Best Self-Hosted Monitoring Tools for Kubernetes Under $100/Month

Running Kubernetes in production without observability is like flying blind. But the SaaS observability bills? They can hit $1,000+ per node per year before you blink. The fix is straightforward: self-host your monitoring stack. With open-source tooling and a small VM or two, you can get full metrics, logs, traces, and cost visibility for well under $100/month.

We dug into the ecosystem — CNCF-graduated projects, community polls, and real-world deployments — to find the four tools that give you the most signal for the least spend. Here are the things actually worth buying for your cluster.

The Contenders

�� SigNoz — Best for Unified Observability

SigNoz is the closest thing to a Datadog replacement that runs on your own infrastructure. Built natively on OpenTelemetry, it ingests metrics, traces, and logs through a single pipeline — no separate agents, no glue code. The self-hosted version is completely free and open-source, and the cloud tier starts at $49/month if you ever want to offload the hosting.1

The unified query builder lets you jump from a high-latency trace straight into the related logs, which is a game-changer for debugging. On a $10–$20/month VM, SigNoz handles a small-to-medium cluster without breaking a sweat.

Best for: Teams that want one tool for everything — metrics, traces, and logs — without stitching together separate stacks.

�� Prometheus + Grafana — Best for Metrics & Dashboards

This is the battle-tested duo that runs more Kubernetes clusters than any other monitoring setup. Prometheus scrapes metrics from your pods, nodes, and services; Grafana turns them into dashboards that actually make sense. Both are CNCF-graduated projects with massive communities and zero licensing costs.2

The trade-off? You'll need to add Loki for logs and Tempo for traces if you want the full picture — it's a best-of-breed approach rather than an all-in-one. But if your primary need is rock-solid metrics with beautiful dashboards, nothing beats this pair. A $15/month VPS runs both comfortably.

Best for: Teams that prioritize metrics and already have (or don't need) a separate log/trace solution.

�� EFK Stack (Elasticsearch + Fluentd + Kibana) — Best for Deep Log Analysis

When you need to grep through terabytes of logs with surgical precision, the EFK Stack is still the gold standard. Fluentd collects and transforms logs from every corner of your cluster; Elasticsearch indexes them at scale; Kibana gives you the query interface and visualizations.1

Self-hosting EFK requires more resources — expect a $20–$30/month VM for a modest cluster — but you get enterprise-grade log analysis without the Elastic license fees. For teams that live in their logs, this is non-negotiable.

Best for: Ops teams and SREs who need advanced log filtering, alerting, and long-term retention.

�� OpenCost — Best for Budget & Resource Tracking

You can't stay under $100/month if you don't know where your cloud bill is going. OpenCost is the CNCF sandbox project that maps Kubernetes resource usage back to costs — by namespace, deployment, label, or pod. It plugs into your existing Prometheus metrics and shows you exactly which workloads are burning money.1

It's not a monitoring tool in the traditional sense, but it's the one that keeps your budget in check. Free, open-source, and dead simple to deploy via Helm.

Best for: Teams that need cost visibility and allocation data alongside their monitoring stack.

All-in-One vs. Best-of-Breed

The biggest decision you'll make is whether to go all-in-one (SigNoz) or best-of-breed (Prometheus + Grafana + Loki + Tempo, or EFK for logs).

If you're starting fresh, SigNoz gives you the fastest path to full observability. If you already have Prometheus in place, extending with Grafana, Loki, and Tempo keeps your stack consistent.

Why These Tools

Every tool on this list shares three traits:

1. OpenTelemetry-native — They ingest OTel data, so you're not locked into a proprietary agent format.1
2. Zero licensing fees — The software is free; you only pay for the infrastructure it runs on.
3. Active communities — CNCF graduation or sandbox status means long-term viability and regular releases.2

Full disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you decide to use a paid tier or related service, we may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. It helps us keep testing the things actually worth buying.

The Bottom Line

You don't need a $500/month Datadog bill to run a healthy Kubernetes cluster. For the price of a couple of VPS instances, you can self-host a monitoring stack that covers metrics, logs, traces, and cost allocation. Start with SigNoz if you want simplicity, or Prometheus + Grafana if you want the ecosystem. Add OpenCost either way — your wallet will thank you.

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