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Best Cheap Log Managements of 2026

Updated · 5 picks · live pricing · affiliate disclosure

AGPL Loki OSS; the only catalog pick with self-host and managed paths.

BEST OVERALL6.7/10

Grafana Loki Cloud

AGPL Loki OSS; the only catalog pick with self-host and managed paths.

Cloud Free 50GB; AGPL self-host free forever
Try Grafana Loki CloudSee full review

How it stacks up

  • Cloud Free 50GB/mo

    vs Axiom 500GB SaaS

  • AGPL self-host free

    vs Better Stack uptime

  • Pro $25/mo upgrade

    vs Papertrail flat-rate

#2
Better Stack6.0/10

From $25/mo

View
#3
Axiom5.3/10

From $25/mo

View

All picks at a glance

#PickBest forStartingScore
1Grafana Loki CloudBest cheap OSS Loki, AGPL self-host plus managed cloud$25.00/mo6.7/10
2Better StackBest cheap with uptime bundle, PAYG plus monitoring and status pages$25.00/mo6.0/10
3AxiomBest cheap event database, 500GB free plus Team SMB tier$25.00/mo5.3/10
4Logz.ioBest cheap OpenSearch-compatible, Kibana-style for ELK migrators$55.00/mo4.9/10
5PapertrailBest cheap fixed-tier, predictable flat-rate billing since 2008$7.00/mo4.7/10

Quick pick by use case

If you only have thirty seconds, find your situation below and skip to that pick.

If I want predictable flat-rate billing under one gigabyte monthly volumePapertrailPapertrail Starter at $7/mo for 1GB; Pro 8GB at $75/mo upgrade. Stable since 2008.If I want the largest free tier and modern columnar storage at SMB costAxiomAxiom Free 500GB monthly; Team at $25/mo upgrade. Modern columnar event-database.If I want OSS self-host optionality with managed cloud as upgrade pathGrafana Loki CloudGrafana Loki AGPL self-host free; Cloud Free 50GB; Pro at $25/mo upgrade.If I want logs plus uptime monitoring plus status pages on one platformBetter StackBetter Stack Free 3GB plus uptime; PAYG at $0.10/GB upgrade. Unified bill.If I am migrating from self-hosted Elasticsearch and Kibana to a managed serviceLogz.ioLogz.io Pro OpenSearch-compatible UI with Kibana-style dashboards. ~$55/mo at 100GB.

Compare all 5 picks

Top spec
#1Grafana Loki Cloud6.7/10$25.00/mo$300.00/yr—Cloud Free 50GB/mo
#2Better Stack6.0/10$25.00/mo$300.00/yr—Free 3GB + uptime
#3Axiom5.3/10$2,500.00/mo$30,000.00/yr$29,700/yr moreFree 500GB/mo
#4Logz.io4.9/10$55.00/mo$660.00/yr$360/yr morePro ingest-billed
#5Papertrail4.7/10$75.00/mo$900.00/yr$600/yr moreStarter $7/mo + 1GB
#1

Grafana Loki Cloud

6.7/10

Best cheap OSS Loki, AGPL self-host plus managed cloud

Try Grafana Loki CloudSee Grafana Loki Cloud alternatives

AGPL Loki OSS; the only catalog pick with self-host and managed paths.

PlanMonthlyAnnualWhat you get
FreeFree—50GB a month logs free with 14-day retention and 3 active users; bundled in Grafana Cloud Free
Pro$25.00/mo$300.00/yrRoughly $25 a month for 50GB above the free tier with $0.50 per GB ingested and up to 30-day retention
AdvancedFree$0.00/yr$0.50 ingest plus $0.10 query per GB with higher rate limits and up to 13-month retention
EnterpriseCustomCustomCustom pricing with custom data residency, premium support, and dedicated CSM

Grafana Loki Cloud is the cheap OSS-or-cloud pick and the right call for teams that want self-host optionality without committing to managed-only SaaS. The wedge for value readers: AGPL self-host costs nothing on licensing with full feature access, and Cloud Pro at the SMB tier matches Better Stack PAYG and Axiom Team on price while shipping the OSS escape hatch as the differentiator.

