SigNoz provides a unified OpenTelemetry-native solution for monitoring metrics, traces, and logs, giving you greater flexibility, control over your data, and freedom from vendor lock-in. This guide provides an overview of migrating your existing Datadog setup to SigNoz.
Why Migrate to SigNoz?
- Open Source & Open Standards: SigNoz is open-source and built natively on OpenTelemetry, ensuring you are not locked into proprietary agents or data formats.
- Data Control: Full ownership and privacy of your telemetry data
- Cost Efficiency: Predictable pricing without per-host or per-container fees
- Read the pricing analysis: SigNoz vs Datadog vs New Relic vs Grafana
- Unified Platform: Single UI for metrics, traces, and logs with built-in correlation
Migration Overview
Migrating from Datadog to SigNoz involves replacing Datadog agents and libraries with OpenTelemetry instrumentation. The process can be done incrementally—you can migrate one signal type at a time while running both platforms in parallel.
Migration Paths
| Signal | Guide | Key Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Metrics | Migrate Metrics | Replace Datadog Agent with OTel Collector, migrate DogStatsD to OTel SDK |
| Traces/APM | Migrate Traces | Replace dd-trace libraries with OpenTelemetry SDKs |
| Logs | Migrate Logs | Replace Datadog log forwarders with OTel Collector |
| Dashboards | Migrate Dashboards | Recreate dashboards using templates or Query Builder |
| Alerts | Migrate Alerts | Map Datadog monitors to SigNoz alert types |
Bridge Solution: Datadog Receiver
If you need to continue using Datadog Agent during migration, you can use the Datadog Receiver in the OpenTelemetry Collector. This allows you to receive Datadog Agent traffic and forward it to SigNoz without modifying your applications immediately.
Key Differences: Datadog vs SigNoz
| Aspect | Datadog | SigNoz |
|---|---|---|
| Instrumentation | Proprietary dd-trace libraries | OpenTelemetry SDKs (open standard) |
| Agent | Datadog Agent | OpenTelemetry Collector |
| Custom Metrics | DogStatsD | OpenTelemetry SDK |
| Query Language | Datadog Query Language | PromQL, ClickHouse SQL, Query Builder |
| Dashboards | JSON (Datadog schema) | JSON (SigNoz schema) |
| Storage | Proprietary | ClickHouse (open source) |
For a detailed comparison, check out SigNoz vs Datadog.
Migration Tools
Automated Dashboard Migration
Try the SigNoz Datadog Migration Tool to automatically translate Datadog dashboard JSON to SigNoz format. This provides a starting point for complex dashboards.
Import Pre-built Dashboards
SigNoz provides ready-to-use dashboard templates in the SigNoz Dashboards Repository:
- MongoDB Metrics
- Redis Metrics
- MySQL/PostgreSQL
- JVM Metrics
- And more...
Next Steps
Start with the signal that's most important for your use case:
- Migrate Metrics - Infrastructure and custom metrics
- Migrate Traces/APM - Application performance monitoring
- Migrate Logs - Log collection and analysis
- Migrate Dashboards - Visualizations and panels
- Migrate Alerts - Monitoring and notifications
Get Help
If you need help with the steps in this topic, please reach out to us on SigNoz Community Slack.
If you are a SigNoz Cloud user, please use in product chat support located at the bottom right corner of your SigNoz instance or contact us at cloud-support@signoz.io.
