Index › IT operations and endpoint › Infra monitoring › Enterprise › September 2026 Edition

Infrastructure monitoring for enterprise buyers

Asked as “infrastructure monitoring tool”, and as “server and cloud infrastructure monitoring solution”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.

Standing

Datadog

Contested

35% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

Small business

Site24x722%ContestedStanding →Mid-market

Site24x724%ContestedStanding →Enterprise

Datadog35%ContestedThis page

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.

ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant

Datadog31%62criticized default

Dynatrace16%57endorsed leader

Netdata0%15accepted challenger

Prometheus35%23criticized challenger

Zabbix36%28criticized challenger

Splunk47%19criticized challenger

Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate

Nagios85%13criticized challenger

Prometheus + Grafana29%17criticized challenger

New Relic17%48accepted challenger

Grafana5%19accepted challenger

Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Head to head

Site24x7 vs New Relic Site24x7 vs Zabbix New Relic vs Zabbix

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default

Negative label rate →

Accepted challengerEndorsed leader

0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%

Key

Datadog35%

Dynatrace33%

Netdata15%

Prometheus4%

Zabbix2%

Splunk2%

New Relic0%

Grafana0%

Prometheus + Grafana0%

Nagios0%

02What they warned about

Three of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.

Datadog

31%

19 of 62 labels negative · 10 of 12 models · 7 hard negative

“unpredictable at scale—per-host *plus* ingestion/custom metrics/logs lead to overruns (e.g., Datadog bills 3–10x estimates)” Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt

Nagios

85%

11 of 13 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 6 hard negative

“The Culprits: Nagios Core, traditional/standard Zabbix deployments, and legacy Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM).” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt

Dynatrace

16%

9 of 57 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative

“Datadog and Dynatrace are enterprise-grade but expensive at scale — costs compound quickly” Claude Haiku 4.5, budget prompt

Zabbix

36%

10 of 28 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 2 hard negative

“Tools to **Avoid or Be Highly Cautious About**... **Zabbix**: **Why cautious**: Very high setup (6-8 weeks) and maintenance burden” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

58 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 788 links across 249 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

gartner.com

40 answers · 53 citations · 11 models

netdata.cloud

vendor site · Netdata33 answers · 39 citations · 10 models

middleware.io

vendor site · Middleware.io29 answers · 32 citations · 10 models

motadata.com

vendor site · Motadata23 answers · 24 citations · 9 models

cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com

18 answers · 21 citations · 8 models

cubeapm.com

vendor site · CubeAPM14 answers · 20 citations · 7 models

newrelic.com

vendor site · New Relic13 answers · 22 citations · 7 models

signoz.io

vendor site · SigNoz13 answers · 13 citations · 6 models

clickhouse.com

12 answers · 12 citations · 6 models

gartsolutions.com

11 answers · 11 citations · 9 models

learn.g2.com

11 answers · 11 citations · 7 models

eginnovations.com

10 answers · 11 citations · 9 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

gartner.com/reviews/market/infrastructure-monitoring-tools

39 answers · 10 models

netdata.cloud/resources/best-infrastructure-monitoring-tools

33 answers · 10 models

middleware.io/blog/infrastructure-monitoring-tools

29 answers · 10 models

motadata.com/blog/best-it-infrastructure-monitoring-tools

20 answers · 8 models

cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/tools/best-infrastructure-monitoring-tools…

16 answers · 8 models

clickhouse.com/resources/engineering/top-infrastructure-monitoring-tools-co…

12 answers · 6 models

learn.g2.com/cloud-monitoring-tools

11 answers · 7 models

signoz.io/comparisons/infrastructure-monitoring-tools

11 answers · 5 models

dash0.com/comparisons/infrastructure-monitoring-tools

10 answers · 7 models

gartsolutions.com/best-it-infrastructure-monitoring-software

10 answers · 8 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.