Cloud Free covers fifty gigabytes monthly with 30-day retention. Pro is the upgrade tier at twenty-five dollars monthly with higher ingest and longer retention. Self-host AGPL is dollar-zero on licensing with unlimited ingest on customer infrastructure; Loki indexes metadata only and reduces storage costs around ten times versus Elasticsearch-based stacks. Most OSS-aligned teams self-host indefinitely; Cloud Pro is the upgrade when DevOps capacity becomes the bottleneck.

The trade-off versus Axiom is free-tier ceiling; Loki Cloud Free fifty gigabytes is much smaller than Axiom Free at five hundred gigabytes. The trade-off versus Better Stack is bundle scope; Loki is logs-focused while Better Stack bundles uptime and status pages. For OSS-aligned teams that want self-host optionality with managed cloud as the upgrade path, Grafana Loki is the right call.

Pros

  • AGPL OSS self-host costs nothing on licensing with unlimited ingest on your infrastructure
  • Cloud Pro upgrade at twenty-five dollars monthly matches SMB PAYG competitors
  • Loki indexes metadata only, reducing storage costs around 10 times versus Elasticsearch
  • Native integration with Grafana dashboards for unified observability
  • Cloud Free covers fifty gigabytes monthly for evaluation before committing

Cons

  • Self-host requires Kubernetes or Docker plus DevOps capacity to operate
  • Free tier ceiling is much smaller than Axiom on the same upgrade rung
Cloud Free 50GB/moAGPL self-host freePro $25/mo upgradeCloud Free 50GB; AGPL self-host free forever

Best for: OSS-aligned teams that want AGPL self-host optionality with managed Cloud Pro as the upgrade path when DevOps capacity becomes the bottleneck.

Ingest
9
Query
8
Workflow
7
Value
10
Support
7
Try Grafana Loki Cloud
#2

Better Stack

6.0/10

Best cheap with uptime bundle, PAYG plus monitoring and status pages

Try Better StackSee Better Stack alternatives

Uptime monitoring and status pages and logs unified on one platform.

PlanMonthlyAnnualWhat you get
FreeFree—3GB a month retained for 3 days plus 10 uptime monitors with unlimited SMS, phone, and email alerts
Pay-as-you-go$25.00/mo$300.00/yrRoughly $25 a month for 50GB ingest plus 30-day retention; uptime + status pages + logs unified on one platform
EnterpriseCustomCustomCustom pricing with custom-bucket hosting, premium support, dedicated CSM, and enterprise security

Better Stack is the cheap uptime-bundled pick and the right call for small teams who want logs alongside uptime monitoring and status pages on one platform. The wedge for value readers: pay-as-you-go ingest at the SMB tier is unified with uptime monitoring and public status pages on a single bill, removing the multi-vendor cost of buying logs and uptime separately.

Free covers three gigabytes monthly logs with 3-day retention plus uptime monitoring plus public status pages. Pay-as-you-go is the upgrade path at ten cents per gigabyte ingest above the free tier; modeled fifty-gigabyte monthly spend lands around five dollars above the free three-gigabyte ceiling. Team and Enterprise tiers add longer retention, higher ingest, SAML SSO, and audit logs. Most small teams stay on Free with mixed usage; PAYG is the upgrade when ingest grows past the free ceiling.

The trade-off versus Papertrail is feature breadth; Better Stack bundles uptime while Papertrail is classic logs-only. The trade-off versus Axiom is free-tier ceiling; Better Stack three gigabytes is much smaller than Axiom five hundred gigabytes. For teams that want logs alongside uptime monitoring on one platform, Better Stack is the right call.

