The main difference between Grafana, Sumo Logic, and CubeAPM lies in scope and simplicity. Grafana focuses on visualization and dashboards, Sumo Logic on analytics and log intelligence, while CubeAPM delivers full MELT observability—Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces—in one OpenTelemetry-native platform. As infrastructure scale, teams using Grafana or Sumo Logic often face fragmented telemetry pipelines, tier-based pricing, and limited retention.

CubeAPM eliminates that friction. Built on OpenTelemetry and Prometheus-compatible ingestion, it unifies APM, infrastructure, log, RUM, and synthetics. Teams get unlimited data retention, smart sampling (95 % compression), and pricing of $0.15/GB, cutting observability spend by up to 80 % compared with Grafana Cloud or Sumo Logic Enterprise plans.

In this article, we’ll compare Grafana, Sumo Logic, and CubeAPM across telemetry coverage, deployment flexibility, sampling strategies, and real pricing benchmarks to help you identify the most efficient observability solution for 2025.

Grafana vs Sumo Logic vs CubeAPM — Comparison Table

Grafana vs Sumo Logic vs CubeAPM: Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

Multi-Agent Support

OpenTelemetry compatibility determines how easily teams can ingest and correlate data from different environments and frameworks.

CubeAPM: CubeAPM supports multiple agents out of the box — OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, and Elastic — making migration painless for teams switching from incumbent tools. Its unified ingestion layer automatically maps traces, logs, and metrics without vendor-specific configurations, ensuring quick onboarding for DevOps and SRE teams.

Grafana: Grafana integrates widely through plug-ins such as Prometheus, InfluxDB, StatsD, and Loki. However, it often requires manual configuration of exporters, data sources, and backends. For teams already managing open-source telemetry, it’s highly flexible but demands engineering time for upkeep.

Sumo Logic: Sumo Logic uses the Sumo OTel Collector to gather logs, metrics, and traces. While effective for its own ecosystem, integrations outside its collector stack are limited. This can slow adoption in multi-vendor or hybrid setups.

MELT Support (Metrics, Events, Logs, Traces)

Complete MELT visibility gives teams unified context across application, infrastructure, and user layers.

CubeAPM: Delivers end-to-end MELT coverage natively — metrics, logs, traces, and events within a single backend. Teams can correlate application latency, system errors, and real user sessions instantly, reducing mean-time-to-resolution (MTTR) by up to 40%. Its event correlation engine connects telemetry streams for deeper root cause analysis.

Grafana: Provides full MELT through the LGTM stack — Loki for logs, Tempo for traces, and Mimir for metrics. While powerful for visualization, it requires multiple components, each with separate configuration and scaling. Ideal for teams that already maintain open-source telemetry pipelines.

Sumo Logic: Covers logs, metrics, and traces out of the box, and extends to events through its SIEM module. It offers strong analytics and anomaly detection, but MELT correlation isn’t native, often requiring additional parsing or dashboards for context.

Deployment Options

Deployment flexibility impacts cost, compliance, and ease of management.

CubeAPM: Supports both SaaS and Bring-Your-Own-Cloud (BYOC) options, giving teams full control of where data resides. It’s built for enterprises with strict compliance needs—data never leaves your infrastructure, ensuring adherence to regulations. Setup remains lightweight since it’s vendor-managed post-deployment.

Grafana: Available in Cloud (Free, Pro, Enterprise) or self-hosted form. The self-hosted LGTM stack provides full control but adds DevOps overhead for scaling and maintenance. Grafana Cloud simplifies this but shifts data custody to Grafana’s infrastructure.

Sumo Logic: Offered purely as SaaS. Its managed model reduces setup effort, making it suitable for teams prioritizing simplicity over data residency control. However, it lacks a true on-prem or BYOC option for regulated workloads.

Pricing: Approximate Cost for Small, Mid-Sized & Large Teams

Transparent pricing determines how observability scales across different workloads and ingestion volumes. Below is a quick snapshot comparing monthly costs for small, mid-sized, and large teams based on verified vendor pricing and estimated ingestion data.

