (formerly LLM Analytics)                                                   | [AI Observability](https://posthog.com/ai-observability): "captures the full context of each trace and connects it to other PostHog products (like Session Replay). Evals score your live traffic".                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| Session replay    | Yes, rrweb-based                                                                                | [Replay ingestion](https://posthog.com/docs/how-posthog-works/recordings-ingestion): "We use rrweb to collect "snapshot data" from the browser."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| Product analytics | Flagship: autocapture, funnels, retention, paths                                                | [Product Analytics](https://posthog.com/product-analytics): "build trends, funnels, retention curves, paths, and SQL queries – then jump straight into the session recordings".                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| Alerting          | Insight alerts (trends, funnels, SQL) with anomaly detection, plus log alerts                   | [Alerts](https://posthog.com/docs/alerts): "Alerts are supported on trends, funnels (steps and trends views only), and SQL (HogQL) insights." [Logs](https://posthog.com/docs/logs): "set up alerts".                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| Cross-signal      | One project / event store                                                                       | [Distributed tracing](https://posthog.com/docs/distributed-tracing): "Traces use the same OpenTelemetry ingestion as Logs, in the same PostHog project as session replays, errors, and analytics."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| Data ownership    | PostHog Cloud or your (unsupported) self-host                                                   | [Self-host](https://posthog.com/docs/self-host): "you run or purchase your own infrastructure, manage deployments".                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |

## Honeycomb <a id="src-honeycomb" /> [#honeycomb-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                        | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | SaaS, or Private Cloud (Honeycomb-managed or self-managed) inside your AWS account | [Private Cloud](https://www.honeycomb.io/platform/private-cloud): "Choose a Honeycomb-managed or self-managed deployment inside your AWS account." [Deployment models](https://docs.honeycomb.io/get-started/honeycomb/private-cloud/deployment-models): "Customer-Hosted … within your cloud account." |
| Pricing           | Per event volume: Free up to 20M events/mo; Pro from $150/mo                       | [Pricing](https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing): "Free … Up to 20M per month"; "Pro … Starting at $150 per month … Up to 750M per month".                                                                                                                                                                   |
| Traces / APM      | OTLP-native (gRPC, HTTP/protobuf, HTTP/JSON)                                       | [Send data with OpenTelemetry](https://docs.honeycomb.io/send-data/opentelemetry/): "OTLP, over gRPC, HTTP/protobuf, and HTTP/JSON."                                                                                                                                                                    |
| Structured logs   | Log Analytics; logs stored as structured events                                    | [Traces, Metrics, and Logs](https://docs.honeycomb.io/get-started/honeycomb/traces-metrics-logs): "traces and logs are stored as structured events: labeled JSON objects … indexed automatically on every field at ingest".                                                                             |
| AI / LLM          | **Agent Timeline, GA since 2026-06-18**                                            | [Agent Timeline GA](https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/agent-timeline-generally-available): "Agent Timeline is generally available to every Honeycomb customer".                                                                                                                                             |
| Session replay    | Not marketed†                                                                      | [Frontend Observability](https://www.honeycomb.io/platform/frontend-observability) markets traces, errors, Core Web Vitals, and user journeys; no replay page in the site's pages sitemap.                                                                                                              |
| Product analytics | Not marketed†                                                                      | No product-analytics page in the site's pages sitemap on 2026-10-13.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| Alerting          | Triggers (thresholds on any query) and BubbleUp outlier analysis                   | [Triggers](https://docs.honeycomb.io/notify/triggers): "receive notifications when your Honeycomb data crosses thresholds that you define." [BubbleUp](https://www.honeycomb.io/platform/bubbleup).                                                                                                     |
| Cross-signal      | One event store for logs, traces, metrics                                          | [Log Analytics](https://www.honeycomb.io/platform/log-analytics): "Use one unified tool to manage logs, traces, and metrics".                                                                                                                                                                           |
| Data ownership    | Honeycomb US or EU, or your AWS account                                            | [EU data residency](https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/honeycomb-launches-data-residency-europe): "store their data in the US, in Europe, or both"; Private Cloud: "Your telemetry data never leaves your cloud account."                                                                                    |

