Datadog and InfluxDB are two monitoring platforms that cater to different needs of DevOps teams and engineers. While both solutions aim to make things easier for engineering teams, they approach monitoring from different starting points. Datadog started as an application purpose-built for infrastructure monitoring and expanded its offerings to include performance management, logs, security, and more. In contrast, InfluxDB is an open-source time series data platform that can be used for a wide range of purposes, including monitoring. Many customers use both solutions, with some preferring InfluxDB for infrastructure monitoring and Datadog for application performance management metrics. The main reasons for using both platforms are the limitations in Datadog's pricing and flexibility. InfluxDB is generally more cost-effective, especially for large-scale infrastructure monitoring, and offers greater flexibility due to its deployability on multiple cloud providers and self-hosting options. Additionally, InfluxDB provides a broader observability with its Telegraf and FluentD plugins, allowing for seamless data integration across the DevOps toolchain. Overall, InfluxDB is a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to Datadog, offering a range of analytics and monitoring capabilities that cater to the evolving needs of modern applications.