HyperDX review 2026: open-source observability pricing, ClickHouse-powered architecture, features, pros and cons, and top alternatives compared in depth.
HyperDX is an open-source observability platform that unifies logs, traces, metrics, exceptions, and session replay in one tool, built on OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse. Founded in 2022 by Warren Lee and Michael Shi as a Y Combinator-backed startup in San Francisco, HyperDX set out to give engineering teams Datadog-level visibility without Datadog-level cost.
In March 2025, ClickHouse Inc. acquired HyperDX, folding its technology into ClickStack, ClickHouse's official open-source observability stack, while HyperDX Cloud continues to operate as a hosted product. The acquisition gave HyperDX's technology the backing and long-term engineering resources of the company that builds the ClickHouse database itself.
The platform can be fully self-hosted on a team's own ClickHouse cluster via Docker or Kubernetes, or consumed as a managed cloud SaaS, giving engineering teams flexibility between infrastructure control and operational convenience.
HyperDX provides a unified search interface spanning logs, traces, metrics, and exceptions, backed by ClickHouse's columnar query engine, which allows fast aggregate queries even over very large data volumes that would be slow or costly in traditional observability backends.
Session replay is tightly correlated with backend traces, letting engineers see exactly what a user experienced in the browser alongside the corresponding server-side errors and requests, which speeds up root-cause analysis for production incidents.
Native OpenTelemetry Collector compatibility means teams with existing OTel instrumentation can adopt HyperDX without re-instrumenting applications, while built-in alerting integrations with Slack, PagerDuty, and webhooks keep teams notified of issues in real time.
HyperDX prices based on data usage rather than per-seat or per-host billing, a deliberate departure from traditional observability vendors. The Free tier includes 3 GB of data per month with 3-day retention and 1 user, letting small teams or side projects try the platform at no cost, while the Starter plan is a flat $20 per month for 50 GB of data with 30-day retention and unlimited users, with overage priced at $0.40 per additional GB and $0.40 per 100 metrics at 1 data point per minute.
Larger organizations move to the custom-priced Enterprise tier, which offers negotiated contracts, custom retention periods, SAML single sign-on, and volume discounts for high-scale deployments, making HyperDX's pricing model scale from hobby projects up to large production environments without requiring a per-seat license at any tier.
Yes, HyperDX offers a Free tier with 3 GB of data per month and 3-day retention. Paid plans start at $20 per month for 50 GB of data with 30-day retention and unlimited users.
HyperDX is built on ClickHouse, the open-source columnar analytics database, using it as the storage and query engine for logs, traces, and metrics.
HyperDX was founded in 2022 by Warren Lee and Michael Shi. In March 2025, ClickHouse Inc. acquired HyperDX, and its technology now underpins ClickStack, ClickHouse's official open-source observability stack, while HyperDX Cloud continues operating.
Yes, HyperDX can be fully self-hosted via Docker or Kubernetes on your own ClickHouse cluster under its MIT and Apache 2.0 open-source licenses.
HyperDX uses usage-based pricing based on data volume ingested, with no per-seat or per-host fees, starting free and scaling to a flat $20 per month Starter plan and custom Enterprise pricing.
HyperDX can replace many Datadog use cases around logs, traces, metrics, and session replay for teams wanting an open-source, self-hostable, usage-priced alternative, though Datadog offers a broader and more mature integration ecosystem.