## New Relic <a id="src-newrelic" /> [#new-relic-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                            | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | SaaS with US, EU, and Japan regions                                                    | [Choose your data center](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/accounts/accounts-billing/account-setup/choose-your-data-center/): "the United States (US) region, the European Union (EU) region, and the Japan (JP) region."                                                      |
| Pricing           | Per-GB ingest plus per-user seats, or the newer Compute model                          | [Pricing](https://newrelic.com/pricing): "100 GB of free data ingest per month and $0.40/GB ingested beyond"; Data Plus "$0.60/GB"; Core "$49/user"; Full platform Pro "$349/user"; "New Relic Compute … Pay only for the compute you use, with no user fees".               |
| Traces / APM      | Native OTLP, recommended path                                                          | [OTLP](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/opentelemetry/best-practices/opentelemetry-otlp/): "supports native OTLP ingest and recommends it as the preferred method".                                                                                                            |
| Structured logs   | Yes; agents, forwarders, Log API, OTLP; server-side parsing                            | [Log management](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/logs/get-started/get-started-log-management/); [Parsing](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/logs/ui-data/parsing/): "Log parsing transforms unstructured log data into searchable attributes".                                   |
| AI / LLM          | AI Monitoring ("APM for AI")                                                           | [AI monitoring](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/ai-monitoring/intro-to-ai-monitoring/): "end-to-end visibility into performance, cost, and quality of supported models from vendors like OpenAI, Bedrock and DeepSeek."                                                       |
| Session replay    | Yes, DOM snapshot based, 8-day default retention                                       | [Session replay](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/browser/browser-monitoring/browser-pro-features/session-replay/get-started/): "takes a snapshot of the Document Object Model (DOM)"; "stored for 8 days".                                                                    |
| Product analytics | User journeys inside Browser Monitoring plus NRQL funnels; no standalone product found | [Browser Monitoring](https://newrelic.com/platform/browser-monitoring): "See how users navigate with Sankey diagrams and identify common routes and drop-offs." [NRQL funnels](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/nrql/using-nrql/funnels-evaluate-data-series-related-events/). |
| Alerting          | NRQL alert conditions                                                                  | [NRQL alert conditions](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/alerts/create-alert/create-alert-condition/create-nrql-alert-conditions/): "We recommend creating an alert using a NRQL alert condition."                                                                             |
| Cross-signal      | Via NRQL across all data                                                               | [NRQL](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/nrql/get-started/introduction-nrql-new-relics-query-language/): "a SQL-like language for querying your New Relic data."                                                                                                                |
| Data ownership    | New Relic US, EU, or JP region                                                         | Same data-center page: "You are solely responsible for the selection of the appropriate processing and storage region".                                                                                                                                                      |

## Grafana Cloud <a id="src-grafana" /> [#grafana-cloud-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                           | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | Grafana Cloud, or self-host the OSS LGTM components                   | [Open source](https://grafana.com/oss/): "Loki, Tempo, Mimir, Faro, and Pyroscope"; "Grafana Alloy is an open source OpenTelemetery collector".                                                                                                    |
| Pricing           | Pro $19/mo plus usage: per 1k series, per GB for logs/traces/profiles | [Pricing](https://grafana.com/pricing/): "$19/ month + usage"; "$6.50/ 1k series"; "$0.05/GB Process", "$0.40/GB Write", "$0.10/GB Retain"; Frontend Observability "$0.75/ 1k sessions"; Agent Observability "$1.50/ 1k generations".              |
| Traces / APM      | Tempo; OTLP ingest                                                    | [OTLP](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/otlp/): "supports the ingestion of metrics, logs, and traces through OTLP into Grafana Cloud."                                                                                             |
| Structured logs   | Loki                                                                  | [Open source](https://grafana.com/oss/): "Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant log aggregation system".                                                                                                                 |
| AI / LLM          | **Agent Observability, GA since 2026-07-30**                          | [AI Observability blog](https://grafana.com/blog/ai-observability-for-agents-in-grafana-cloud/): "renamed Agent Observability … It became Generally Available on Thursday, July 30, 2026."                                                         |
| Session replay    | Session Replay add-on in **public preview**, enabled per stack        | [Session Replay](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/observe-and-act/monitor-applications/session-replay/): "Session Replay is currently in public preview … breaking changes might occur prior to the feature being made generally available." |
| Product analytics | Not marketed†                                                         | [Grafana Cloud products](https://grafana.com/products/cloud/) lists no product-analytics product; "product analytics" and "funnel" do not appear.                                                                                                  |
| Alerting          | Grafana Alerting across data sources                                  | [Alerting](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana-cloud/observe-and-act/alert-and-measure-reliability/alerting/): "queries and expressions from multiple data sources … alert on your metrics and logs".                                                 |
| Cross-signal      | Per-data-source links: trace to logs, metrics, profiles; exemplars    | [Tempo data source](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/datasources/tempo/configure-tempo-data-source/): "Trace to logs: Navigate from spans to related logs in Loki or another log data source."                                              |
| Data ownership    | Grafana Cloud or your self-hosted OSS stack                           | [Open source](https://grafana.com/oss/).                                                                                                                                                                                                           |

