Should you build or buy your monitoring stack?
A practical framework to evaluate DIY (Prometheus + Grafana + Alertmanager + Thanos) versus managed SaaS monitoring. Cost analysis, hidden engineering time, team-size fit, and a decision matrix you can apply to your own infrastructure today.
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What you'll learn
True cost of DIY monitoring
Go beyond the license price — engineering time to set up, maintain, and upgrade your Prometheus + Grafana stack. Hidden infra costs (storage, federation, HA).
When managed SaaS pays off
Team-size thresholds where managed monitoring becomes cheaper than DIY. How to calculate the break-even point for your specific context.
Decision matrix by profile
Match your team's size, technical expertise, and growth trajectory to the right approach. Clear recommendations for startups, scale-ups, and enterprises.
How to avoid vendor lock-in
Whichever path you choose, how to keep your data and instrumentation portable via open standards (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus exporters).
Inside the guide
- 1 Three ways to monitor infrastructure (DIY, enterprise SaaS, managed SaaS)
- 2 Side-by-side comparison across 8 criteria
- 3 Score your priorities
- 4 Make your decision
- 5 Final checklist
Want to run the numbers yourself?
Our Monitoring Cost Calculator compares DIY vs managed side by side based on your infrastructure size — get a clear answer in under a minute.
Try the Cost Calculator