Pros

  • PAYG at ten cents per gigabyte ingest above the free tier is the cheapest variable rate
  • Free three gigabytes monthly logs plus uptime monitoring plus public status pages bundled
  • Modern developer-friendly UI with quick setup and polished workflows
  • Acquired Logtail in 2022 and rebranded with established log management heritage
  • Unified bill removes the multi-vendor cost of buying logs and uptime separately

Cons

  • Free retention at 3 days is shorter than Axiom 30-day or Loki 30-day on free
  • OpenSearch-compatible API less mature than Logz.io Pro for ELK migrators
Free 3GB + uptimePAYG $0.10/GB upgradeStatus pages bundledFree 3GB monthly with uptime; cancel anytime

Best for: Small teams that want logs plus uptime monitoring plus public status pages on one platform without setting up multiple vendors.

Ingest
8
Query
8
Workflow
9
Value
9
Support
8
Try Better Stack
#3

Axiom

5.3/10$29,700/yr more

Best cheap event database, 500GB free plus Team SMB tier

Try AxiomSee Axiom alternatives

Modern columnar event-database storage; Series B funded with strong DevOps community traction.

PlanMonthlyAnnualWhat you get
PersonalFree—500GB ingest a month free with 30-day retention, unlimited queries, and email support
Team$25.00/mo$300.00/yr$25 a month plus $0.25 per GB ingest above 500GB with up to 5 users, Slack alerts, and standard support
Pro$2,500.00/mo$30,000.00/yr$2,500-plus per month entry tier with unlimited users, SAML SSO, audit log, and priority support
EnterpriseCustomCustomCustom pricing with custom retention, BYOC option, and dedicated CSM

Axiom is the cheap modern-event-database pick and the right call for production teams under five hundred gigabytes monthly who want columnar storage at SMB cost. Founded 2020, Series B funded. The wedge for value readers: the free tier ceiling is approximately twenty-five times more generous than the next-most-generous free tier in the category, and the Team upgrade tier sits at the same price as competing PAYG SMB tiers.

Free covers five hundred gigabytes monthly ingest with 30-day retention and full search and dashboards. Team is the upgrade tier at twenty-five dollars monthly with higher ingest, longer retention, and team workspace features. Enterprise covers SAML SSO and audit logging at custom pricing. Most production SMB workloads stay on Free indefinitely because five hundred gigabytes covers around 95 percent of SMB volumes; Team is the upgrade when ingest passes the free ceiling.

The trade-off versus Papertrail is fixed-tier predictability; Axiom is free-then-PAYG while Papertrail is flat-rate. The trade-off versus Better Stack is bundle scope; Axiom is logs-focused while Better Stack bundles uptime and status pages. For SMB teams under the free ceiling who want modern event-database storage at zero cost, Axiom is the right call.

Pros

  • 500GB free monthly is around 25 times more generous than the next free tier
  • Modern columnar event-database storage faster than traditional Elasticsearch
  • Team upgrade at twenty-five dollars monthly matches SMB PAYG competitors
  • 30-day retention on free with full search and dashboards included
  • Series B funded with strong DevOps community traction since 2020

Cons

  • Closed-source SaaS where Grafana Loki ships AGPL self-host optionality
  • PAYG above Team tier scales with ingest volume rather than fixed price
Free 500GB/moTeam $25/mo upgradeModern columnar storageFree 500GB monthly forever; cancel anytime

Best for: Production SMB teams under five hundred gigabytes monthly ingest who want modern event-database storage at zero cost on the free tier.

Ingest
8
Query
9
Workflow
9
Value
10
Support
8
Try Axiom
#4

Logz.io

4.9/10$360/yr more

Best cheap OpenSearch-compatible, Kibana-style for ELK migrators

Try Logz.ioSee Logz.io alternatives

OpenSearch-compatible UI with Kibana-style dashboards for ELK-stack migrators.

