Datadog is the best platform for ML-driven log analysis for most teams: Watchdog machine learning watches every log stream for anomalies, and Logging without Limits lets you ingest everything and index only what you need. Elastic Observability is the budget pick, with serverless log ingest from $0.07 per GB, the lowest published rate here, and machine learning in the Complete tier at $0.09 per GB. New Relic is the best free starting point, with 100 GB of data ingest per month and one full platform user at no cost, then $0.40 per GB beyond that.
Machine learning changes what a log platform does for you. Instead of searching for a known error string, the platform watches patterns, flags a spike in a new error type, groups related log lines into one incident, and points at the service that changed. The eight platforms below all ship that kind of capability, but they charge for it in very different ways. Some bill per GB ingested, some bill again to index, and some bill for the searches you run.
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Best platform for ml-driven log analysis: comparison table
Swipe the table sideways on a phone to see every column.
| # | Name | Best for | Starting price | Free plan / trial | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Datadog | Teams that want ML anomaly detection on every log stream | $0.10 per GB ingested | Free trial (14 days) | Visit |
| 2 | Splunk Cloud Platform | Large enterprises with heavy security and compliance needs | quote only | Free trial (14 days) | Visit |
| 3 | Elastic Observability | Cost-conscious teams that want the lowest per-GB ingest rate | $0.07 per GB ingested | Yes | Visit |
| 4 | New Relic | Small teams starting on a generous free tier | $0.40 per GB beyond 100 GB free per month | Yes | Visit |
| 5 | Dynatrace | Enterprises that want AI root cause analysis tied to logs | $0.20 per GiB ingested | Free trial (15 days) | Visit |
| 6 | Sumo Logic | Teams that query rarely and want ingest at no charge | quote only | Yes | Visit |
| 7 | Graylog | Teams that want a free self-hosted log platform | quote only | Yes | Visit |
| 8 | Logz.io | Teams that want managed open source log analytics | $0.92 per GB per day | Free trial (14 days) | Visit |
The 8 best best platform for ml-driven log analysis, in detail
Datadog
Best for: Teams that want ML anomaly detection on every log stream
Log Management starts at $0.10 per GB ingested, covering processing, enrichment, live tail, and archiving. Standard Indexing makes logs searchable and costs $1.70 per million events per month with 15-day retention on an annual contract, or $2.55 on demand. Shorter retention costs less: 3-day is $1.06, 7-day is $1.27, and 30-day is $2.50 per million events.
- Flex Logs storage costs $0.05 per million events stored per month.
- Watchdog is the machine learning layer that earns Datadog the top spot.
- It watches log patterns across services, flags unusual error rates and new error types, and surfaces related logs next to the alert without a rule bei
- Choose Datadog when your team wants one platform for logs, metrics, traces, and ML alerting.
Pros
- Watchdog machine learning flags anomalies without manual rules
- Logging without Limits separates ingest from indexing
- Flex Logs storage from $0.05 per million events stored
Cons
- Indexing is billed again at $1.70 per million events for 15-day retention
- no free tier for log management
Splunk Cloud Platform
Best for: Large enterprises with heavy security and compliance needs
Splunk does not publish a price for Splunk Cloud Platform or Splunk Enterprise, and its pricing page leads with a quote. Only the Observability Cloud line shows list prices, starting at $15 per host per month for the Infrastructure tier. Splunk sells the platform on four models: ingest, workload, activity-based, and entity.
- Under ingest pricing, the meter is GB ingested per day on an annual subscription, and an ingest subscription includes searchable storage for up to 90
- The machine learning story rests on the Splunk Machine Learning Toolkit, which lets teams build custom models on log data for anomaly detection, forec
- Splunk Free caps self-hosted evaluation at 500 MB of daily indexing, and the Cloud trial runs 14 days at up to 5 GB per day.
- Choose Splunk for deep search and compliance retention on the same logs.
Pros
- Machine Learning Toolkit supports custom models on log data
- ingest-based, workload-based, and activity-based pricing models
- 90 days of searchable storage included with ingest subscriptions
Cons
- No published price for Splunk Cloud Platform
- 14-day trial caps at 5 GB per day
Elastic Observability
Best for: Cost-conscious teams that want the lowest per-GB ingest rate
Elastic Observability Serverless bills per GB ingested and per GB retained each month, with two tiers. Logs Essentials starts at $0.07 per GB ingested and $0.017 per GB retained per month, covering ad hoc log analysis, dashboards, integrations, and alerts. The Complete tier starts at $0.09 per GB ingested and $0.019 per GB retained per month, and adds service level objectives, AI-assisted parsing, machine learning, and agentic AI.
