The main difference between SigNoz, LogicMonitor, and CubeAPM is observability depth and cost control. SigNoz is open-source and OpenTelemetry-native. LogicMonitor focuses on managed infrastructure monitoring, while CubeAPM delivers unified full-stack observability with predictable pricing.

SigNoz and LogicMonitor are mature observability platforms, but as usage scales, teams often face rising costs and retention limits. In fact, 84% of organisations cite managing cloud costs as their top challenge. CubeAPM addresses this with unlimited retention, predictable $0.15/GB pricing, and self-hosted deployment.

This comparison evaluates SigNoz vs LogicMonitor vs CubeAPM across features, scalability, sampling, and pricing to see which delivers the most reliable full-stack observability.

SigNoz vs LogicMonitor vs CubeAPM: Comparison Table

Features	CubeAPM	SigNoz	LogicMonitor
Known for	Unified OpenTelemetry-native with predictable pricing	Full-stack, OpenTelemetry-native observability	Enterprise infrastructure & network monitoring
Multi-Agent Support	Yes (OTel, New Relic, Datadog, Elastic)	Partial (OTel)	Partial (OTel)
MELT Support	Full MELT	Full MELT	Full MELT
Setup	Self-hosted but vendor-managed	SaaS & Self-hosted	SaaS-only
Pricing	Ingestion-based pricing of $0.15/GB	Logs:$0.3/GB Traces: $0.3/GB Metrics: $0.1/mil samples	Essentials: $16/hybrid unit Advanced: $27/hybrid unit
Sampling Strategy	Smart sampling	Head + Tail-based	Head + Tail-based
Log Retention	Infinite Retention	15 days	30 days
Support TAT	< 10 minutes	No details	1hr to 2days

SigNoz vs LogicMonitor vs CubeAPM: Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

Known For

CubeAPM: Known for its OpenTelemetry-native design, self-hosting/BYOC deployment, unlimited retention, real-time engineer support, and predictable pricing. Ideal for teams that need full-stack observability with complete data control.

SigNoz: Known for its open-source, OTEL-first architecture built on ClickHouse. A strong choice for developer-led teams wanting transparency and self-managed pipelines.

LogicMonitor: Known for hybrid infrastructure, network monitoring, and deep visibility across routers, switches, VMs, and cloud resources. Strong for infra-heavy environments.

Multi-Agent Support

CubeAPM: CubeAPM supports true multi-agent ingestion across OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, and Elastic agents. This allows teams to migrate without rewriting instrumentation or replacing existing collectors. Its broad compatibility makes it ideal for hybrid microservice environments already running mixed agent types.

SigNoz: SigNoz is OTEL-native and supports OpenTelemetry Collectors, Prometheus exporters, Jaeger, and Zipkin. While flexible inside the OpenTelemetry ecosystem. It doesn’t support vendor-specific agents like Datadog or New Relic.  SigNoz documentation clearly states instrumentation is via OpenTelemetry SDKs and collectors, plus Jaeger/Zipkin/Prometheus. There is no native Datadog or New Relic agent ingestion.

LogicMonitor: LogicMonitor uses agentless collectors, LM agents, SNMP collectors, and cloud-native integrations. It supports OTEL Collector traces but focuses mostly on infrastructure, logs, network, and native cloud monitoring. 

MELT Coverage (Metrics, Events, Logs, Traces)

CubeAPM: CubeAPM delivers complete MELT coverage for Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces from a single backend. All telemetry types are correlated automatically, enabling seamless navigation from an application error to traces, logs, and infrastructure metrics. This unified approach reduces MTTR and eliminates the need to manage separate components.

SigNoz: Provides metrics, logs, and traces using OpenTelemetry collectors with a ClickHouse backend. While it supports distributed tracing and logging, teams may face additional operational overhead from managing ClickHouse and related components, especially in self-hosted setups.

LogicMonitor: Supports metrics and logs natively and ingests distributed traces through OpenTelemetry collectors, enabling MELT data to be collected and viewed within the platform.

Deployment Option

CubeAPM: CubeAPM can be self-hosted or deployed via BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud). All data stays inside your VPC or on-prem environment while CubeAPM manages updates and scaling remotely. The setup is quick, and existing agents can be reused without re-instrumentation.

SigNoz: Offers both SaaS and self-hosted options.  Self-hosted deployments require managing ClickHouse and related components, which adds operational overhead and requires in-house expertise.

LogicMonitor: LogicMonitor is SaaS-only. Because data leaves your cloud or on-prem environment, standard cloud provider egress charges may apply, depending on your provider and region.

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

*All pricing comparisons are calculated using standardised Small/Medium/Large team profiles defined in our internal benchmarking sheet, based on fixed log, metrics, trace, and retention assumptions. Actual pricing may vary by usage, region, and plan structure. Please confirm current pricing with each vendor.

*An APM host is a host that is actively generating trace data, and an Infra host is any physical or virtual OS instance that you monitor with any observability tool.

Below is a cost comparison for small, mid-sized, and large teams.

Approx. Cost for Teams	Small(~30 APM Hosts)	Mid-sized (~125 APM Hosts)	Large(~250 APM Hosts)
CubeAPM	$2,080	$7,200	$15,200
SigNoz	$4,600	$16,000	$34,000
LogicMonitor	$2,890	$11,125	$22,750

Teams switching to CubeAPM save roughly 55% compared to SigNoz and 30–35% compared to LogicMonitor as they scale.

CubeAPM: Cost for Small, Medium, and Large Teams

Based on real customer data, CubeAPM simplifies pricing through a single $0.15/GB ingestion-based plan covering logs, traces, metrics, and events. 

CubeAPM Pricing

• $0.15/GB ingested

Estimated Monthly Costs

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

This structure gives SRE and DevOps teams full budget predictability, especially for Kubernetes-heavy or multi-tenant environments where telemetry volume can spike suddenly.

