Mackerel
Mackerel is a Japanese SaaS server monitoring and observability platform operated by Hatena Co., Ltd., offering agent-based monitoring, OpenTelemetry APM, ML anomaly detection, multi-cloud integrations, and log monitoring for enterprise IT and DevOps teams, primarily in Japan.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded-
- HeadquartersTokyo, Japan
- Headcount—
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Mackerel does
Mackerel is a Japanese SaaS server monitoring and observability platform operated by Hatena Co., Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 2014, the service originated from Hatena's internal infrastructure needs to manage dozens of services across thousands of servers and was refined through internal dogfooding before being offered commercially. The platform combines agent-based server and container monitoring (via mackerel-agent and mackerel-container-agent), an OpenTelemetry-based Application Performance Monitoring (APM) module launched in May 2025, machine-learning-driven Anomaly Detection for role-based metrics, custom dashboards, expression-based monitoring, external URL monitoring, and a Log Feature currently in open beta as of July 2026. Native integrations span AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, plus communication channels (Slack, Microsoft Teams, Chatwork, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Jira Service Management), identity (SAML), and a public REST API with an 'mkr' CLI for automation.
The business model is a subscription-based SaaS with usage-based pricing layers. Standard subscription tiers are billed monthly, with higher tiers billed annually and offering advanced features such as anomaly detection, SAML SSO, and priority support; a 2-week full-featured free trial drives product-led acquisition. AWS integration pricing is metered using a micro-host model (e.g., 1 Distribution equals 1 Micro Host for CloudFront, 1 bucket equals 1 Micro Host for S3, 1 Cluster equals 1 Micro Host for ECS), and service-metrics usage incurs additional volume-based charges. Go-to-market combines self-serve PLG for SMB and individual users with enterprise sales supported by dedicated Customer Reliability Engineers (CREs) for onboarding and ongoing technical consultation. A Partner Program enrolls MSPs, cloud implementers, ISPs, and datacenters (including KDDI, BIGLOBE, ClassMethod, NTT East, iret, Sony Business Networks, NHN Techorus, and Link) to deliver Mackerel-based managed monitoring services.
Mackerel serves primarily Japanese enterprise IT and DevOps teams, with named customers spanning telecommunications (KDDI, NTT East, NTT DOCOMO), gaming (Nintendo, Sega), internet services (CyberAgent), e-commerce (Mercari), financial services (Credit Saison), music/digital content (Recochoku), education/lifestyle (Benesse), and transportation/MaaS (WILLER), as well as cloud-services partners (ClassMethod). The platform emphasizes team-based monitoring culture, Japanese-language documentation, and open-source extensibility. Mackerel is privately held under Hatena Co., Ltd., with no external funding rounds disclosed.
Mackerel firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Mackerel
- Legal name
- Hatena Co., Ltd.
- Website
- https://mackerel.io
- Company type
- Private
- Operating status
- Operating
- Short description
- Mackerel is a Japanese SaaS server monitoring and observability platform operated by Hatena Co., Ltd., offering agent-based monitoring, OpenTelemetry APM, ML anomaly detection, multi-cloud integrations, and log monitoring for enterprise IT and DevOps teams, primarily in Japan.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Mackerel industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Fault & Performance Monitoring (SNMP/Telemetry/APM for Networks) (HDAFAMAA)
Keywords
Where Mackerel is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Tokyo
- HQ country
- Japan
- HQ region
- Asia
Offices1 record
Markets served
Mackerel business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription-based SaaS Monitoring: Mackerel operates as a subscription-based SaaS service with tiered pricing plans based on the number of hosts monitored. The service charges based on the volume of metrics and monitoring targets. Additional charges apply for exceeding plan limits.
