Datadog vs Highlight.io for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Datadog Overview

Datadog is the enterprise observability platform that covers infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, synthetic testing, and security. It's the tool that DevOps teams at large companies rely on to monitor hundreds of services. Everything is managed, dashboards appear automatically, and the integrations cover every cloud service and framework you can think of.

The problem for solo developers is straightforward. Datadog is built for teams with budgets. The per-host, per-feature pricing model means that what starts as a "let me try the free tier" experiment can quickly balloon into a meaningful monthly bill. I've seen solo developers get sticker shock after enabling APM and logs alongside infrastructure monitoring. The product is excellent, but it's engineered for a different audience.

Highlight.io Overview

Highlight.io is an open-source observability platform that combines session replay, error tracking, and log management in one tool. It's built by developers who were frustrated with the existing options, and that shows in the developer experience. Setup is a single SDK integration, and within minutes you have session recordings, error captures, and log aggregation.

What makes Highlight.io interesting for solo developers is the approach. Instead of starting from infrastructure metrics (like Datadog), it starts from the user's experience. When something goes wrong, you watch the session replay, see the error in context, and check the corresponding logs. It's like having Sentry, LogRocket, and a log aggregator combined into one open-source tool.

The free tier gives you 500 sessions per month and 1,000 errors. You can also self-host it if you want full control over your data. The codebase is fully open-source on GitHub, which is refreshing compared to Datadog's closed ecosystem.

Key Differences

Focus area. Datadog is infrastructure-first. It monitors servers, containers, databases, and network traffic. Highlight.io is application-first. It monitors user sessions, frontend errors, and application logs. These are fundamentally different starting points.

Session replay. Highlight.io includes full session replay as a core feature. You watch what users did, see their clicks, form inputs, and navigation. Datadog added RUM (Real User Monitoring) as a separate paid feature, but it's not the same level of session replay.

Open source. Highlight.io is fully open-source. You can read the code, contribute, and self-host it. Datadog is proprietary SaaS. For solo developers who value transparency and the option to self-host, this matters.

Infrastructure monitoring. Datadog excels here. CPU metrics, memory usage, container orchestration, network monitoring. Highlight.io doesn't do infrastructure monitoring. If you need to know that your server's memory is spiking, Datadog shows you that. Highlight.io shows you that users are experiencing errors, but not necessarily why at the infrastructure level.

Pricing structure. Datadog charges per host plus per feature. Highlight.io charges by sessions and retention. For a solo developer with one or two apps, Highlight.io's model is usually cheaper. And the self-hosted option makes it potentially free.

Developer experience. Highlight.io's SDK integration takes about 5 minutes. Add the provider to your React app, and you're capturing sessions and errors. Datadog requires agent installation on your server plus SDK integration for APM. More moving parts, more configuration.

When to Choose Datadog

• You need infrastructure-level monitoring for servers, containers, and databases
• Distributed tracing across microservices is a hard requirement
• You want pre-built dashboards and hundreds of automatic integrations
• Your project has grown beyond solo-developer scale and the budget exists
• You need compliance features like audit logs, RBAC, and data residency controls

When to Choose Highlight.io

• You want session replay combined with error tracking in one tool
• You value open-source software and want the option to self-host
• Your monitoring needs are application-focused, not infrastructure-focused
• You're a solo developer who wants quick setup without configuring agents
• You want to understand the user experience when debugging, not just server metrics

The Verdict

For solo developers, Highlight.io is the better fit. It gives you the tools you actually need for debugging production issues: session replay to see what users did, error tracking to know what broke, and logs to understand why.

Datadog is the right choice if you need infrastructure monitoring. But most solo developers don't need to watch CPU graphs and network throughput. They need to know when their app breaks and have enough context to fix it quickly. Highlight.io is purpose-built for that workflow.

The open-source angle is a bonus. Being able to self-host means your data stays yours, and you're not locked into a vendor's pricing model. Even the free cloud tier with 500 sessions per month is enough for many early-stage projects.

My recommendation: use Highlight.io for application monitoring and pair it with something simple like BetterStack's free uptime monitoring if you also need to know when your server goes down. You'll cover more ground than Datadog's free tier at zero cost.