ModelDirect“What is the best infrastructure monitoring tool for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which server and cloud infrastructure monitoring solution would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade infrastructure monitoring tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best infrastructure monitoring tool for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating an infrastructure monitoring tool. What should we look at?”Negative“Which infrastructure monitoring tools should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”

Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceagainst: SplunkDatadogChanged

Five alternatives

Dynatrace, Elastic Stack, New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana, Splunk

Progress WhatsUp GoldMiddleware.io, Netdata

Three alternatives

AppDynamics, Cisco, Zabbix

against: Datadog, Dynatraceno first choiceagainst: AWS CloudWatch, Auvik, Datadog

GPT-5.4 miniDatadog, Dynatrace

One alternative

Grafana + Prometheus

DynatraceChanged

Two alternatives

Datadog, New Relic

against: Prometheus + GrafanaDatadog

Four alternatives

Dynatrace, IBM Instana, New Relic, SolarWinds

Dynatrace

One alternative

Grafana

against: Datadog, Splunk Observability Cloudno first choicenothing named

Gemini 3.5 FlashDatadog

Four alternatives

Chronosphere, Dynatrace, Grafana Labs, New Relic

DynatraceChanged

Two alternatives

Datadog, Grafana

against: Splunk Observability CloudDatadog

Five alternatives

Chronosphere, Dynatrace, Elastic, Grafana Labs, New Relic

against: SplunkZabbix

Three alternatives

Grafana, Netdata, Prometheus

against: Datadog, New RelicDynatrace

Two alternatives

Grafana, New Relic

against: Datadogagainst: AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, Datadog, Dynatrace, Elastic, Google Cloud Operations, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, Nagios, Prometheus, Splunk, Zabbix

Perplexity SonarDatadog, Dynatrace

Three alternatives

New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana, Zabbix

DynatraceChanged

Three alternatives

Datadog, LogicMonitor, Site24x7

Datadog, Dynatrace

Five alternatives

LogicMonitor, New Relic, Paessler PRTG, Prometheus + Grafana, Zabbix

against: Splunkgroundcover

One alternative

Netdata

against: Dynatraceno first choiceagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace, Nagios, Paessler PRTG, Prometheus + Grafana, SolarWinds NPM, Splunk Observability Cloud, Zabbix

Grok 4.1 FastDynatrace

Two alternatives

Datadog, New Relic

DynatraceHeld

Two alternatives

Datadog, New Relic

Datadog

Four alternatives

Dynatrace, New Relic, Prometheus with Grafana, Splunk Observability Cloud

Netdata

One alternative

Dynatrace

against: Datadog, Grafana, Middleware.io, New Relic, Prometheus, ZabbixDatadog

Four alternatives

Dynatrace, Grafana Labs, New Relic, Splunk

against: Datadog, Dynatrace, Microsoft SCOM, Nagios, New Relic, Prometheus, Splunk Observability Cloud, Zabbix

Mistral SmallLogicMonitor, Splunk

One alternative

Prometheus

Datadog, DynatraceChanged

Four alternatives

Cisco AppDynamics, Grafana + Prometheus + Loki, New Relic, Splunk

Dynatrace

Four alternatives

Datadog, Netdata, Prometheus, Zabbix

against: Paessler PRTG, Progress WhatsUp GoldNetdata

One alternative

Prometheus + Grafana

against: Middleware.io, New Relicno first choiceagainst: Prometheus + Grafanaagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, Zabbix

DeepSeek V4 FlashDatadog, Prometheus

Two alternatives

Grafana, New Relic

Datadog, DynatraceChanged

Two alternatives

IBM Instana, New Relic

against: LogicMonitor, Prometheus + Grafana, SolarWinds, ZabbixDatadog

Six alternatives

Dynatrace, Grafana, New Relic, Prometheus, SolarWinds, Zabbix

against: NagiosNetdata

Two alternatives

CubeAPM, Dynatrace

against: Datadog, Middleware.io, New Relic, Prometheus + Grafanano first choiceagainst: Datadogagainst: CA UIM, Datadog, Nagios, Prometheus, SevOne, SolarWinds Orion, Zabbix