PlanMonthlyAnnualWhat you get
Free trialFree—14-day Pro trial with 50GB a day for 14 days, all features, and no credit card required
Pro$55.00/mo$660.00/yrRoughly $55 a month for 100GB ingest with $0.55/GB, OpenSearch-compatible UI, and Kibana-style dashboards
EnterpriseCustomCustomCustom pricing with higher retention, SAML SSO, audit, and premium support

Logz.io is the cheap OpenSearch-compatible pick and the right call for teams migrating from self-hosted Elasticsearch stacks. Founded 2014 in Tel Aviv. The wedge for value readers: existing Kibana dashboards, queries, and saved searches transfer to Logz.io with minimal rework, removing the migration tax that other cheap picks impose on ELK teams.

Pro is the upgrade tier with OpenSearch-compatible UI and Kibana-style dashboards, billed by ingest above a starter allowance; modeled hundred-gigabyte monthly spend lands around fifty-five dollars. A 14-day Pro trial covers fifty gigabytes daily for evaluation with no credit card required. Enterprise is custom with higher retention, SAML SSO, audit logging, and premium support. Most ELK migrators land on Pro indefinitely once Kibana parity is verified.

The trade-off versus Better Stack is migration ergonomics; Logz.io ships OpenSearch parity while Better Stack ships modern UI without Kibana lineage. The trade-off versus Axiom is raw cost; Logz.io is more expensive than Axiom Team on equivalent ingest but cheaper than Datadog Logs by a meaningful margin. For ELK migrators who want minimal rework on existing Kibana dashboards, Logz.io is the right call.

Pros

  • OpenSearch-compatible UI with Kibana-style dashboards for ELK migrators
  • Existing Kibana queries, dashboards, saved searches transfer with minimal rework
  • 14-day Pro trial covers fifty gigabytes daily for evaluation with no credit card
  • Founded 2014 in Tel Aviv with mature OpenSearch-compatible positioning
  • Cheaper than Datadog Logs at equivalent SMB ingest by a meaningful margin

Cons

  • More expensive than Better Stack PAYG or Grafana Loki Pro at the SMB tier
  • Limited differentiation outside the ELK-migration lane against modern picks
Pro ingest-billed14-day trial 50GB/dayOpenSearch-compatible14-day Pro trial 50GB/day; cancel anytime

Best for: Teams migrating from self-hosted Elasticsearch and Kibana stacks who want minimal rework on dashboards and queries on the way to managed log management.

Ingest
8
Query
9
Workflow
9
Value
7
Support
8
Try Logz.io
#5

Papertrail

4.7/10$600/yr more

Best cheap fixed-tier, predictable flat-rate billing since 2008

Try PapertrailSee Papertrail alternatives

Classic flat-rate log management; SolarWinds-acquired in 2018 with stable pricing.

PlanMonthlyAnnualWhat you get
FreeFree—100MB a month with 7-day search, 48-hour archive, and up to 50MB/day burst
Starter$7.00/mo$84.00/yr$7 a month for 1GB a month with 7-day search and 1-year archive; the cheapest fixed-tier paid log-management
Pro 8GB$75.00/mo$900.00/yr$75 a month for 8GB a month with 14-day search, 1-year archive, and up to 5 users
EnterpriseCustomCustomCustom pricing with higher retention, SAML SSO, and dedicated support

Papertrail is the cheap fixed-tier pick and the right call for solo developers and tiny startups who want predictable flat-rate billing. Founded 2008, SolarWinds-acquired 2018. The wedge for value readers: a flat-rate Starter tier has been the cheapest fixed-tier paid log management in the category for over fifteen years, and the price has been stable across the SolarWinds acquisition.

Starter at seven dollars monthly covers one gigabyte monthly with a 7-day search window and 1-year archive. Pro 8GB scales up to seventy-five dollars monthly with eight gigabytes and 14-day search and up to five users. Higher fixed tiers continue linearly. Most predictable-volume small teams stay on Starter indefinitely; Pro 8GB is the upgrade when ingest passes one gigabyte or longer search windows matter.

