Grafana Cloud vs Papertrail 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 | Papertrail | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $19/mo | $5/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 1 |
| 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)
Log Observability
- Intuitive Web-based log viewer
- Team-wide groups & searches
- Unlimited systems & users
- Encrypted logging
- Long-term archive
- REST API
- Search alerts
Grafana Cloud vs Papertrail FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- Papertrail is the cheaper option, starting at $5/mo vs $19/mo for Grafana Cloud.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Grafana Cloud has a free plan. Papertrail doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- 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. Papertrail: At $5/GB, Papertrail sits on the affordable end of log management — well below Datadog's log pricing and competitive with entry-level Loggly. They're clearly targeting smaller engineering teams and startups who need simple, no-frills log aggregation without the complexity tax of full observability platforms.
Still deciding? See the best Grafana Cloud alternatives or the best Papertrail alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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