Cost for Small Teams (~30):

• CubeAPM: $2,080
• Grafana: $3,870
• Sumo Logic: $16,300

Cost for Mid-Sized Teams (~125):

• CubeAPM: $7,200
• Grafana: $11,875
• Sumo Logic: $42,000

Cost for Large Teams (~250):

• CubeAPM: $15,200
• Grafana: $26,750
• Sumo Logic: $103,250

These figures highlight the significant savings achieved with CubeAPM’s unified, ingestion-based model compared to Grafana’s modular and Sumo Logic’s credit-based pricing systems.

CubeAPM Cost for Small, Medium & Large Teams

CubeAPM operates on a flat ingestion-based model of $0.15 / GB across logs, metrics, and traces, with no additional charges for users, retention, or integrations.:

• Small teams (~30): $2,080 / month
• Mid-sized teams (~125): $7,200 / month
• Large teams (~250): $15,200 / month

This predictable pricing makes CubeAPM ideal for startups and enterprises managing multi-terabyte ingestion each month. Teams typically report 60 – 80 % lower TCO compared to Grafana Cloud or Sumo Logic Enterprise plans.

Grafana Cloud: Cost for Small, Medium & Large Teams

Grafana’s modular model combines platform, logs, and traces pricing:

• Pro Plan:$19 / month base,
• Logs: $0.50 / GB ingested

• Traces: 0.50/GB ingested

• APM: $0.04 / host-hour for APM.

Estimated costs for teams:

• Small teams (~30): $3,870 / month
• Mid-sized teams (~125): $11,875 / month
• Large teams (~250): $26,750 / month

While flexible for smaller environments, costs rise sharply once telemetry exceeds a few terabytes due to its separate per-GB billing for each component.

Sumo Logic: Cost for Small, Medium & Large Teams

Sumo Logic’s credit-based system averages $0.25 / credit, with different burn rates per telemetry type (≈ 35 credits / GB for tracing, 10–20 credits / GB for logs). Using equivalent workloads here is the cost estimates:

• Small teams (~30): $16,300 / month
• Mid-sized teams (~125): $42,000 / month
• Large teams (~250): $103,250 / month

Its flexible but complex model makes forecasting difficult, especially when data volume, retention, or analytics usage fluctuates.

Sampling Strategy

Sampling defines how efficiently tools retain meaningful telemetry without overloading storage.

CubeAPM: Implements Smart Sampling with 95% compression and context-aware logic. It retains only latency-heavy, error-prone, or high-value traces while filtering out noise. This results in massive storage savings and faster queries, making it ideal for microservices generating millions of spans per minute.

Grafana: Relies on probabilistic or tail sampling within Tempo and Loki. While configurable, it lacks automatic context-based decisions. Teams must manually adjust sampling rates based on workload size and latency, which can complicate scaling.

Sumo Logic: Uses OTel SDK sampling with probabilistic filtering. It’s simple and efficient for moderate workloads but lacks adaptive or tail-based mechanisms to focus on anomalies automatically.

Data Retention

Longer retention periods help with audits, historical analysis, and SLA tracking.

CubeAPM: Provides unlimited retention in self-hosted or BYOC modes with no additional cost. Teams can maintain months or years of data for compliance and performance baselines. It’s ideal for regulated industries needing secure, historical observability data.

Grafana: Offers 14 days on Free plans and 30 days on Pro. Retention extensions are available but add recurring costs. Works best for short-term metrics or real-time visualization needs.

Sumo Logic: Retention is governed by purchased credit blocks—extended storage requires buying additional credits. This approach scales poorly for organizations requiring long-term log preservation.

Support Channel & Response Time

Quality support directly affects incident response and uptime reliability.

CubeAPM: Provides direct Slack and WhatsApp access to core engineers, ensuring live responses within minutes. Customers report near real-time troubleshooting and proactive guidance during onboarding and production incidents.

