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Datadog vs Security Onion comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
Datadog improves efficiency by reducing response time, optimizing resources, enhancing reliability, and saving costs through better infrastructure monitoring.
Sentiment score
8.2
Security Onion offers cost-effective, open-source tools for enhanced threat detection and efficient incident response, benefiting organizations and learners.
Previously we had thirteen contractors doing the monitoring for us, which is now reduced to only five.
IT Manager at Liberty Mutual Insurance
Datadog has delivered more than its value through reduced downtime, faster recovery, and infrastructure optimization.
Sr. Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
We have also seen fewer escalations for minor issues because alerts help us catch problems earlier, which indirectly reduces downtime and improves overall efficiency.
Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
We achieve a return on investment through improved threat detection and faster incident response in log management and centralized visibility across the infrastructure.
Angular developer at Flourish software
With this kind of tool, students can save money by using open-source software while gaining experience in working with different logs and detection systems, leading to time savings during their studies.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
We could save some cost while integrating Security Onion in our organization to help us manage some simplified threat detection alerts.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Datadog's customer service is generally reliable and efficient, with recent improvements noted, despite occasional delays and communication issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Security Onion's customer service is praised for responsiveness, helpful technical support, and robust community resources, even for free users.
When I have additional questions, the ticket is updated with actual recommendations or suggestions pointing me in the correct direction.
Applications Web Services Technical Engineer at Ace Hardware
Overall, the entire Datadog comprehensive experience of support, onboarding, getting everything in there, and having a good line of feedback has been exceptional.
Systems Administrator at Townsquare Interactive
I've had a couple instances where I reached out to Datadog's support team, and they have been really super helpful and very kind, even reaching back out after resolving my issues to check if everything's going well.
Security Engineer at Invitation Homes
Customer support for Security Onion is very good
Angular developer at Flourish software
I rate the customer support nine out of ten.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
I can give it nine to 9.5 or 10 points for support.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Datadog excels in scalable performance and integration but requires careful ingestion cost management as environments grow.
Sentiment score
7.4
Security Onion effectively scales for small to large environments, though API integration can be challenging; performance depends on system resources.
Datadog's scalability has been great as it has been able to grow with our needs.
IT Manager at Liberty Mutual Insurance
Since it is a SaaS platform, we did not have to worry about backend scaling.
Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
We have not faced any major performance issues from the platform side; it handles increased metrics and monitoring loads smoothly.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Security Onion is a highly scalable platform, making it suitable for medium to large-scale enterprises.
Angular developer at Flourish software
I would say it's scalable based on your license, the cost of implementation, and your own architecture as well.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Datadog is praised for stability and reliability, with rare, quickly-resolved issues, especially during peak traffic periods.
Sentiment score
8.3
Security Onion is reliable, performing well in VMware with occasional issues, mainly related to configuration, resources, or storage needs.
Metrics collection and alerting have been consistent in day-to-day use.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Datadog is very stable, as there hasn't been any downtime or issues since I've been here, and it's always on time.
Security Engineer at Invitation Homes
Datadog seems stable in my experience without any downtime or reliability issues.
Full Stack Developer at Townsquare Interactive
Since using Security Onion, we have not faced any issues or downtime, which indicates it is very stable.
Angular developer at Flourish software
Security Onion is reliable and is a good product, having no glitches or latency problems.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
Security Onion is pretty stable, with the only significant issue being that I had to increase the storage.
 

Room For Improvement

Datadog needs better alert management, cost control, data representation, API consistency, integration, security, automation, navigation, and educational resources.
Security Onion needs a more intuitive setup, improved UI, enhanced documentation, and reduced complexity for better usability.
It would be great to see stronger AI-driven anomaly detection and predictive analytics to help identify potential issues before they impact performance.
Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
We want to be able to customize the cost part, and we would appreciate more granular access control.
Service Manager at PwC
Having more transparent and granular cost control features would make it easier to manage usage.
Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
The biggest challenges I have experienced with Security Onion are the learning curve and resource requirements, as it is not necessarily something you can install and immediately understand without networking and Linux knowledge.
A specific guideline for helping beginners understand the detection and investigation features of Security Onion would be beneficial.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Security Onion could be improved by making the user interface more intuitive for new users and simplifying the initial setup and configuration process.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Datadog offers scalable, usage-based pricing but requires careful monitoring to manage escalating costs and optimize feature utilization.
Security Onion provides cost-effective solutions with free core features, requiring hardware for deployment, and offers enterprise support.
The setup cost for Datadog is more than $100.
Senior Performance and Architecture Analyst at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is mainly based on data ingestion, such as logs, metrics, and traces, and it can increase quickly if everything is enabled by default.
Cyber Security Consultant at HR Software Solution
Everybody wants the agent installed, but we only have so many dollars to spread across, so it's been difficult for me to prioritize who will benefit from Datadog at this time.
Applications Web Services Technical Engineer at Ace Hardware
Security Onion does not require any cost, as it is open-source and free.
Angular developer at Flourish software
I do not have a license for Security Onion since I have the free version, meaning it does not cost me anything.
The enterprise version should be reasonably priced, not so expensive.
Network Engineer at Crisp System India Pvt Ltd
 