The trade-off versus Better Stack is feature breadth; Papertrail is classic logs-only while Better Stack bundles uptime monitoring and status pages. The trade-off versus Axiom is free-tier ceiling; Papertrail Starter caps at one gigabyte while Axiom Team starts at twenty-five dollars monthly with five hundred gigabytes free included. For solo developers under one gigabyte monthly volume who want fixed-rate billing, Papertrail is the right call.

Pros

  • Cheapest fixed-tier paid log management in the category since 2008
  • Pricing stable since the SolarWinds acquisition in 2018, rare in the category
  • 7-day search window plus 1-year archive on Starter for compliance retention
  • Free 16GB first-month bonus for evaluation before committing to Starter
  • Classic Tail-and-grep developer experience with simple text-search syntax

Cons

  • Per-gigabyte scaling above Starter is expensive once ingest passes one gigabyte
  • Lacks structured query DSL and modern dashboards versus Better Stack or Datadog
Starter $7/mo + 1GBPro 8GB $75 + 5 usersStable since 2008Free 16GB first-month bonus; cancel anytime

Best for: Solo developers and tiny startups under one gigabyte monthly log volume who want predictable flat-rate billing without per-gigabyte sticker shock.

Ingest
7
Query
7
Workflow
8
Value
10
Support
7
Try Papertrail

How we picked

Each pick gets a transparent composite score from price, features, free-tier availability, and editor fit. Pricing flows from our live database, so when a vendor changes prices the score updates here too.

We weight price at 40 percent, features at 30, free tier at 15, fit at 15. Papertrail leads because flat-rate Starter pricing has held steady since the SolarWinds acquisition, the cheapest fixed-tier paid log management in the category. See the parent /best/log-management guide for paid-only Datadog Logs and Coralogix Streama excluded from this cheap lens.

We don't claim "30,000 hours of testing." Our methodology is the formula above plus the editor's published verdict for each pick. Verifiable, auditable, and updated when the underlying data changes.

Why trust Subrupt

We're a subscription tracker first, a buying guide second. Every claim on this page is something you can check.

By use case

Best cheap classic fixed tier

Papertrail

Read the full review →

Try Papertrail

Best cheap event database

Axiom

Read the full review →

Try Axiom

Best cheap OSS Loki

Grafana Loki Cloud

Read the full review →

Try Grafana Loki Cloud

Best cheap with uptime bundle

Better Stack

Read the full review →

Try Better Stack

Best cheap OpenSearch ELK

Logz.io

Read the full review →

Try Logz.io

How to choose your Cheap Log Management

Cost-per-gigabyte varies seventeen times across the cheap lineup

Modeled SMB spend at fifty gigabytes monthly ingest varies sharply across the five cheap picks. Papertrail Starter is fixed at seven dollars monthly for one gigabyte and scales linearly to seventy-five dollars at eight gigabytes through Pro tiers. Axiom Free covers fifty gigabytes within the five-hundred-gigabyte free ceiling at zero cost; Team at twenty-five dollars monthly is the upgrade rung. Grafana Loki Cloud Pro is twenty-five dollars monthly above the fifty-gigabyte free tier. Better Stack PAYG above the three-gigabyte free tier costs around five dollars at fifty gigabytes monthly because the per-gigabyte rate is the cheapest variable rate in the lineup. Logz.io Pro at fifty-five dollars at one hundred gigabytes is the most expensive cheap pick. The decision matters because raw spend varies more than feature differentiation at this volume.

Fixed-rate predictability versus pay-as-you-go elasticity

Two pricing models compete for cheap log management. Papertrail Starter is the only fixed-rate pick where the bill never changes regardless of ingest within the tier ceiling; the trade-off is sticker shock when crossing tier ceilings to higher fixed rates. Better Stack PAYG, Axiom Team, and Grafana Loki Pro are all pay-as-you-go with linear ingest billing; the trade-off is unpredictable monthly bills during ingest spikes. Logz.io Pro sits in between with starter ingest plus PAYG above. The honest framework: predictable-volume teams under tier ceilings pick fixed-rate Papertrail. Variable-volume teams that need elasticity pick PAYG with monitoring alerts to catch overages. Teams expecting growth past tier ceilings within a year pick PAYG to avoid forced re-platforming.