- Egress is 50 GB free, then $0.05 per GB.
- The trade-off is clear: the cheapest ingest rate in this list does not include machine learning, so you pay the Complete tier rate for the ML features
- The free self-managed Basic tier lets small teams run Elasticsearch and Kibana at no license cost.
- Choose Elastic for open technology and the lowest published ingest rate.
Pros
- Lowest published ingest rate in this list at $0.07 per GB
- machine learning and AI-assisted parsing in the Complete tier
- self-managed Basic tier is free
Cons
- Machine learning sits in the Complete tier at $0.09 per GB, above the Logs Essentials rate
- retention is a second per-GB charge
New Relic
Best for: Small teams starting on a generous free tier
New Relic is usage-based across four editions: Free, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Every account includes 100 GB of free data ingest per month and unlimited basic users, and the free tier adds one full platform user with no credit card required. Beyond the free allowance, original data costs $0.40 per GB and Data Plus costs $0.60 per GB, with Data Plus supporting retention up to 90 days.
- EU data center storage adds $0.05 per GB per month.
- The user model is where the bill grows.
- Basic users cost $0, core users cost $49 per user, and full platform users on Standard cost $10 for the first user and $99 for each additional user, w
- Pro moves full platform users to $349 per user per month on an annual commitment.
Pros
- 100 GB of data ingest per month free, plus one full platform user
- original data at $0.40 per GB beyond the free allowance
- no per-host charges
Cons
- Full platform users cost $349 per user per month on Pro (annual)
- Data Plus at $0.60 per GB adds to the data bill
Dynatrace
Best for: Enterprises that want AI root cause analysis tied to logs
Dynatrace sells through the Dynatrace Platform Subscription, an annual commitment drawn down at a published rate card. Log ingest and processing costs $0.20 per GiB under the Pay-per-Query and Bundled Queries models. Retention costs $0.0007 per GiB-day under Pay-per-Query, or $0.02 per GiB-day with queries included under Bundled Queries, with 10 to 35 days retention with queries included.
- Queries under Pay-per-Query cost $0.0035 per GiB scanned.
- Davis AI is the machine learning core: it watches logs, metrics, and traces together, detects anomalies, and traces them to a root cause without manua
- AI Exploration for log pattern analysis is included at no additional charge, while Agentic Operations tasks cost $0.10 per AI unit.
- The 15-day free trial is the only way to try the platform without a commitment, and the minimum annual commitment is not published.
Pros
- Davis AI links log anomalies to root cause automatically
- log ingest at $0.20 per GiB with retention from 1 day to 10 years
- no per-seat fees
Cons
- Requires an annual commitment with an unpublished minimum
- queries add $0.0035 per GiB scanned
Sumo Logic
Best for: Teams that query rarely and want ingest at no charge
Sumo Logic bills in credits, and its pricing page lists Essentials and Enterprise Suite, plus a DojoAI add-on. Under Flex Pricing, log ingest has no charge, and credits pay for storage and for the data each search scans, including searches run by dashboards, monitors, and the Mobot AI assistant. Sumo Logic does not publish a rate card, so the price per credit comes from a quote.
- The free account gives 1.25 credits a day for up to 3 users with 7-day retention.
- The billing model is the key fact to understand before you buy.
- A team that ingests a lot but searches rarely can spend very little, while a team with dashboards that refresh often can burn credits fast, because qu
- DojoAI, the multi-agent investigation feature, is gated to the Enterprise Suite plan.
Pros
- Flex Pricing charges $0 for log ingest
- free account includes 7-day retention and up to 3 users
- DojoAI adds AI investigation on the Enterprise Suite plan
Cons
- No public per-credit rate card, so the price needs a quote
- every search scans data and consumes credits
Graylog
Best for: Teams that want a free self-hosted log platform
Graylog is the only platform in this list with a free self-hosted edition that carries no ingestion cap. Graylog Open costs $0 in licensing, and the cost of running it is the infrastructure for Graylog, OpenSearch, and MongoDB, plus the time to keep those services healthy. Graylog Enterprise and Graylog Security are fixed annual licenses, and Graylog Cloud is the managed option, but the vendor publishes no prices for them, so both need a quote.
- Licensing is based on the number of log-emitting sources, not log volume, so a team does not need to drop logs to control the license cost.
- Graylog Security adds MITRE ATT&CK mapping, user behavior analytics, and Sigma rule support, and its AI features summarize dashboards and prioritize r
- Graylog Open lacks the built-in alerting and correlation engine, so teams that need those features must move to a commercial tier.