## SigNoz <a id="src-signoz" /> [#signoz-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                                          | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | SigNoz Cloud, Enterprise BYOC or self-hosted, or OSS Community self-host                             | [SigNoz/signoz](https://github.com/SigNoz/signoz): "Enterprise Cloud, BYOC, or Enterprise Self-Hosted"; "Free open-source SigNoz that runs in your own infrastructure."                                         |
| Pricing           | $49/mo minimum (includes $49 usage), then $0.30/GB logs and traces, $0.10 per million metric samples | [Pricing](https://signoz.io/pricing/): "Starts at $49/month, including $49 of usage"; "$0.30/GB"; "$0.10/mn samples".                                                                                           |
| Traces / APM      | OTLP-native                                                                                          | [Distributed tracing](https://signoz.io/distributed-tracing/): "Auto-instrument your applications with OpenTelemetry across all major languages and frameworks."                                                |
| Structured logs   | Yes, Logs Explorer with query builder                                                                | [Logs Explorer](https://signoz.io/docs/userguide/logs_query_builder/): "a powerful interface for searching, filtering, and analyzing your log data."                                                            |
| AI / LLM          | LLM Observability                                                                                    | [LLM Observability](https://signoz.io/llm-observability/): "Instant setup for LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI. Automatic instrumentation for OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock."                                         |
| Session replay    | Not marketed†                                                                                        | No replay page in the docs or products sitemaps on 2026-10-13; a [2023 maintainer reply](https://github.com/SigNoz/signoz/discussions/3846) said it was "not in our near term roadmap".                         |
| Product analytics | Not marketed† (Trace Funnels are trace-level, not user analytics)                                    | [Trace Funnels](https://signoz.io/trace-funnels/): "Each step filters traces by service name, operation, HTTP status code".                                                                                     |
| Alerting          | Five alert types: metric, log, trace, exceptions, anomaly                                            | [Alerts management](https://signoz.io/docs/userguide/alerts-management/).                                                                                                                                       |
| Cross-signal      | Trace to logs via trace\_id / span\_id                                                               | [Correlate logs and traces](https://signoz.io/docs/traces-management/guides/correlate-traces-and-logs/): "jump from a trace directly to the logs that fired during it, and from a log entry back to the trace". |
| Data ownership    | Cloud in US, EU, or India; BYOC; or self-hosted                                                      | [Pricing](https://signoz.io/pricing/): "We have data centers in US, EU and India … You can also run Self Hosted SigNoz in your own cloud."                                                                      |