- Usage-based Micro Host Pricing: AWS integration charges are based on the number of micro hosts (1 Distribution = 1 Micro Host for CloudFront, 1 bucket = 1 Micro Host for S3, 1 Cluster = 1 Micro Host for ECS, etc.). Additional metrics may incur extra charges.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Trial Plan - Free 2-week full-featured trial |
| Subscription | Monthly | Standard Plan - Core monitoring features |
| Subscription | Annual | Higher-tier Plans - Advanced features and support |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Service Metrics Usage |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels6 records
Mackerel product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Mackerel is a SaaS server monitoring and observability platform provided by Hatena Co., Ltd. that delivers host and container metric collection, alerting, dashboards, Application Performance Monitoring built on OpenTelemetry, ML-based anomaly detection, log monitoring, and native integrations with AWS, Azure, GCP and communication tools such as Slack, Teams, PagerDuty and Opsgenie. It is sold on tiered subscriptions with usage-based charges for cloud integrations and offered alongside a CRE support service for enterprise customers.
Product overview
Mackerel is a Japanese SaaS server monitoring and observability platform provided by Hatena Co., Ltd. The product has evolved from a basic server monitoring service into a comprehensive observability platform comprising the core Mackerel monitoring platform, APM (Application Performance Monitoring) built on OpenTelemetry, a Log Feature (open beta as of July 2026), AWS/Azure/GCP cloud integrations, the mackerel-agent and mackerel-container-agent for metric collection, the mkr CLI tool for automation, a REST API for programmatic management, and CRE support services. The platform also includes advanced features like Anomaly Detection for roles using machine learning, Expression Monitoring, Custom Dashboards, External URL Monitoring, and a Partner Program for MSPs and cloud operators.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Mackerel Core Monitoring Platform SaaS server monitoring platform provided by Hatena Co., Ltd., offering host management, metric collection, alerting, dashboards, and integrations needed for cloud monitoring and service operations for DevOps and IT operations teams.
- Mackerel APM (Application Performance Monitoring) Application performance monitoring feature built on OpenTelemetry that visualizes application internal behavior, enabling quick identification of error causes and database query performance improvements for engineering teams.
- Mackerel Log Feature Log monitoring and aggregation feature extending observability capabilities to include log data alongside metrics and traces for operations and engineering teams.
- CRE (Customer Reliability Engineer) Support Dedicated support service in which Customer Reliability Engineers provide onboarding guidance, technical consultation, and ongoing assistance with Mackerel implementation for enterprise customers.
Quantifiable outcome
- Faster identification of performance bottlenecks and troubleshooting through observability platform
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Mackerel
Customer profileNamed customers12 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Mackerel technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration18 records
AI capability2 records
Feature8 records
Mackerel partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Ten partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- KDDI株式会社 (KDDI Corporation)coreKDDI is a major telecommunications company and MSP partner offering cloud implementation and operational services using Mackerel. Provides infrastructure design, 24/7 support, and consulting services to customers.
- BiglobecoreBiglobe is an Internet Service Provider and MSP partner that offers monitoring services to customers through Mackerel.
- クラスメソッド株式会社 (ClassMethod)coreClassMethod is a cloud services company and MSP partner providing AWS monitoring integration services using Mackerel.
- iretminoriret is an MSP partner offering monitoring services to customers using Mackerel platform.
- 東日本電信電話株式会社 (NTT East)coreNTT East is a regional telecommunications company offering cloud monitoring operations and managed services to customers using Mackerel.
- Sony Business NetworksminorSony Business Networks is a business network services provider and partner offering monitoring services.
- NHN TechorusminorNHN Techorus provides cloud and technology services and offers Mackerel-based monitoring to customers.
- LinkminorLink is a partner company providing monitoring services using Mackerel.
- Google LLCcoreGoogle provides Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Advertising, and Display & Video 360 services integrated with Mackerel's website. Mackerel also integrates with Google Cloud Platform for monitoring.
- Microsoft CorporationcoreMicrosoft provides Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft Advertising, and Azure integrations. Mackerel integrates with Azure for cloud monitoring.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Mackerel competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Datadog: Datadog is the leading cloud-native SaaS monitoring and observability platform offering infrastructure monitoring, APM, logs, and synthetics. Competes with Mackerel head-to-head for enterprise DevOps/Observability budgets across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including in Japan.
