Datadog App & API Protection review
A strong fit for observability teams that need API discovery and runtime blocking.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Datadog App & API Protection is a cloud security product for Security and DevOps teams that need visibility and protection across production APIs. It continuously discovers documented, undocumented, and shadow APIs, builds endpoint inventories, assesses API posture against OWASP API Top 10 risks, and detects sensitive data. The product also supports runtime protection through an in-app WAF, real-time blocking, attack-flow investigation, and account-takeover and credential-stuffing detection. It fits teams already working with Datadog observability telemetry and environments spanning hosts, proxies, Kubernetes, serverless platforms, and major cloud services.
Pricing is straightforward but tied to Datadog's infrastructure model. The App and API Protection plan costs $31 per host per month with annual billing or $36 per host per month with monthly billing. Both plan options include context-rich security signals from distributed traces, in-app WAF and threat blocking, runtime attack-flow investigation, and unlimited user accounts. A 14-day free trial is available, but there is no free plan, and the product requires Datadog Infrastructure Monitoring. Teams should account for host-based pricing when estimating costs across larger or changing environments.
Its main advantage is the connection between API security and observability data. Security findings can be reviewed alongside traces, errors, and logs, while integrations cover AWS WAF, AWS API Gateway, NGINX, Envoy, HAProxy, Kubernetes, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Run, and Azure App Service. That breadth suits organizations that want discovery, posture assessment, sensitive-data scanning, and runtime blocking in one cloud product. Teams seeking a standalone API security tool without Datadog Infrastructure Monitoring, or a free starting tier, should consider alternatives. Datadog is the stronger choice for observability teams extending existing telemetry into API protection.
Datadog App & API Protection pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Discovers documented, undocumented, and shadow APIs continuously
- Combines API posture checks with in-app WAF threat blocking
- Correlates attack flows with traces, errors, and logs
- Where it doesn't
- Requires Datadog Infrastructure Monitoring
- No free plan is available
- Pricing is based on hosts and costs more with monthly billing
Datadog App & API Protection fact sheet, pricing and score →
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