Valuable Features

Datadog enhances operational efficiency with unified visibility, integration, customizable dashboards, and comprehensive monitoring across cloud platforms.
Security Onion integrates monitoring tools for threat detection, log management, and network analysis, offering accessible and cost-effective security.
Our architecture is written in several languages, and one area where Datadog particularly shines is in providing first-class support for a multitude of programming languages.
Senior Software Engineer at Los Angeles Times Communications, LLC
Having all that associated analytics helps me in troubleshooting by not having to bounce around to other tools, which saves me a lot of time.
Senior Site Reliability Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Datadog was able to find the alerts and trigger to notify our team in a very prompt manner before it got worse, allowing us to promptly adjust and remediate the situation in time.
Security Engineer at Invitation Homes
One of the best features that Security Onion offers is that it is open source, free to install in a lab environment, and allows for monitoring network traffic and investigating potential attacks while integrating other tools such as Suricata, Zeek, and Elastic-based components that are useful for diving into the logs, along with its threat detection capabilities to see network activity, including port scans, unusual connections, and potential intrusion attempts.
BCGEU Faculty, Computer Information Systems Administration at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
Tools such as Suricata and Zeek help identify suspicious network activity and provide detailed information for investigating and analyzing the potential threat which is coming to any organization.
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable features of Security Onion are its threat detection capabilities, centralized log management system, and network security monitoring.
Angular developer at Flourish software
 

Categories and Ranking

Datadog
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (3rd), Network Monitoring Software (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (3rd), Container Monitoring (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), AI Observability (1st)
Security Onion
Ranking in Log Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Datadog is 3.7%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Security Onion is 1.5%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Datadog3.7%
Security Onion1.5%
Other94.8%
Log Management
 

Featured Reviews

Dhroov Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Site Reliability Engineer at Grainger
Has improved incident response with better root cause visibility and supports flexible on-call scheduling
Datadog needs to introduce more hard limits to cost. If we see a huge log spike, administrators should have more control over what happens to save costs. If a service starts logging extensively, I want the ability to automatically direct that log into the cheapest log bucket. This should be the case with many offerings. If we're seeing too much APM, we need to be aware of it and able to stop it rather than having administrators reach out to specific teams. Datadog has become significantly slower over the last year. They could improve performance at the risk of slowing down feature work. More resources need to go into Fleet Automation because we face many problems with things such as the Ansible role to install Datadog in non-containerized hosts. We mainly want to see performance improvements, less time spent looking at costs, the ability to trust that costs will stay reasonable, and an easier way to manage our agents. It is such a powerful tool with much potential on the horizon, but cost control, performance, and agent management need improvement. The main issues are with the administrative side rather than the actual application.
CO
Security Operation Center Analyst at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Improved threat detection and incident response has revealed training and usability gaps
What I would like to add is that if the interface or if there is less to work on technical knowledge. For example, people with no technical knowledge cannot use this, so they need to have at least a deep or substantial level of technical knowledge to be able to use these tools. If there is a way there can be an optimization to accommodate those with no technical knowledge in the process using tools compared to tools such as Sentinel and Splunk, which also doesn't require much technical knowledge to be able to use. That would also help. I think Security Onion could be improved by making the user interface more intuitive for new users and simplifying the initial setup and configuration process. Security Onion needs to be simplified so that those with less technical knowledge can be able to come in and use it. Guidance on prioritizing alerts will also be helpful, especially in an environment where security analysts deal with a high volume of security events. I also would like to mention that it needs to be more straightforward integration with other security tools. There needs to be a handshake between Security Onion and other same tools to help in endpoint detection and protection against threats. Another improvement that could also enhance is the reporting and visualization of the key metrics such as detection time, the incident, the overall interface of the analysis, and the false rate, which will also give Security Onion a better view for security analysts to be able to use and understand it. I would like to see the interface to be more simplified. I also would like to see the visualization to be more improved. I also would like to see the support features to be something that junior analysts or those coming in to start up their careers can be able to use without needing deep technical knowledge.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
11%
Government
10%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise50
Large Enterprise100
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
Datadog vs ELK: which one is good in terms of performance, cost and efficiency?
With Datadog, we have near-live visibility across our entire platform. We have seen APM metrics impacted several times lately using the dashboards we have created with Datadog; they are very good c...
Which would you choose - Datadog or Dynatrace?
Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether the Datadog or Dynatrace network monitoring software was the better fit for us. We decided to go with Dynatrace. Dynatrace offers network ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Security Onion?
I have not had a problem with pricing, setup cost, and licensing because my experience with Security Onion's pricing has been positive. Security Onion is open-source, so I was able to use its core ...
What needs improvement with Security Onion?
One way Security Onion could improve is by making the initial setup and configuration easier, especially for new users. When I first started working with it, I experienced challenges configuring ne...
What advice do you have for others considering Security Onion?
I would give Security Onion a rating of 10 out of 10. I have used other platforms, and I can tell that Security Onion provides powerful security monitoring and investigation tools in one platform, ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adobe, Samsung, facebook, HP Cloud Services, Electronic Arts, salesforce, Stanford University, CiTRIX, Chef, zendesk, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, mercardo libre, Slashdot, Ziff Davis, PBS, MLS, The Motley Fool, Politico, Barneby's
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Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. Security Onion and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.