groundcover — Developer Tools

from $0 (Free) / $30 per host per month (Pro)

groundcover (Developer Tools): groundcover is a Kubernetes-native observability platform using eBPF for zero-instrumentation monitoring of metrics, logs, and traces. Pricing: from from $0 (Free) / $30 per host per month (Pro). (data verified July 2026)

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About groundcover

What is groundcover?

groundcover is a full-stack observability platform for Kubernetes and cloud-native environments. It uses eBPF technology to automatically collect metrics, logs, and traces without code changes or sidecars. Deploy it in your own VPC via Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) or fully on-premises. This solves the problem of expensive, complex observability setups by offering flat per-host pricing with unlimited data ingestion and retention—keeping data private and secure in your environment.

Who is it for?

Built for DevOps teams, SREs, and engineers managing Kubernetes clusters who need infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, and LLM observability in one platform. It is ideal if you want full-stack visibility (infrastructure, applications, AI workflows) without traditional APM overhead. It is not a good fit for teams that need legacy VM monitoring or prefer fully managed SaaS-only solutions without self-hosted options.

Use cases

groundcover excels at correlating infrastructure metrics with application traces to debug performance issues, monitoring LLM-powered applications, and unifying logs/metrics/traces in a single dashboard—all while keeping data within your VPC for compliance. Deployment is as simple as installing a DaemonSet via Helm. Real-world results include zero minutes from deploy to full visibility, 10x more data at the same cost, and an average 60%+ cost reduction vs. legacy tools.

Key features

eBPF-based collection — Captures data at kernel level without application changes, providing full-fidelity telemetry
Unified dashboard — See metrics, logs, traces, events, and entities in one view
Pre-built alerts — Alerts for pod crashes, latency spikes, and resource exhaustion
Service map — Visualizes dependencies between microservices
Distributed tracing — Follow requests across services without manual instrumentation
Kubernetes-native — Deploys as a DaemonSet with Helm charts; supports EKS, AKS, GKE
All-in-one observability — Includes infrastructure monitoring, log management, APM, real user monitoring, and LLM observability

SaaSpartout Score

7.9 /10

Ease of use 8.0

Features depth 8.5

Value for money 9.0

Support quality 6.5

Integrations 7.0

Scalability 8.5

Documentation 7.0

Onboarding speed 8.5

Editorial score from our review methodology — not user ratings.

groundcover Pricing

groundcover pricing: from $0 (Free) / $30 per host per month (Pro). Billing model: Freemium.

Free — $0

Deployment mode: BYOC. Includes 12-hour data retention, Slack Community support, and all available integrations. No credit card required, free forever.

Pro — $30 per host per month

Deployment mode: BYOC. Includes all integrations and data sources, SSO support, standard data retention, and standard support. Start free trial.

Enterprise — $35 per host per month

Deployment mode: BYOC. Everything in Pro plus RBAC, unlimited data retention, and premium support. Start free trial.

On Premise — $50 per host per month

Deployment mode: Full On-Prem. Everything in Enterprise plus self-hosted data plane, self-hosted UI, and isolated authentication. Contact us for details.

All plans offer a free trial. Pricing is based on hosts, not data ingestion volume.

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Frequently asked questions

What cloud observability features does groundcover offer for Kubernetes and EKS environments with node-based pricing?

groundcover provides full-stack observability for Kubernetes and EKS including eBPF-based metrics, logs, traces, service maps, distributed tracing, and LLM monitoring. Pricing is flat per host per month (node-based), not based on data ingestion volume, so you can send unlimited telemetry without surprise costs.

Is groundcover free?

Yes. groundcover offers a Free plan at $0 per month with 12-hour data retention, BYOC deployment, Slack Community support, and no credit card required.

How much does groundcover cost per host?

Pricing starts at $30 per host per month for the Pro plan, $35 for Enterprise (BYOC), and $50 for On-Premise deployments. All plans are billed per host per month with unlimited data ingestion.

What are the best alternatives to groundcover?

Popular alternatives include Datadog (agent-based, ingestion-priced), New Relic (APM-centric), Grafana (open-source stack), and SigNoz (open-source APM). groundcover differs by using eBPF for zero-instrumentation collection and flat per-host pricing with unlimited data.

Who is groundcover best for?

groundcover is best for DevOps teams, SREs, and engineers managing Kubernetes clusters who need full-stack visibility (infrastructure, apps, LLMs) without traditional APM overhead. It is not ideal for teams needing legacy VM monitoring or those who prefer fully managed SaaS-only solutions.

Does groundcover offer a free trial?

Yes. All paid plans (Pro, Enterprise, On-Premise) include a free trial. The Free plan is available forever at $0.

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