- Grafana Labs: Grafana Labs builds Grafana, Loki, Tempo and Pyroscope under the Grafana OSS umbrella, with commercial Grafana Cloud for hosted observability. Most directly comparable open-core observability stack to Mackerel's OSS-agent + hosted-platform model.
- New Relic: New Relic provides a SaaS observability platform spanning APM, infrastructure monitoring, logs, and browser/mobile performance. Most directly comparable to Mackerel's APM + infrastructure + log capabilities and target buyer (enterprise DevOps teams).
- Zabbix: Zabbix is an open-source, agent-based server, network and cloud monitoring platform with commercial support (Zabbix LLC). Closely analogous to Mackerel's agent-based server monitoring heritage and OSS philosophy.
- Site24x7 (Zoho): Site24x7 is a SaaS monitoring suite for infrastructure, applications, websites and APM, offered by Zoho. Most directly comparable SMB/enterprise SaaS monitoring alternative to Mackerel's subscription-based tiers.
- Dynatrace: Dynatrace offers an AI-driven observability and security platform (OneAgent, APM, infrastructure monitoring, logs). Competes with Mackerel for large enterprise monitoring and APM deals, with growing presence in Japan.
- Sumo Logic: Sumo Logic is a SaaS log analytics and observability platform covering metrics, traces and logs. Comparable to Mackerel's now-expanding observability platform, particularly the recently launched Log Feature.
- Elastic (Elastic Observability): Elastic provides the ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana) plus Elastic Observability for logs, metrics, APM and uptime monitoring. Directly comparable feature set to Mackerel's evolving observability platform (logs, metrics, traces).
Emerging players
- Sentry: Sentry provides application error monitoring and performance tracing, already listed as an integration partner of Mackerel. Overlaps with Mackerel's APM/OpenTelemetry-based tracing offering for developer-focused observability.
Broad incumbents
- Splunk (Observability Cloud): Splunk, now part of Cisco, sells a broad observability and log analytics portfolio (including SignalFx-derived Observability Cloud) to enterprise IT and security buyers. Competes as a broader incumbent portfolio, not a pure-play focused on Mackerel's niche server/APM monitoring.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Mackerel social profiles
Digital presenceMackerel financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Mackerel leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Mackerel funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Mackerel M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Mackerel
What does Mackerel do?
Mackerel is a SaaS server monitoring and observability platform provided by Hatena Co., Ltd. that delivers host and container metric collection, alerting, dashboards, Application Performance Monitoring built on OpenTelemetry, ML-based anomaly detection, log monitoring, and native integrations with AWS, Azure, GCP and communication tools such as Slack, Teams, PagerDuty and Opsgenie. It is sold on tiered subscriptions with usage-based charges for cloud integrations and offered alongside a CRE support service for enterprise customers.
Is Mackerel a public or private company?
Mackerel is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was Mackerel founded?
Mackerel was founded in -1.
Where is Mackerel based?
Mackerel is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, in the Asia region.
How does Mackerel make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Subscription-based SaaS Monitoring is the primary driver. The others are usage-based Micro Host Pricing.
Who are Mackerel's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Datadog, Grafana Labs, New Relic, Zabbix, Site24x7 (Zoho), Dynatrace, Sumo Logic and Elastic (Elastic Observability). Sentry is listed as an emerging player. Splunk (Observability Cloud) is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does Mackerel have an API?
Yes. Mackerel provides a public REST API for managing hosts, services, monitors, alerts, dashboards, and organization settings. The API allows developers to build custom integrations, automate monitoring configurations, and retrieve metrics programmatically. API documentation is available at https://mackerel.io/api-docs/. Additionally, a CLI tool called 'mkr' is offered for CLI-based management of Mackerel resources. Developer documentation is at mackerel.io/api-docs.
What industry is Mackerel in?
Mackerel's product category is Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAFAMAA, Fault & Performance Monitoring (SNMP/Telemetry/APM for Networks). Its NAICS code is 518 and its SIC code is 7374.