Datadog acquires Quickwit

Planned Use of Quickwit by Datadog

• Many infer from Datadog’s announcement that Quickwit will underpin a self‑hosted or “logs stay in your environment” model, aimed at regulated industries with data residency constraints.
• Expected model: logs stored in customer infra or regions, accessed via Datadog’s UI, likely billed per‑GB but cheaper than shipping all logs to Datadog.
• Some speculate Datadog may also use Quickwit internally to cut infra costs or as a defensive move to remove a direct OSS competitor.

Open Source Status and Licensing

• Quickwit had been moving toward an enterprise license but will now relicense as Apache 2.0, along with its Tantivy search library.
• Many are happy about the more permissive license but expect the original team to shift focus to a closed Datadog product, with less day‑to‑day work on the OSS version.
• Vector is cited as precedent: originally OSS and acquired by Datadog; some claim it stalled, others (including Datadog employees and users) say it’s actively maintained, though at a measured pace.

Innovation, Ecosystem, and Alternatives

• Several posters lament that multiple innovative databases (Warpstream, OrioleDB, Quickwit) have been acquired, fearing slower innovation once inside large companies.
• Others argue acquisitions can expand reach while OSS projects like Tantivy remain usable and extensible (e.g., ParadeDB, pg_search).
• Alternatives suggested for object‑storage‑backed or OSS logging/observability include Loki, SigNoz, qryn, and VictoriaLogs, with substantial criticism of Loki’s complexity, config churn, and high‑cardinality limitations.

Perceptions of Datadog’s Product and Pricing

• Technically, Datadog is widely regarded as a top‑tier observability platform, particularly for APM, tracing, and profiling.
• However, many report aggressive, intrusive sales tactics, opaque and unpredictable billing, and extremely high prices for logs and custom metrics.
• Some describe Datadog as highly sales‑driven and liken its behavior to legacy enterprise vendors; a minority report positive, low‑pressure sales experiences.

Customer and Community Concerns

• Teams that recently migrated to Quickwit are frustrated and worried development may stagnate, though Quickwit’s OSS status means it can be continued or forked.
• There is concern for companies that built on Quickwit (e.g., large‑scale logging users), but also an expectation that demand could sustain a community fork if necessary.

Funding and Acquisition Dynamics

• The blog’s mention of rising traction and VC pressure for a Series A sparks debate about VC incentives.
• Some argue early funding structurally pushes toward hyper‑growth or exit; others note Quickwit’s seed was via SAFEs without board control, and the acquisition decision was not forced but taken at a perceived strategic crossroads.