Comparison

Rudow vs Axiom

Both are modern log platforms. The differences that matter: how you pay, how your AI agents access the data, and what the free tier gives you.

Pricing model

RudowFlat monthly plans — Hobby (free), Dev ($9.99), Pro ($29.99), Team ($79.99). Limits are caps, not overage meters; past-cap requests are rejected with a clear message. No surprise bills.

AxiomUsage-based pricing — you pay for the data volume you ingest and query. Costs scale with traffic.

Free tier

RudowFree-forever Hobby plan: 1 project, 200,000 log entries/mo, 700 MCP requests/mo, 70 AI chat messages/mo. No credit card, no time limit.

AxiomA free tier with a data-volume allowance; beyond it you move to usage-based billing.

AI / MCP access

RudowNative MCP server built in — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, n8n or any MCP client queries your logs and metrics with the same tools as the built-in chat. Read-only by design.

AxiomAI features such as APL (Axiom Processing Language) assist with query writing; agent/MCP-style log access requires extra integration.

Read-only guarantee

RudowRudow reads logs; it never mutates, rewrites or acts on your systems, configs or deployments — for humans and for connected agents.

AxiomAxiom is a log analytics platform; it does not act on your infrastructure either, but its agent-access story is not a built-in read-only MCP surface.

Retention

Rudow40-day log retention on every plan, enforced by a database TTL index.

AxiomRetention depends on the plan/data plan you select.

Setup

RudowDrop-in SDKs for Node.js and Python, a plain HTTP ingest API, and raw log-file upload. Ask questions in plain English from the dashboard, Slack, or MCP.

AxiomSend logs via its ingestion pipeline and query with APL — a purpose-built language for log data.

The simplest way to decide: start on the free Hobby plan, point one service at Rudow, and ask it a question about last week's errors. You'll know in five minutes whether plain-English log investigation is for you.