Grafana: Community-driven support for free users, while Pro and Enterprise tiers include ticket and email support. Response times range from a few hours to multiple days depending on plan.

Sumo Logic: Runs on a ticket-based support system, with response priority increasing at higher subscription levels. Offers documentation and training programs but limited direct access to engineers.

Known For

Each tool serves a different segment of the observability market.

CubeAPM: Known for OpenTelemetry-native full-stack observability, predictable pricing, and unlimited retention. Its self-host and BYOC model caters to teams demanding compliance, transparency, and cost control.

Grafana: Renowned for its visualization and dashboarding strengths, especially when paired with open-source telemetry tools like Prometheus and Loki. Favored by DevOps engineers seeking full customization.

Sumo Logic: Recognized for log analytics, security monitoring, and cloud-native SIEM capabilities. Suited for teams that value analytics automation and centralized monitoring without managing infrastructure.

Which Tool Is Best for You? Why Brands Choose CubeAPM

Unlike traditional tools that separate logging, tracing, and infrastructure monitoring, CubeAPM delivers unified MELT observability in a single OpenTelemetry-native platform. It’s built for teams that need cost predictability, deployment flexibility, and enterprise-grade data controls.

Benefits of Choosing CubeAPM

• Unified MELT Observability: One backend for Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces—no fragmented pipelines or integrations.
• Transparent pricing: Pay a simple $0.15 / GB for all telemetry data with no extra costs for users, features, or retention.
• Smart Sampling Efficiency: Intelligent, context-based sampling with up to 95 % compression, retaining critical latency and error traces.
• Unlimited Retention: Keep telemetry data for as long as you need at no additional cost—ideal for SLA tracking and audit readiness.
• Data Sovereignty & Compliance: Run CubeAPM inside your own cloud or on-premise to meet requirements.
• Multi-Agent Compatibility: Fully compatible with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, and Elastic agents for smooth migration.
• Real-Time Support: Direct access to engineers via Slack or WhatsApp—responses in minutes, not days.
• Faster Troubleshooting: Cross-correlate logs, metrics, and traces in one view to reduce mean-time-to-resolution (MTTR) by over 40%.
• Optimized for Modern Architectures: Designed for microservices, Kubernetes, and hybrid-cloud deployments with low overhead and high scalability.

CubeAPM gives modern DevOps and SRE teams the confidence to scale observability without worrying about unpredictable costs or limited data access. It’s the only platform combining full-stack visibility, self-hosting control, and real-time collaboration support under one transparent model.

Grafana vs Sumo Logic vs CubeAPM: Use Cases

Choose Grafana if:

• You need real-time dashboards and visualization for Prometheus, InfluxDB, or Loki metrics.
• You want a hosted dashboard layer for small teams and can accept rising costs as Loki/Tempo/Mimir usage scales.
• You prefer open-source flexibility and can maintain separate backends for logs, traces, and metrics.

Choose Sumo Logic if:

• You want a cloud-native analytics and SIEM platform for log intelligence and security monitoring.
• You need centralized anomaly detection and compliance dashboards and are okay with credit-based billing complexity.
• You prefer fully managed SaaS over self-hosted control or data-residency customization.

Choose CubeAPM if:

• You want full-stack MELT in one OpenTelemetry-native platform (logs, metrics, traces, RUM, synthetics).
• You need predictable $0.15/GB pricing, unlimited retention, and BYOC/self-host for strict compliance.
• You want smart sampling (≈95% compression), minute-level Slack/WhatsApp support, and lower MTTR/costs.

Conclusion

Grafana excels in visualization, and Sumo Logic delivers strong analytics, but both rely on multi-tool setups that increase overhead.

CubeAPM simplifies observability with one lightweight, OpenTelemetry-native platform that scales easily across modern infrastructures.

For teams seeking unified visibility, faster troubleshooting, and full control over their data, CubeAPM is the smarter, future-ready choice.