## Uptrace <a id="src-uptrace" /> [#uptrace-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                                                                                                                                  | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | Uptrace Cloud, OSS self-host (AGPL-3.0), or licensed on-prem                                                                                                                                 | [uptrace/uptrace](https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace): "AGPL-3.0 license"; "ClickHouse database to store it … PostgreSQL database to store metadata". [Pricing FAQ](https://uptrace.dev/pricing): "Install Uptrace on-premises with a license."                                                                   |
| Pricing           | Per GB ingested with automatic volume tiers; 50 GB free per month; no seat or host fees. We do not quote a starting rate: on 2026-10-13 the page's hero said one figure and its FAQ another. | [Pricing](https://uptrace.dev/pricing): hero "50 GB free every month, then from $0.075/GB. Volume discounts apply automatically."; FAQ "Rates start at $0.10/GB and drop to $0.016/GB at scale."; metrics "$0.025 per 1M datapoints"; "4 weeks (28 days)" default retention.                                      |
| Traces / APM      | OTLP-native, gRPC and HTTP                                                                                                                                                                   | [OpenTelemetry Go](https://uptrace.dev/get/opentelemetry-go): "export spans (traces), logs, and metrics to Uptrace using OTLP/gRPC"; HTTP endpoint documented as fallback.                                                                                                                                        |
| Structured logs   | Yes                                                                                                                                                                                          | [Uptrace](https://uptrace.dev/): "unifies traces, metrics, and logs in a single platform."                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| AI / LLM          | OpenTelemetry GenAI / OpenAI instrumentation guides for sending LLM telemetry to Uptrace                                                                                                     | [OpenTelemetry OpenAI guide](https://uptrace.dev/guides/opentelemetry-openai); [LLM cost monitoring](https://uptrace.dev/blog/llm-cost-monitoring). The home-page product navigation on 2026-10-13 listed APM, Tracing, Metrics, Errors and logs, Alerting, Infrastructure, MCP; we do not assert what is absent. |
| Session replay    | Not marketed†                                                                                                                                                                                | No replay page in the 379-URL sitemap; not in product navigation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| Product analytics | Not marketed†                                                                                                                                                                                | Same.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
| Alerting          | Metric monitors and error monitors                                                                                                                                                           | [Alerting](https://uptrace.dev/features/alerting): "Metric monitors — threshold alerts on infrastructure and tracing metrics"; "Error monitors — alerts on log patterns and exceptions".                                                                                                                          |
| Cross-signal      | One store for traces, metrics, logs                                                                                                                                                          | [Uptrace](https://uptrace.dev/): "Traces, metrics, and logs in one place. No more jumping between tools".                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| Data ownership    | Cloud hosted in Germany, or your own servers                                                                                                                                                 | [Pricing FAQ](https://uptrace.dev/pricing): "Uptrace Cloud runs in Hetzner's Germany datacenters"; "Your telemetry never leaves your infrastructure."                                                                                                                                                             |

## HyperDX <a id="src-hyperdx" /> [#hyperdx-]

| Axis              | Reviewed claim (2026-10-13)                                                           | Primary source and excerpt                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosting           | HyperDX Cloud, OSS self-host (MIT), or ClickStack in ClickHouse Cloud (managed, beta) | [OSS vs Cloud](https://www.hyperdx.io/docs/oss-vs-cloud): "both an self-hostable open source version … as well as a cloud hosted version". [ClickStack in ClickHouse Cloud](https://clickhouse.com/blog/announcing-clickstack-in-clickhouse-cloud): "Managed ClickStack is now in beta." |
| Pricing           | $20/mo flat for 50 GB, then $0.40/GB; no per-seat or per-host billing                 | [Pricing](https://www.hyperdx.io/pricing): "Includes 50 GB/mo … Unlimited Users, Flat Rate … $20/mo … $0.40 per additional 1 GB".                                                                                                                                                        |
| Traces / APM      | OTLP-native, HTTP and gRPC                                                            | [OpenTelemetry](https://www.hyperdx.io/docs/install/opentelemetry): "HTTP endpoint is hosted at [https://in-otel.hyperdx.io](https://in-otel.hyperdx.io) (gRPC at port 4317)".                                                                                                           |
| Structured logs   | Yes, ClickHouse-backed with JSON parsing, live tail, patterns                         | [hyperdxio/hyperdx](https://github.com/hyperdxio/hyperdx): "unifying session replays, logs, metrics, traces and errors powered by ClickHouse and OpenTelemetry."                                                                                                                         |
| AI / LLM          | Via OpenTelemetry LLM SDKs (OpenLLMetry, OpenLIT, Mirascope)                          | [OpenLLMetry integration](https://www.traceloop.com/docs/openllmetry/integrations/hyperdx); [HyperDX docs](https://www.hyperdx.io/docs) navigation lists "LLMs: Mirascope, OpenLIT, OpenLLMetry".                                                                                        |
| Session replay    | Yes, auto-linked to logs and traces                                                   | [HyperDX](https://www.hyperdx.io/): "Automatically link session replays with backend logs and traces."                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| Product analytics | Not marketed†                                                                         | [HyperDX docs](https://www.hyperdx.io/docs) navigation has no analytics section.                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| Alerting          | Search-based threshold and duration alerts                                            | [Alerts](https://www.hyperdx.io/docs/alerts): "set the threshold, duration, and notification method for the alert (Slack, Email, PagerDuty or Slack Webhook)".                                                                                                                           |
| Cross-signal      | Auto-linked across signals                                                            | [HyperDX](https://www.hyperdx.io/): "Trace every request from a user's browser and phone to your backend servers and async workers, automatically."                                                                                                                                      |
| Data ownership    | Cloud hosted in the United States, or your own ClickHouse                             | [DPA](https://www.hyperdx.io/terms/dpa): "DeploySentinel will host and process Customer Personal Data in the United States."                                                                                                                                                             |

