Grafana Cloud vs Honeycomb Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| Grafana Cloud | Honeycomb | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $19/mo | $150/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 3 |
| Free plan | ||
| Free trial | — | — |
| Pricing model | usage-based | usage-based |
Free
- All Grafana Cloud services, with limited usage
- Community support
- 14 days retention for metrics, logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests
Pro
- Pay as you go above the Free tier
- 8X5 email support
- 13 months retention for metrics; 30 days retention for logs, traces, profiles, & k6 performance tests
Enterprise
- Premium support
- Custom retention
- Deployment flexibility (Public Cloud, Federal Cloud, or Bring Your Own Cloud)
Free
- 2 Triggers
- Distributed Tracing
- BubbleUp
- OpenTelemetry Support
- Team Query History
- Query Result Permalinks
- Honeycomb Metrics
- Canvas AI Copilot
- Honeycomb MCP
Pro
- All features from the Free Plan
- 100 Triggers
- 2 Service Level Objectives (SLOs)
- Single-Sign On (SSO)
- Honeycomb Support
- Monthly or Annual Subscription
Enterprise
Popular- All features from the Pro Plan
- Starts with 300 Triggers
- Starts with 100 SLOs
- Service Map
- Enterprise Support for Refinery
- Enterprise-Grade Support + Onboarding
- Query Data API
- AWS PrivateLink
- SLO Reporting API
- Support for Honeycomb Private Cloud
Grafana Cloud vs Honeycomb FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Grafana Cloud starts lower at $19/mo, compared to $150/mo for Honeycomb.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Both use a usage-based model, so the comparison is straightforward — it comes down to features and limits at each price point.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Grafana Cloud: Grafana positions itself as the accessible middle ground between DIY self-hosted Grafana (cheap but painful) and Datadog or New Relic (powerful but eye-watering). They're going after cost-conscious engineering teams who want managed infrastructure without the sticker shock of the legacy APM players. Honeycomb: Honeycomb sits in the premium tier of the observability space, competing with Datadog and New Relic but positioning itself as the serious tool for teams that actually care about distributed tracing and high-cardinality data. They're not trying to win on price — they're targeting engineering-led orgs willing to pay for depth over breadth.
Still deciding? See the best Grafana Cloud alternatives or the best Honeycomb alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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We'll monitor pricing changes for Grafana Cloud and Honeycomb and let you know when something moves.