Splunk Observability Cloud vs Grafana Mimir

Splunk Observability Cloud8.5Visit Grafana Mimir8.4Visit

Higher score Splunk Observability Cloud #7 in Kubernetes Monitoring 8.5/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 4 features Visit Splunk

vs

Grafana Mimir #8 in Kubernetes Monitoring 8.4/10 Open source ✓ 0 of 4 features Visit Grafana Mimir

• Splunk Observability Cloud fits best

  Teams needing broad observability with a free tier

• Grafana Mimir fits best

  Long-term, multi-tenant Prometheus storage

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Side by side

Feature	Splunk Observability Cloud 8.5/10 Visit ↗	Grafana Mimir 8.4/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	8.5	8.4
Ranking	#7 in Kubernetes Monitoring	#8 in Kubernetes Monitoring
Best for	Teams needing broad observability with a free tier	Long-term, multi-tenant Prometheus storage
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Free
Starting price	$15/mo	Open source
Free plan	✓ (best)	Not checked yet
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Self-hosted
Integrations	6 integrations	12 integrations
Features Splunk Observability Cloud 0/4 · Grafana Mimir 0/4
Control-plane monitoring	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Kubernetes logs	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Distributed tracing	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Managed Kubernetes support	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Specs
Alerting channels	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Data retention	416 days	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Free Edition covers up to 15 hosts with full feature parity Combines infrastructure, application, database, log, trace, and user monitoring Supports OpenTelemetry plus AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Splunk integrations	Prometheus-compatible ingestion with PromQL querying Multi-tenancy, replication, and configurable retention Object-store-backed long-term storage with horizontal scaling
Cons	Kubernetes-specific capabilities are not a stated focus Paid plans use annual billing and per-host pricing SaaS delivery excludes customer-managed deployment	Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure management PromQL is the documented query language; SQL support is false Focused on metrics infrastructure rather than a broader observability suite
Our verdict	Splunk Observability Cloud is a cloud-based observability platform for engineering, operations, and development teams. It brings infrastructure, applications, services, user interfaces, metrics, traces, and logs into one environment, with… Read the review →	Grafana Mimir is an open-source, horizontally scalable time-series database for long-term storage of Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics. It is designed for organizations operating large-scale metrics platforms that need multi-tenancy,… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Splunk Observability Cloud — where it wins

  • Free Edition covers up to 15 hosts with full feature parity
  • Combines infrastructure, application, database, log, trace, and user monitoring
  • Supports OpenTelemetry plus AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Splunk integrations

  Where it doesn't

  • Kubernetes-specific capabilities are not a stated focus
  • Paid plans use annual billing and per-host pricing
  • SaaS delivery excludes customer-managed deployment

• Grafana Mimir — where it wins

  • Prometheus-compatible ingestion with PromQL querying
  • Multi-tenancy, replication, and configurable retention
  • Object-store-backed long-term storage with horizontal scaling

  Where it doesn't

  • Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure management
  • PromQL is the documented query language; SQL support is false
  • Focused on metrics infrastructure rather than a broader observability suite

• Splunk Observability Cloud8.5/10 · Free plan

  Broad observability coverage with a useful free tier, but limited Kubernetes-specific emphasis.

  Visit SplunkFull verdict →
• Grafana Mimir8.4/10 · Open source

  A strong fit for teams building self-hosted, multi-tenant Prometheus infrastructure.

  Visit Grafana MimirFull verdict →