† Inferential negative: not marketed by the vendor on the pages, product index, or sitemaps read on 2026-10-13. Absence is not an explicit vendor statement. See [ledger section 4](https://github.com/dev-sawan-ruparel/obs-unified/blob/main/docs/comparison-full-audit-2026-10-13.md).

***

## Where obs-unified fits [#where-obs-unified-fits]

obs-unified is the only tool in this comparison that is simultaneously self-hostable, OTLP-native, and ships session replay, AI / agent observability, usage analytics, compressed context retrieval (CCR), and an AutoSRE causal ontology with governed remediation grants in one stack.

### What AutoSRE & agentic onboarding add (beyond signal colocation) [#what-autosre--agentic-onboarding-add-beyond-signal-colocation]

Colocating traces, logs, and replays in one database is necessary for agentic debugging, but not sufficient for safe autonomous operations. Recent updates ([RFC 0013](/docs/autosre)) add a deterministic causal and governance layer designed specifically for AI SRE and coding agents:

1. **Traffic-normalized cohort attribution (`v_new` vs. `v_old`):** Instead of blaming an old release that happens to serve 90% of traffic during a 10% canary rollout, `get_change_blast_radius` compares per-request error rates across `service.version`, `vcs.commit.id`, and `feature_flag.variant` cohorts with a minimum sample-size gate (`N >= 50` default, configurable via `minSample`).
2. **Noisy-neighbor contention vs. code regression:** Cross-checks whether co-hosted or downstream database/cache spans slowed down across *unaffected* callers at the same time (`shared_degradation_new_version_aggressor` vs. `shared_degradation_external_cause`), preventing false rollbacks during infrastructure saturation.
3. **Orthogonal epistemic model (`relationshipCertainty` $\times$ `causalProofTier`):** Separates *link provenance* (`exact`, `inferred`, `heuristic`) from *causal proof* (`unverified_locus`, `corroborated_candidate`, `cohort_rate_isolated`, `counterfactual_verified`). A stack trace touching a modified file is an `exact` structural link (`touched_same_code_path`), but only reaches `corroborated_candidate` and **cannot** self-authorize an autonomous production rollback.
4. **Paired counterfactual verification:** Upgrades findings to `counterfactual_verified` only when linked to an `eval_case` with a failing baseline run (`passed = 0`) and $K \ge 1$ passing candidate runs (`passed = 1`, configurable via `requiredTrials`) on the identical `input_payload_hash`.
5. **Pre-execution CAS remediation gate & 1-click approval queue:** The collector acts as a stateful policy gate rather than a direct infrastructure actuator: side-effecting proposals (`rollback_deploy`, `toggle_feature_flag`, `open_code_pr`) submitted via `propose_remediation_action` with CAS preconditions (`expectedCurrentState`) either earn a single-use 5-minute `grantToken` or wait in the dashboard's &#x2A;*Autonomous Review (`/#/autonomous-review`)** 1-click human approval queue. Your external agent or CI/CD runner claims the grant (`claim_remediation_grant`), executes the rollback/flag-toggle/PR, and reports completion, arming the collector's post-remediation watchdog (`evaluateRemediationWatchdogs`).
6. **Zero-friction AI agent onboarding:** Ships machine-readable docs (`/llms.txt`, `/llms-full.txt`), a 3-Tier Application Compatibility Matrix, non-interactive CLI scaffolding (`pnpm dlx @obsunified/cli create --yes`), and an explicit Autonomous vs. Human Intervention contract.

