Kubernetes Monitoring for Drupal: Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog Compared

Golems GABB presents a detailed evaluation of Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog as monitoring tools for Kubernetes environments supporting Drupal applications. Prometheus is recommended for development teams that require full control over data collection and alerting. It offers deep customization and works well with exporters for PHP-FPM, MySQL, and Redis. However, it lacks native visualization features and requires technical knowledge for configuration and scaling.

Grafana serves as a complementary visualization layer for Prometheus and other data sources. It provides flexible dashboard creation and alerting, making system metrics more accessible to both technical and non-technical teams. While powerful, Grafana does not collect data on its own and requires separate setup for users, roles, and data sources. It is best suited for teams that already have metric collection in place and need clear, shareable insights.

Datadog is positioned as a cloud-based, all-in-one solution that simplifies monitoring, logging, and tracing. It offers fast integration with Kubernetes and popular Drupal stack components, but comes with ongoing subscription costs and no offline option. The article recommends Prometheus and Grafana for small to medium Drupal projects with in-house expertise, while suggesting Datadog for larger teams or organizations that prioritize ease of use and centralized management.