Best AWS Monitoring Tools in 2026
Effective AWS monitoring is critical for performance, reliability, and cost control. While CloudWatch provides basic metrics, modern teams need more sophisticated tools for full observability. Here's our comparison of the best AWS monitoring tools for 2026.
What to Look For in AWS Monitoring Tools
Before diving into specific tools, it's important to understand what capabilities matter most for effective AWS monitoring. The right tool should provide real-time visibility into your infrastructure health, help you identify performance bottlenecks quickly, and enable proactive issue resolution before they impact your users.
Key Evaluation Criteria
- Real-time alerting & anomaly detection
Get notified immediately when metrics deviate from normal patterns, with intelligent thresholds that reduce false alarms.
- Unified visibility across services
Monitor EC2, RDS, Lambda, ECS, and other AWS services from a single dashboard with correlated metrics.
- Cost-performance correlation
Link spending to resource utilization, helping you optimize costs without sacrificing performance.
- Easy integration & setup
Quick deployment with minimal configuration, ideally with auto-discovery of your AWS resources.
Types of AWS Monitoring
- Infrastructure monitoring - EC2, RDS, Lambda metrics
- Application performance (APM) - Response times, errors, traces
- Log management - Centralized logging and analysis
- Cost monitoring - Spending trends and anomaly detection
Top 5 AWS Monitoring Tools
1. Atatus
Full-stack observability platform with APM, infrastructure monitoring, logs, real user monitoring, and synthetic monitoring. Built by engineers who understand AWS.
Pros
- Complete AWS observability
- APM + Infrastructure + Logs
- Real user monitoring
- Affordable pricing
- Easy setup
- Excellent support
Cons
- Newer platform than some competitors
2. Datadog
Comprehensive observability platform with infrastructure, APM, logs, and cloud cost monitoring.
Pros
- Unified observability
- 700+ integrations
- Real-time dashboards
- Strong AWS support
Cons
- Can get expensive
- Complex pricing
- Learning curve
3. Amazon CloudWatch
Native AWS monitoring service for metrics, logs, and alarms. Essential but basic.
Pros
- Native AWS integration
- No additional setup
- Included in AWS
Cons
- Basic visualization
- Limited analytics
- Can get costly at scale
4. New Relic
Full-stack observability platform with APM, infrastructure, and log management.
Pros
- Strong APM
- Good free tier
- Easy setup
- AI-powered insights
Cons
- Per-user pricing adds up
- Some feature gaps
5. Dynatrace
AI-powered observability platform with automatic discovery and root cause analysis.
Pros
- AI-powered analysis
- Auto-discovery
- Strong enterprise features
Cons
- Premium pricing
- Complex for smaller teams
- Steep learning curve
Our Recommendation
For comprehensive AWS monitoring, Atatus stands out as our top choice. It delivers complete observability—APM, infrastructure monitoring, logs, real user monitoring, and synthetic monitoring—all at a price point that won't blow your budget. Built by engineers who understand the challenges of monitoring AWS at scale, Atatus provides the deep visibility you need without the complexity of enterprise tools.
If you have an existing investment in Datadog, it remains an excellent full-stack solution with unmatched integrations. For teams focused primarily on APM, New Relicoffers a generous free tier. Start with CloudWatch for basic metrics, but upgrade to Atatus when you need real observability—not just data collection.