### What teams need to take care of to enable AutoSRE [#what-teams-need-to-take-care-of-to-enable-autosre]

AutoSRE's trace fault localization works out-of-the-box on any OpenTelemetry spans, but to unlock **cohort blast radius** and **change correlation**, teams (or their onboarding AI agent) should wire three lightweight inputs:

* **Runtime release lineage on spans:** In the JS/TS SDKs (`@obsunified/telemetry-sdk`, `@obsunified/analytics-sdk`, `@obsunified/sdk`), pass `environment`, `serviceVersion`, `commitSha`, and `configDigest` to `initObservability(...)` and `<AnalyticsProvider>` (or set `OBS_ENVIRONMENT`, `OBS_SERVICE_VERSION`, `OBS_COMMIT_SHA`, `OBS_CONFIG_DIGEST`). In non-JS OpenTelemetry SDKs (`Python`, `Go`, `Rust`, `Java`, `.NET`, `PHP`, `Ruby`, `Elixir`, `Swift`, `Kotlin`), set the standard OpenTelemetry resource/span attributes (`service.version`, `deployment.environment.name`, `vcs.commit.id`, `obs.config.digest`).
* **Feature-flag evaluations:** In the JS/TS SDKs, call `recordFeatureFlag(flagKey, variant, { providerName })` when evaluating flags; in non-JS OpenTelemetry SDKs, attach `feature_flag.key` and `feature_flag.variant` (or `obs.feature_flags.<key>`) to the active span.
* **Release & config change events:** Emit a change event from your CI/CD deploy step via `pnpm dlx @obsunified/cli changes record --service <name> --version <ver> --commit-sha <sha> --touched-paths <files>` (or `POST /v1/changes`).

### Trade-offs and current limitations [#trade-offs-and-current-limitations]

That is a shape, not a verdict; the trade-offs are real:

* **Maturity:** early-stage software optimized for single-team deployments rather than complex enterprise organizations.
* **Authentication and access control:** single-password or bearer token authentication. Enterprise SSO, SAML, and fine-grained RBAC are not implemented.
* **Protocols:** ingestion is OTLP/HTTP only. gRPC exporters should be fronted with a standard OpenTelemetry Collector.
* **Native mobile replay:** `rrweb` session replay requires a browser DOM; native iOS/Android/React Native apps are supported for backend traces, logs, AI calls, and HTTP usage events, but not DOM replay.
* **Query and dashboarding:** analyses emphasize AI-assisted investigation, root-cause narratives, and trace traversal rather than arbitrary query builders (PromQL, NRQL, SQL panel editors).
* **Storage and retention:** D1 is subject to database size limits; high-throughput or long-retention workloads should use the PostgreSQL adapter with retention pruning.

### Buyer guidance (editorial) [#buyer-guidance-editorial]

* Enterprise controls, broad integrations, per-host budgeting: **Datadog** or **New Relic**.
* Errors, replay (including mobile), and traces without running infrastructure: **Sentry**.
* Product analytics first, with replay, logs, and now tracing alongside: **PostHog**.
* Deep trace analysis and agent timelines on a wide-event store: **Honeycomb**.
* OSS, OTel-native, ClickHouse-shaped pricing: **SigNoz**, **HyperDX**, or **Uptrace** (HyperDX is the only one of the three with session replay).
* Composable LGTM stack you can scale per signal: **Grafana Cloud** or self-hosted Grafana.
* Everything in one self-hosted telemetry graph built for agentic debugging, compact CCR evidence bundles, and governed AutoSRE change correlation: **obs-unified**, with the limitations above.