Llama 4 MaverickPrometheus

Five alternatives

Datadog, Dynatrace, IBM Instana, New Relic, Site24x7

DatadogChanged

Two alternatives

Icinga, eG Enterprise

no first choiceNetdata

One alternative

New Relic

OpenObserve

Two alternatives

Scout, SolarWinds NPM

against: Dynatrace, Grafana Stack, Nagios, New Relic, Prometheus, Zabbix

Qwen 3.7 FlashDatadog, Dynatrace

Two alternatives

New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana

DatadogChanged

Four alternatives

Dynatrace, Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk

against: AppDynamicsDatadog

Two alternatives

Dynatrace, Prometheus + Grafana

Netdata

Four alternatives

Datadog, Dynatrace, Prometheus, Zabbix

no first choiceagainst: AWS CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, Cacti, MRTG, Nagios, Prometheus, UptimeRobot, Zabbix

Kimi K2Datadog

Two alternatives

Dynatrace, New Relic

DatadogHeld

Three alternatives

Dynatrace, LogicMonitor, Splunk Observability Cloud

Datadog

Three alternatives

Dynatrace, New Relic, Zabbix

against: AppDynamics, Paessler PRTGDynatrace

Two alternatives

Grafana, New Relic

against: Datadog, Splunkno first choiceagainst: Splunkagainst: Datadog, Nagios, Prometheus, Splunk, Zabbix

GLM 4.7 FlashXDatadog

Three alternatives

New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana, Zabbix

against: NagiosDatadogHeld

One alternative

New Relic

no first choiceagainst: SplunkNetdata

Three alternatives

CubeAPM, New Relic, Prometheus + Grafana

against: Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunkno first choiceagainst: Datadog, Nagios, Prometheus

MiniMax M2.5Dynatrace

Four alternatives

Datadog, New Relic, Site24x7, Splunk

DatadogChanged

Three alternatives

Dynatrace, IBM Instana, New Relic

no first choiceagainst: NagiosDynatrace

Two alternatives

LogicMonitor, Netdata

against: Datadog, New Relicno first choiceagainst: Datadog, Dynatrace

Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record

Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.