When does Grafana Loki self-host pay off versus managed cloud?

AGPL self-host is the only zero-licensing path in catalog log management. Self-host eliminates ingest billing entirely on customer infrastructure; the cost shifts to compute, object storage, and DevOps capacity. The break-even depends on monthly ingest volume and DevOps cost. Below around one hundred gigabytes monthly, managed cloud picks like Better Stack PAYG or Axiom Team beat self-host on total cost because DevOps capacity dominates. Above around five hundred gigabytes monthly, self-host on customer infrastructure with object storage tends to beat managed cloud once labor amortizes. Loki indexes metadata only and reduces storage costs around ten times versus Elasticsearch-based stacks, making the self-host path more competitive than ELK self-host. Teams without DevOps capacity always pick managed Loki Cloud Pro or another SaaS regardless of volume.

When to upgrade past cheap to a paid tier (cross-link to parent)

Cheap paths cover most SMB workloads but each pick has a clear upgrade trigger. Papertrail Starter outgrows past one gigabyte monthly; Pro 8GB at seventy-five dollars is the upgrade rung. Axiom Free outgrows past five hundred gigabytes monthly; Team is the upgrade. Grafana Loki Cloud Free outgrows past fifty gigabytes monthly; Pro is the upgrade. Better Stack Free outgrows past three gigabytes monthly; PAYG is the upgrade. Logz.io Pro outgrows when retention, SSO, or audit log compliance hardens; Enterprise is the upgrade. At any of those triggers, see [our /best/log-management guide](/best/log-management) for the broader paid lineup including Datadog Logs APM-bundled at around fifty dollars monthly SMB and Coralogix Streama TCO Optimizer at higher raw cost with priority routing.

Out-of-catalog cheap log management worth knowing

Cheap log management lists frequently include projects we do not yet catalog. Graylog Open under SSPL is free download with no per-user fees, no ingestion caps, and no time-limited trial. SigNoz under MIT bundles logs, traces, and metrics for unified observability with OpenTelemetry-first design. OpenObserve under Apache 2.0 ships Rust-native S3-backed storage at around 140 times lower cost than ELK. Parseable under AGPL ships Rust-native indexed search with S3-compatible object storage. ELK Stack under Elastic License 2.0 ships Elasticsearch and Logstash and Kibana for full-text search at scale on customer infrastructure. From our catalog Grafana Loki is the AGPL self-host path; the four SaaS picks cover managed hosting at varying cost. Readers who specifically need Graylog or SigNoz for unified observability should evaluate those projects directly.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest log management for a startup?

Papertrail Starter at seven dollars monthly is the cheapest fixed-tier paid log management in the category since 2008 and remains the cheapest predictable bill for solo developers under one gigabyte monthly. For teams expecting growth, Better Stack PAYG at ten cents per gigabyte beats Papertrail Pro tiers as ingest scales. For teams under five hundred gigabytes monthly, Axiom Free is zero cost.

Is fifty dollars a month considered cheap for log management?

It depends on ingest volume. Logz.io Pro at fifty-five dollars at one hundred gigabytes monthly is cheap relative to Datadog Logs at the same volume but expensive relative to Better Stack PAYG or Grafana Loki Pro at fifty gigabytes monthly. The cost-per-gigabyte metric is the better proxy than absolute monthly bill. At the SMB end of the cheap lineup, the per-gigabyte rate ranges from ten cents on Better Stack PAYG to fifty-five cents on Logz.io Pro at scale.

Does Subrupt earn a commission from these cheap picks?

On most. We disclose this on every /best page. Free tiers themselves have no transaction. Paid tiers on Papertrail, Axiom, Grafana Loki Cloud, Better Stack, and Logz.io have plans where we earn commission only on conversion. The composite ranking weights price at 40 percent, features at 30, free tier at 15, fit at 15; none tuned by affiliate rate.

