# Grafana + Checkcle

Metrics, dashboards, and uptime you host. Datadog without the host SKU.

**Replaces:** Datadog

**Tier:** Medium

## Problem

Datadog prices every host, every APM, every extra product. Grafana OSS plus Prometheus (or Grafana Alloy) covers dashboards; Checkcle covers uptime. You stop buying SKUs.

## Stack

- [Grafana](https://grafana.com/) — OSS dashboards and alerting
- [operacle/checkcle](https://github.com/operacle/checkcle) — Go uptime checks

## Estimated SaaS cost saved

| You stop paying | Typical / year | Self-host instead |
|---|---:|---|
| Datadog APM + infra (small fleet) | $12,000 | Grafana + Checkcle |

**About $12,000 / year** on a small team, before you count lock-in.

## Deploy on Railway

Placeholder: Grafana + a metrics backend, and Checkcle for HTTP checks. Volumes for both. This is a second-wave template after Checkcle solo.

## AGENT_PROMPT

```
Replace Datadog with Grafana OSS and Checkcle.

- Grafana + Prometheus or Grafana Alloy for metrics. Checkcle for HTTP/TCP uptime (already a c17 stack).
- Persist both. Import one dashboard. Point c17.io at Checkcle as the first check.
- Do not enable Grafana Cloud unless the operator asks — that is another vendor.
```

## FAQ

### Is this full APM?

Not out of the box. Grafana + traces (Tempo/Pyroscope) can grow into it. Most teams miss dashboards and uptime first, which this covers. APM is a later add.

Source: https://c17.io/stacks/grafana-observability