Prompt	Model	Version string	Time (UTC)	Searched	Sources	Latency
Direct recommendation	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 13:24	no	0	5 s
Direct recommendation	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:31	yes	4	5 s
Direct recommendation	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 13:22	yes	7	22 s
Direct recommendation	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 09:40	yes	20	5 s
Direct recommendation	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 10:34	yes	29	18 s
Direct recommendation	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 11:56	yes	7	7 s
Direct recommendation	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 11:10	yes	10	15 s
Direct recommendation	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 11:31	yes	5	3 s
Direct recommendation	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 12:42	yes	10	43 s
Direct recommendation	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 10:23	yes	15	25 s
Direct recommendation	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 11:27	yes	28	169 s
Direct recommendation	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 12:08	yes	8	26 s
Paraphrase	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 09:22	no	0	6 s
Paraphrase	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:35	yes	4	5 s
Paraphrase	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 12:40	no	0	16 s
Paraphrase	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 10:06	yes	20	6 s
Paraphrase	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 10:13	yes	36	15 s
Paraphrase	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 09:52	no	0	9 s
Paraphrase	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 11:37	yes	9	14 s
Paraphrase	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 09:23	yes	5	2 s
Paraphrase	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 10:55	no	0	39 s
Paraphrase	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 13:16	yes	15	46 s
Paraphrase	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 12:41	yes	14	30 s
Paraphrase	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 12:14	yes	5	36 s
Comparative	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 13:32	yes	18	12 s
Comparative	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 11:01	yes	6	9 s
Comparative	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 13:01	yes	15	33 s
Comparative	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 13:10	yes	20	10 s
Comparative	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 11:03	yes	30	16 s
Comparative	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 10:51	yes	5	8 s
Comparative	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 12:36	yes	19	25 s
Comparative	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 13:45	yes	5	3 s
Comparative	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 11:12	no	0	38 s
Comparative	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 12:20	yes	20	39 s
Comparative	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 12:22	no	0	20 s
Comparative	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 13:15	no	0	18 s
Budget constrained	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 13:29	yes	9	10 s
Budget constrained	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 10:20	no	0	3 s
Budget constrained	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 13:08	yes	18	27 s
Budget constrained	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 13:15	yes	19	6 s
Budget constrained	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 10:09	yes	39	22 s
Budget constrained	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 09:23	yes	5	4 s
Budget constrained	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 09:29	yes	7	12 s
Budget constrained	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 13:22	yes	5	3 s
Budget constrained	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 10:16	yes	10	77 s
Budget constrained	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 12:46	yes	15	24 s
Budget constrained	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 10:37	yes	11	88 s
Budget constrained	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 11:19	yes	19	83 s
Scale constrained	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 12:07	no	0	8 s
Scale constrained	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 10:06	no	0	8 s
Scale constrained	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 09:41	yes	9	27 s
Scale constrained	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 11:57	yes	20	9 s
Scale constrained	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 11:45	yes	18	14 s
Scale constrained	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 12:14	no	0	11 s
Scale constrained	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 11:26	yes	30	34 s
Scale constrained	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 09:23	yes	5	5 s
Scale constrained	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 12:37	yes	10	60 s
Scale constrained	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 09:30	yes	25	54 s
Scale constrained	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 10:47	yes	14	81 s
Scale constrained	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 13:49	yes	5	55 s
Negative framing	Claude Haiku 4.5	`claude-haiku-4-5-20251001`	2026-09-17 12:35	yes	18	9 s
Negative framing	GPT-5.4 mini	`gpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-17`	2026-09-17 12:41	no	0	6 s
Negative framing	Gemini 3.5 Flash	`gemini-3.5-flash`	2026-09-17 12:31	yes	25	27 s
Negative framing	Perplexity Sonar	`sonar`	2026-09-17 09:38	yes	20	8 s
Negative framing	Grok 4.1 Fast	`spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex`	2026-09-17 13:24	yes	17	15 s
Negative framing	Mistral Small	`mistral/mistral-small via mistral`	2026-09-17 09:36	yes	5	6 s
Negative framing	DeepSeek V4 Flash	`deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks`	2026-09-17 11:31	yes	22	25 s
Negative framing	Llama 4 Maverick	`meta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock`	2026-09-17 13:15	yes	5	4 s
Negative framing	Qwen 3.7 Flash	`alibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba`	2026-09-17 11:58	no	0	41 s
Negative framing	Kimi K2	`moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita`	2026-09-17 14:07	yes	25	43 s
Negative framing	GLM 4.7 FlashX	`zai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai`	2026-09-17 11:20	yes	24	41 s
Negative framing	MiniMax M2.5	`minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax`	2026-09-17 11:14	yes	19	55 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings

Grafana Cloud read as Grafana

Grafana Cloud Enterprise read as Grafana

Grafana Enterprise read as Grafana

Unresolved, counted raw

Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon Managed Prometheus

CA UIM

Grafana Mimir

MRTG

Managed Prometheus

Microsoft SCOM (System Center Operations Manager)

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Prometheus with Grafana

SevOne

Thanos/Cortex/Mimir

Discontinued, still offered

No shut-down product was recommended here.

Infrastructure monitoring for enterprise buyers

By buyer segment

01The standing

Recommended versus criticized

02What they warned about

03What they cite

Sites the answers cite

Pages the answers cite

04How they answered

05The record

Normalization in this category

Also in it operations and endpoint