SigNoz: Cost for Small, Medium, and Large Teams

SigNoz follows an ingestion-based and storage-based pricing model for its Cloud version. Self-hosted SigNoz requires teams to manage ClickHouse storage, which becomes expensive as trace volumes and retention length increase.

SigNoz Pricing

• Logs: $0.3/GB
  
• Metrics: $0.3/GB
  
• Teams: $49/month

Estimated Monthly Costs

• Small teams (~30 hosts): ~$4,600
  
• Mid-sized teams (~125 hosts): ~$16,000
  
• Large teams (~250 hosts): ~$34,000

SigNoz is ideal for engineering-driven teams comfortable managing their own OTEL pipelines, but costs rise steeply with high log/traces volume and long-term retention.

LogicMonitor: Cost for Small, Medium, and Large Teams

LogicMonitor uses per hybrid pricing model. Pricing escalates quickly for hybrid environments running Kubernetes, VMs, switches, cloud workloads, and network appliances. 

LogicMonitor Pricing 

• Essentials: $16 per hybrid unit
• Advanced: $27 per hybrid unit
• Signature + AI: $53 per hybrid unit

Estimated Monthly Costs

• Small teams (~30 hosts): ~$2,890
  
• Mid-sized teams (~125 hosts): ~$11,125
  
• Large teams (~250 hosts): ~$22,750

LogicMonitor works well for infra-centric fleets but becomes expensive for microservices and high-data workloads.

Sampling Strategy

CubeAPM: Uses Smart Sampling, which reduces trace volume by ~95% while preserving all valuable latency and error traces. This provides predictable ingestion and retains full debugging context at scale.

SigNoz: Supports both head-based and tail-based sampling through OpenTelemetry. Head-based sampling reduces data volume at ingestion, while tail-based sampling evaluates complete traces before deciding what to retain, helping teams keep high-value traces while controlling storage and cost.

LogicMonitor: Supports head-based and tail-based sampling via OpenTelemetry collectors. Sampling decisions are handled at the collector level, allowing teams to control trace volume before data is sent to the LogicMonitor SaaS platform.

Data Retention

CubeAPM: Unlimited retention at no extra cost, with all data stored within your environment. Suited for audit-heavy or compliance-driven teams.

SigNoz: Limited retention by default, keeping logs for around 15 days, traces for up to 30 days, and metrics for roughly a month. Extending these limits, such as increasing log retention to 30 days, results in higher ingestion rates, with log costs rising from about $0.3/GB to $0.4/GB as retention is expanded, which can significantly increase costs at scale.

LogicMonitor: Provides a default log retention of 30 days as part of its SaaS offering. Extending retention beyond this period typically requires higher subscription tiers or additional cost, which can increase overall spend as log volumes grow.

Support Channel & TAT

CubeAPM: Offers direct support via Slack, email, and WhatsApp, with response times typically under 10 minutes, enabling fast issue resolution and real-time communication with the support team.

SigNoz: Provides support through email, Slack community, and GitHub issues. While multiple channels are available, there is no publicly defined response-time SLA, and turnaround times can vary based on plan and issue severity.

LogicMonitor: Provides support through a web support portal, ticketing system, and live chat, depending on the support package. Response times are tier-based, with urgent issues ranging from about 1–2 hours, high-priority issues around 4–12 hours, and lower-priority tickets taking up to 24–48 hours.

Which Tool Is Best for You? Why Brands Choose CubeAPM

Why teams choose CubeAPM

• Predictable pricing: A simple ingestion-based model priced at $0.15 per GB, with no separate charges for users, hosts, or premium features, making costs easy to forecast as usage grows.
• Smart sampling: Built-in sampling prioritizes high-value signals like errors, latency spikes, and anomalies, while reducing low-signal noise by up to 95%, helping teams stay efficient without losing visibility.
• Unified MELT observability: Metrics, events, logs, and traces are available in one correlated view, allowing faster troubleshooting and clearer root-cause analysis.
• Self-hosted but Vendor Managed: Run CubeAPM directly in your own cloud or on-prem environment to maintain full control over telemetry data and meet strict compliance or residency requirements.
• Unlimited data retention: Keep observability data for as long as needed using your own storage, supporting audits, SLA validation, and long-term performance analysis.
• Multi-agent compatibility: Works seamlessly with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Datadog, New Relic, and Elastic agents, simplifying migrations and reducing re-instrumentation effort.
• Open, API-first access: All telemetry data remains accessible through open APIs, enabling querying, exporting, automation, and integrations without paywalls or locked tiers.

SigNoz vs LogicMonitor vs CubeAPM: Use Cases

Choose CubeAPM if

• You want OpenTelemetry-native, full-stack MELT observability in a single platform
  
• You need predictable ingestion-based pricing with long-term data retention
  
• You require flexible deployment options, including self-hosted or BYOC

Choose SigNoz if

• You are looking for an OpenTelemetry-centric observability platform
  
• You prefer open-source tooling with flexible deployment options
  
• You want unified visibility across logs, metrics, and traces

Choose LogicMonitor if

• You need a SaaS-based monitoring platform with minimal setup
  
• Your priority is broad infrastructure and cloud monitoring coverage
  
• You prefer a fully managed observability experience

Conclusion

SigNoz, LogicMonitor, and CubeAPM take different approaches to observability. SigNoz centers on OpenTelemetry-based observability, LogicMonitor offers a managed SaaS platform for infrastructure monitoring, and CubeAPM provides unified full-stack observability with predictable pricing and flexible deployment. The right choice depends on your team’s priorities around control, visibility, and cost.

Disclaimer: The information in this article reflects the latest details available at the time of publication and may change as technologies and products evolve.

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