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Datadog vs SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server comparison

 

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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Datadog
Ranking in Log Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
209
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (1st), Network Monitoring Software (3rd), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (2nd), Container Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (1st), AIOps (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (5th), AI Observability (1st)
SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server
Ranking in Log Management
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Log Management category, the mindshare of Datadog is 4.4%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Log Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Datadog4.4%
SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server1.4%
Other94.2%
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.
SJ
Network Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Valuable log segregation aids in auditing, but Windows integration needs enhancement
Our primary use case for Kiwi Syslog is for gathering logs necessary for auditing purposes I appreciate that with Kiwi Syslog, we can segregate the logs based on the display, such as using different colors and fonts, which helps greatly in identifying logs by their severity. This feature is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The many dozens of integrations that the solution brings out of the box are excellent."
"Datadog has flexibility."
"Datadog has a lot of features to be able to drill down deep into the swath of logs that our platforms generate."
"Datadog has alerting events and metrics all in one place; this was a huge plus, other solutions were trying to treat monitoring as a multi-faceted problem, while Datadog treated it as one problem."
"The solution is sufficiently stable."
"Datadog helps us detect issues early on and helps in troubleshooting."
"Datadog has impacted our organization positively because the general feeling is that it's superior to the ELK stack that we used to use, being significantly faster in searching and filtering the information down, as well as providing links to our search criteria that our development teams and cloud operations teams can use to look at the same problems without having to set up their own search and filter criteria."
"The most valuable features of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server include its ability to provide network mapping and deliver information to my customers about their networks through various methods."
"Overall, I rate SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server is its performance and management. Additionally, the solution integrates well."
"Simplicity is the most valuable feature."
"I appreciate that with Kiwi Syslog, we can segregate the logs based on the display, such as using different colors and fonts, which helps greatly in identifying logs by their severity."
"The best thing about Kiwi Syslog is that it filters logs into different levels."
"I appreciate that with Kiwi Syslog, we can segregate the logs based on the display, such as using different colors and fonts, which helps greatly in identifying logs by their severity."
"We are very happy with the stability of the solution."
 

Cons

"The menu on the left is pretty dense (and I know it has to be). I never knew about the cmd+k functionality until recently. It would be helpful to offer more tips/cheat sheets to see handy shortcuts like that."
"The ease of implementation was a bit difficult for us for the database servers where we have different kinds of databases. We needed different kinds of agents to be installed, and that was a bit tricky for us."
"They should continue expanding and integrating with more third-party apps."
"Alerting timing should be improved to be more fine-tuned and exact."
"I want to applaud the efforts in making the UI extremely usable and approachable. My suggestion would be to take another look at how the menu structure is put together, however. Even after using the platform mostly every day for months, I still find myself trying to find a service or feature in the menus."
"The pricing nowadays is quite complex."
"The documentation leaves a lot to be desired for new users."
"At the beginning, when we started throwing logs at it, there was a bit of hiccup. However, this was during their beta period, so hiccups were expected."
"Technical support could definitely be better."
"SolarWinds pricing is perceived as very high in the market, which can be a barrier for many customers."
"There is a need for an on-premises solution, which could lead to easier sales in larger markets."
"I would like to see better search functions and better filters in the next release."
"I would like to have email notifications for emergency logs."
"The Windows log forwarder is not functioning properly."
"The Windows log forwarder is not functioning properly. This is a significant concern, as it led to losing a deal due to the inability to provide Windows logs effectively."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly and customizable dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing depends on project volume."
"I am not satisfied with its licensing. Its payment is based on the exported data, and there was an explosion of the data for three or four weeks. My customer was not alerted, and there was no way for them to see that there has been an explosion of data. They got a big invoice for one or two months. The pricing model of Datadog is based on the data. The customer was quite surprised about not being alerted about this explosion of data. They should provide some kind of alert when there is an increase in usage."
"​Pricing seems reasonable. It depends on the size of your organization, the size of your infrastructure, and what portion of your overall business costs go toward infrastructure."
"The tool is open-source."
"It didn't scale well from the cost perspective. We had a custom package deal."
"Licensing is based on the retention period of logs and metrics."
"Datadog does not provide any free plans to use the solution. When I start with a proof of concept it would be sensible to have a free plan to test the tool and check whether it fits the requirements of the project. Before the production stage, it is always good to have a free plan with some limited features, number of requests, or logs."
"The price is better than some competing products."
"We subscribe and pay directly on the website."
"The price of SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server could improve."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business81
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise99
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

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 SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server?
SolarWinds pricing is perceived as very high in the market, which can be a barrier for many customers.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server?
The Windows log forwarder is not functioning properly. This is a significant concern, as it led to losing a deal due to the inability to provide Windows logs effectively. It should be more user-fri...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server?
Our primary use case for Kiwi Syslog is for gathering logs necessary for auditing purposes.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Kiwi Syslog Server
 

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
Holy Cross Energy, West Texas A&M University, Medium Enterprise Industrial Manufacturing Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Datadog vs. SolarWinds Kiwi Syslog Server and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.