Why is Papertrail ranked first over the cheaper PAYG picks?

Papertrail wins on fixed-rate predictability where Starter pricing has held steady since the SolarWinds acquisition in 2018, the only fixed-tier pick under ten dollars monthly in catalog log management. PAYG picks like Better Stack and Grafana Loki Pro are cheaper at fifty gigabytes monthly but the bill varies with ingest. Predictable-volume small teams under one gigabyte pick Papertrail. Variable-volume teams pick PAYG.

Can I self-host log management to skip ingest billing entirely?

Yes via Grafana Loki AGPL self-host on customer infrastructure. Self-host eliminates ingest billing; cost shifts to compute, object storage, and DevOps capacity. Loki indexes metadata only and reduces storage costs around ten times versus Elasticsearch-based stacks. Below around one hundred gigabytes monthly, managed cloud usually beats self-host on total cost. Above around five hundred gigabytes monthly, self-host tends to win once labor amortizes.

What is the cheapest path for a Kubernetes cluster?

Grafana Loki self-host on Kubernetes with Helm charts and Promtail agent is the cheapest pure-licensing path. Loki Cloud Free covers fifty gigabytes monthly for small clusters with managed hosting. Better Stack and Axiom ship Kubernetes integrations for managed cloud ingestion. Papertrail covers Kubernetes via syslog. For OSS Kubernetes log management, Loki self-host is the catalog fit; out-of-catalog SigNoz also fits well for unified observability.

How do I avoid PAYG sticker shock during ingest spikes?

Three approaches. First, set ingest alerts that fire at fifty and eighty percent of expected monthly volume to catch runaway logs early. Second, drop log levels at the application layer where info and debug logs swamp errors and warnings; filter info in non-development environments. Third, pick a fixed-rate vendor like Papertrail Starter where the bill never changes within the tier ceiling. Most spikes are accidental log explosions rather than legitimate growth.

EU data residency: which cheap picks store logs in the EU?

Grafana Loki self-host gives full control of data residency. Loki Cloud has multi-region with EU option. Axiom is multi-region with EU option on paid tiers. Better Stack is multi-region with EU option on paid tiers. Logz.io is multi-region with EU option on Pro and Enterprise. Papertrail is US-based without an EU option. For default EU residency on cheap tiers, Loki Cloud Pro on the EU region or Better Stack PAYG on the EU region are the cleanest catalog fits.

How does cost-per-gigabyte compare to Datadog Logs and Coralogix?

Datadog Logs at around fifty dollars monthly SMB at fifty gigabytes is roughly twice the cost of Better Stack PAYG and four times the cost of Axiom Team for the same ingest. Coralogix at two dollars forty cents per gigabyte raw ingest is the most expensive raw rate; effective cost depends on Streama routing reducing indexed volume. Both are excluded from this cheap lens. See [our /best/log-management guide](/best/log-management) for full coverage.

How often is this guide updated?

We re-review pricing and features annually at minimum, with mid-year refreshes when major vendor announcements happen. Papertrail Starter pricing has held since the SolarWinds acquisition in 2018. Axiom 500GB free tier launched 2023. Grafana Loki Cloud 50GB free tier launched 2024. Better Stack acquired Logtail in 2022. Logz.io has shipped consistent OpenSearch parity since the 2020 rebrand. The lastReviewed date reflects the most recent editorial pass.

Subrupt Editorial

The team behind subrupt.com. We track subscriptions, surface cheaper alternatives, and publish buying guides where the score formula is on the page so you can recompute it yourself. We do not claim 30,000 hours of testing. What we claim is live pricing from our database, a transparent composite score, and honest savings math against a category baseline.

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Affiliate disclosure: Subrupt earns a commission when you switch to a service through our recommendation links. This never changes the price you pay. We only recommend services where there's a real cost or feature advantage for you, and our picks are based on the data on this page, not on which programs pay the most.

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