Pros
- Graylog Open is free to self-host with no ingestion cap
- licensing is based on log sources, not log volume
- AI features summarize dashboards and prioritize risks
Cons
- Graylog Open has no built-in alerting or correlation engine
- managed Cloud and Enterprise prices need a quote
Logz.io
Best for: Teams that want managed open source log analytics
Logz.io Open 360 is a managed observability platform built on open source tools: OpenSearch for logs, Prometheus and Grafana for metrics, and Jaeger for distributed tracing. Log Management costs $0.92 per GB per day with 7 days retention, and additional hot retention costs $0.03 per day, warm retention $0.015 per day, and cold storage $0.001 per day. Infrastructure Monitoring costs $0.40 per 1,000 time-series metrics per day with 18 months retention.
- A 14-day free trial includes 5 GB per day at no cost.
- OrionIQ is the AI layer: its agents investigate alerts by looking at logs, metrics, and traces together, and they now learn from analyst feedback to i
- Agentic observability is priced at $10 per 1 million tokens or per agent workflow invocation.
- Overages are charged at 1.4 times the subscription rate, so a volume spike costs more per GB than the base rate.
Pros
- Managed OpenSearch log analytics with no cluster to run
- OrionIQ AI agents investigate alerts across logs, metrics, and traces
- consumption pricing with a 14-day trial
Cons
- On-demand overages run at 1.4x the subscription rate
- no free plan, only a 14-day trial
How we chose
We included only platforms with a real machine learning or AI log analysis feature, a published pricing page or a clear quote-only model, and an official homepage. Prices and plan limits come from official vendor pricing pages opened on 2026-11-12. Where a vendor published no price, we wrote quote only instead of estimating a figure. Datadog, Elastic, New Relic, Dynatrace, and Logz.io publish per-GB or per-GiB rates. Splunk, Sumo Logic, and Graylog publish no platform price, so those three are quote only. We did not test any tool hands-on. We did not install, run, or benchmark any platform.
Pick by daily log volume and budget
| Daily log volume | Best fit | Why the numbers work |
|---|---|---|
| Under 3 GB per day | New Relic | 100 GB free per month covers about 3 GB per day, with one full platform user included |
| 3 to 30 GB per day | Elastic Observability | Logs Essentials ingest from $0.07 per GB, so 30 GB per day costs about $63 per month before retention |
| 30 to 100 GB per day | Datadog or Logz.io | Datadog ingest at $0.10 per GB keeps ingest low; Logz.io suits teams that want managed open source |
| Over 100 GB per day | Splunk Cloud Platform or Sumo Logic | Splunk quotes by volume; Sumo Logic Flex charges $0 for ingest |
| Self-hosted, any volume | Graylog | Graylog Open is free with no ingestion cap; the cost is infrastructure and staff time |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best platform for ML-driven log analysis?
Datadog is the best platform for ML-driven log analysis, because Watchdog flags anomalies across log streams, and Logging without Limits lets you ingest everything and index only what you need. Elastic Observability is the budget alternative at $0.07 per GB ingested, and New Relic is the best free starting point with 100 GB per month.
Which platform is cheapest for ML-driven log analysis?
Elastic Observability is the cheapest published option, with Logs Essentials ingest from $0.07 per GB, against $0.10 per GB at Datadog and $0.40 per GB at New Relic. Machine learning needs the Complete tier at $0.09 per GB, so the true ML price is higher than the headline rate. Graylog Open is free to self-host.
Does Splunk publish a price for log analysis?
No, Splunk does not publish a price for Splunk Cloud Platform or Splunk Enterprise, and both need a quote. Only Observability Cloud shows list prices, from $15 per host per month for the Infrastructure tier. Splunk sells the platform on ingest, workload, activity-based, or entity models.
Which platform has the best free plan for log analysis?
New Relic has the best free plan for most teams, with 100 GB of data ingest per month, one full platform user, and unlimited basic users at no cost. Graylog Open is the best free option for self-hosted teams, with no ingestion cap. Sumo Logic has a free account with 7-day retention for up to 3 users.
Sources
- https://www.datadoghq.com/
- https://www.datadoghq.com/pricing/
- https://www.splunk.com/
- http://www.splunk.com/en_us/products/pricing.html
- https://www.elastic.co/
- https://www.elastic.co/pricing/serverless-observability
- https://newrelic.com/
- https://newrelic.com/pricing
- https://www.dynatrace.com/
- https://www.dynatrace.com/pricing/
- https://www.sumologic.com/
- https://www.sumologic.com/pricing
- https://graylog.org/
- https://logz.io/
- https://logz.io/pricing/
Prices and features were read on each company’s own website in November 2026. They change often, so confirm the current offer on the official site before you sign up or buy.