Best offer on record: Infrastructure Free Plan (permanent free tier, Monitoring front). 7 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Infrastructure Free Plan (permanent free tier, Monitoring front) high confidence
$0/month free tier of Infrastructure Monitoring: up to 5 hosts, 1-day metric retention, unlimited users, unlimited alerts, 5 containers per host, 100 custom metrics per host, 500 custom events per host, 1,000+ integrations; includes dashboards, host/container maps, SAML SSO, outlier/anomaly detection, Watchdog insights. Shown on the main pricing page as Infrastructure 'Free' plan: 'Starting At $0', 'Up to 5 hosts', '1-day metric retention'.
Eligibility
Anyone; self-service account creation, no credit card required. Data-housing region chosen at signup and cannot be migrated later.
How to claim
Sign up at datadoghq.com (Start free trial / Get started free flow), install the Datadog Agent on up to 5 hosts; account lands on the Free plan at no cost.
Expiry
Indefinite; no sunset. 1-day retention and per-host allotments are the standing caps.
Gotchas
Not the 14-day trial: the free plan is separate and permanent. 1-day metric retention vs 15 months on paid/student accounts; no public free allowance for Uptime/Synthetics quotas appears on the current pricing page; exceeding allotments (hosts, custom metrics/events, containers) requires a paid plan; 'unlimited users' but agents on the 5 free hosts only.
14-day free trial of the full Datadog platform high confidence
14 days of 'unlimited monitoring' of the entire Datadog platform (metrics, traces, logs, 1,000+ integrations, alerting incl. anomaly/outlier/forecast). 'No credit card required' (stated repeatedly). Signup requires a business email; form collects password, name, job title, company, optional phone, and data-housing region.
Eligibility
Open to all companies (the DDFS FAQ says the 2-week trial is 'available to all companies'); business email expected; no credit card; no startup/student restriction.
How to claim
Go to datadoghq.com/free-datadog-trial/, complete the signup form, agent installs and trial is active immediately; DDFS applicants are explicitly told to sign up for the trial while their startup application is under review.
Expiry
14 days; no auto-conversion or renewal terms are published on the page; after expiry the account is on the paid plan or the free plan.
Gotchas
Trial is NOT the free plan and cannot be converted into the student program ('We cannot transition users, agents, hosts, or metrics' per the student program). Region choice at signup is not migratable. Startup-program applicants use this same trial as their pre-approval onboarding.
Datadog for Startups (DDFS) - up to $100k credits, one year high confidence
'A year of Datadog Pro, up to $100k in credits' for the first year; covers the complete platform - 'all Generally Available (GA) products' plus new features that GA, with preview products usable 'if space permits' (no watered-down tiers). Acceptance email typically within 3-5 business days. Credits applied to the account after approval.
Eligibility
Series A or earlier (no dollar funding cap published); must be new to Datadog (no current or prior Datadog customer, never received DDFS credits); must apply through an official referral partner (VCs, hyperscaler and vendor partner startup programs) - no direct application without a referral.
How to claim
1) Submit application at datadoghq.com/partner/datadog-for-startups/ (startup email: startups@datadoghq.com); 2) Sign up for a Datadog trial and use it while the application is reviewed; 3) Receive acceptance by email (3-5 business days); 4) Credits are applied - 'start building'. Activation must be confirmed within 30 days of acceptance or the acceptance expires (may reapply later if eligible).
Expiry
Credits for the first year only; no renewal route stated. Inactivity: a warning is sent after 3 months unused, and after another 30 days without use the company is removed from the program.
Gotchas
No referral partner = ineligible; the fallback is the 14-day trial. Excludes anyone who was ever a Datadog customer or prior DDFS recipient. No credit card/ payment details appear in the application flow. The 30-day activation window and inactivity removal are the main traps.
Student Developer program (education license via GitHub Student Developer Pack) high confidence
Free Datadog Pro account with a monthly allocation: 10 hosts (Infrastructure and APM), 500 GB ingested logs, 50 containers, 10 lambda functions, 5 Fargate tasks, 1,000 browser tests, 10,000 API tests, 1,000 Browser RUM sessions, 1,000 Mobile RUM sessions, 100,000 LLM requests; standard and custom metric retention up to 15 months; alerts, users, and Datadog Support access included. 'Free Datadog up to 2 years', available while the participant remains an active GitHub Student Developer Pack member; Datadog will renew the account as long as pack membership continues.