***

## How we keep this honest <a id="provenance" /> [#how-we-keep-this-honest-]

* **Every cell is cited and dated.** Each vendor section carries the source URL and an excerpt read on the review date. If the excerpt no longer matches the source, the claim is wrong by construction; tell us.
* **The ledger is public.** [`docs/comparison-full-audit-2026-10-13.md`](https://github.com/dev-sawan-ruparel/obs-unified/blob/main/docs/comparison-full-audit-2026-10-13.md) records, for all 90 cells, the historical claim, the verdict (TRUE 59 / PARTIALLY\_TRUE 12 / OUTDATED 9 / FALSE 1 / UNVERIFIABLE 9), the corrected claim, the final URL read, and the excerpt. The earlier [2026-10-11 ledger](https://github.com/dev-sawan-ruparel/obs-unified/blob/main/docs/comparison-full-audit-2026-10-11.md), which recorded 0 of 90 cells verified, is preserved unchanged.
* **Negatives are never inferred from silence alone.** The nine "Not marketed†" cells list exactly what was read.
* **The method is reproducible.** The runbook is in [`apps/docs/scripts/COMPARISON_AUDIT.md`](https://github.com/dev-sawan-ruparel/obs-unified/tree/main/apps/docs/scripts/). This pass was done manually (runbook Option B), one page at a time, with no multi-agent workflow.
* **We score ourselves too.** See [Where obs-unified fits](#where-obs-unified-fits).

### Right of reply <a id="right-of-reply" /> [#right-of-reply-]

If you work on one of these products, or you spot a stale or wrong cell, open a &#x2A;*[Comparison correction](https://github.com/dev-sawan-ruparel/obs-unified/issues/new?template=comparison_correction.yml)** issue with the cell, the current and correct claim, and a vendor source URL. Accepted corrections are logged below.

### Corrections log <a id="corrections" /> [#corrections-log-]

| Date       | Vendor · cell                                                       | Was                               | Now and why                                                                                                                               |
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 2026-10-13 | PostHog · traces                                                    | "LLM-scoped only"                 | **"OTLP distributed tracing (beta)"**: PostHog shipped general tracing in beta on 2026-07-16. Our negative was false.                     |
| 2026-10-13 | Datadog · hosting / data ownership                                  | "SaaS only" / "Datadog cloud"     | **"SaaS · BYOC for logs"**: Datadog markets BYOC Log Management that keeps logs in the customer's environment. Our negative was outdated. |
| 2026-10-13 | Datadog · traces                                                    | "OTLP in Preview"                 | **"OTLP via Agent/Collector or direct intake"**: preview wording no longer on the docs page.                                              |
| 2026-10-13 | Grafana · session replay                                            | "Yes · Frontend Obs"              | **"Public preview add-on"**: the docs say Session Replay is in public preview; we had overstated it and cited the wrong page.             |
| 2026-10-13 | Grafana · AI                                                        | "AI Observability (preview)"      | **"Agent Observability (GA 2026-07-30)"**.                                                                                                |
| 2026-10-13 | Honeycomb · AI                                                      | "Agent Obs (Early Access)"        | **"Agent Timeline (GA 2026-06-18)"**.                                                                                                     |
| 2026-10-13 | PostHog · alerts                                                    | "On trends only"                  | **"Insight alerts (trends, funnels, SQL) + log alerts"**.                                                                                 |
| 2026-10-13 | PostHog · AI; Datadog · AI; Sentry · AI                             | product names                     | Renamed to AI Observability, Agent Observability, Agent Tracing respectively.                                                             |
| 2026-10-13 | New Relic · hosting / data ownership                                | "two regions", "SaaS only"        | **"US · EU · JP"**; the unprovable "no BYOC" negative was dropped.                                                                        |
| 2026-10-13 | SigNoz · pricing; Uptrace · pricing; Honeycomb · pricing            | "$0.30/GB", "$0.10/GB", "$130/mo" | "$49/mo minimum + $0.30/GB"; "per GB with volume tiers, no starting rate quoted (the page shows two)"; "Pro from $150/mo".                |
| 2026-10-13 | 9 negative cells                                                    | "—"                               | **"Not marketed†"** with the pages read, since absence cannot be verified.                                                                |
| 2026-10-11 | Comparison matrix                                                   | published as reviewed             | Withheld from public rendering after a ledger recorded 0 of 90 cells independently verified; see the preserved 2026-10-11 ledger.         |
| 2026-05-31 | Grafana · AI; Grafana · replay; Sentry · hosting; PostHog · hosting | various                           | Initial draft corrections (Grafana moved up twice; Sentry "Fair Source"; PostHog "hobby" self-host).                                      |