Eligibility
Currently enrolled students who are members of the GitHub Student Developer Pack (GitHub handles enrollment verification - .edu email/student ID on GitHub's side; Datadog's own page does not impose a separate .edu requirement). Not for commercial projects. All accounts are created in the US5 region only.
How to claim
1) Log in with GitHub at studentpack.datadoghq.com ('Log in to Github to get started'); 2) the account is auto-provisioned in the US5 region; 3) log in at us5.datadoghq.com and configure your Datadog Agent with the issued API keys. Faculty/curriculum access: studentpack@datadoghq.com.
Expiry
Up to 2 years, renewable while enrolled in the GitHub Student Developer Pack; if a term lapses Datadog will extend/renew active pack members.
Gotchas
US5 region only - student accounts cannot be migrated to another region. Cannot be created by converting an existing free-trial account. A temporary 'staff user' is created for provisioning and disabled after the invite. Commercial use is prohibited. LLM/RUM/browser quotas are monthly, not one-off.
Agent Observability Free tier (Observability front) high confidence
Free tier of Agent Observability: '$0 per month', up to 40K LLM spans/month, 15-day trace retention, unlimited context & evals, full feature access; targeted at 'individuals and small teams'. Also on the main pricing page: Feature Flags are free for usage below 1 million monthly flag configuration requests (no plan purchase needed for sub-1M MFCRs).
Eligibility
Anyone - no plan purchase, no startup/student requirement; a Datadog account (trial or free) is enough.
How to claim
Sign up at datadoghq.com; Agent Observability 'is already available in your account and free to start using' - no separate application.
Expiry
Permanent free tier; monthly 40K LLM span cap and 15-day trace retention are the standing limits.
Gotchas
15-day trace retention vs 15 months on paid/student accounts; 40K LLM span/month cap; this is per-user/small-team oriented - startup teams usually get far more via DDFS or the 14-day trial.
Time-limited promo: Bits Testing free through Nov 30 (AI credits, Observability front) high confidence
On the current pricing page, 'Bits Testing' (AI-powered autonomous test generation inside Synthetic Monitoring) is listed as 'Free of charge through Nov 30' (2026). A free in-browser trial of Bits Testing also exists at bits-testing.datadoghq.com ('Try free in browser').
Eligibility
Anyone with a Datadog account; not student/startup-specific.
How to claim
No application; use Bits Testing in a Synthetics workflow; in-browser demo requires no account at all.
Expiry
Promotion ends Nov 30 (page language 'through Nov 30'); after that Bits Testing reverts to AI-credits-based pricing.
Gotchas
Short-dated promo - verify the exact Nov 30 year (page fetched 2026-10-22, so Nov 30, 2026). Not part of any student/startup program; counts against AI credits after the promo ends.
No distinct public free Uptime Monitoring or CDN offer found (Uptime & CDN front) medium confidence
Uptime Monitoring is now folded into Synthetic Monitoring under Digital Experience: the Synthetic Monitoring product page states 'Usage-based pricing per test run, with no per-user fees' and no public free endpoint/check-per-minute quotas or free test types are published on any current Datadog page I read today. The RUM page advertises only the 14-day trial. There is no Datadog CDN product in the current product index, Digital Experience pages, or docs navigation - Datadog's 'edge' offering is Edge Device Monitoring (IoT), which has no free tier.
Eligibility
n/a - nothing to claim; the front has no standalone free offer as of 2026-10-22.
How to claim
n/a
Expiry
n/a
Gotchas
Absence of published free uptime quotas may partly reflect client-side-rendered pricing; legacy pages historically showed a free uptime endpoint allowance on the Infrastructure Free plan, which is no longer displayed. If you need free uptime, the practical options are the 14-day trial (unlimited) or the 5-host Free plan, but no free uptime endpoint count is publicly stated today.