CloudWatch monitors it. Paxis heals it.
If you're comparing Paxis vs CloudWatch, the real question isn't which tool surfaces more anomaly detection bands on AWS metrics — it's what happens the moment a CloudWatch alarm fires. CloudWatch raises the alarm. Paxis receives that same signal, diagnoses it against your service topology, picks a pre-approved playbook, runs it, and posts the outcome to Slack or PagerDuty. Same AWS signal source, closed loop instead of an open page.
The gap CloudWatch leaves
A native AWS alarm isn't a remediation engine.
CloudWatch is the native AWS observability layer — metric collection, log groups, anomaly detection bands, and deep service integration are exactly what you want for AWS visibility. But CloudWatch’s loop ends at the alarm: no playbook execution, no Kubernetes drain, no rollback trigger on the other side of the threshold. To automate a response you must wire Lambda, Systems Manager, or EventBridge by hand — per alarm, per action. Paxis sits there out of the box. When a CloudWatch alarm fires, Paxis receives the signal, diagnoses it, runs the approved action, and closes the loop without waking on-call.
Side by side
Paxis vs CloudWatch, on the dimensions that matter
| Dimension | CloudWatch | Paxis |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Native AWS metrics/logs, CloudWatch Alarms and Insights — tight AWS-only ecosystem. | Monitoring + auto-remediation — ingests CloudWatch alarm signals and acts with pre-approved playbooks, multi-cloud. |
| Anomaly detection | CloudWatch Anomaly Detection uses ML bands on individual metrics; fires to SNS/EventBridge when band is crossed. | Playbook-driven detection — the same CloudWatch alarm fires into Paxis, which diagnoses against your service topology and selects the right remediation. |
| Remediation | None — CloudWatch fires the alarm; remediation is manual or requires hand-wired Lambda/Systems Manager automation. | Closed-loop — rollback, pod restart, horizontal scale, drain — runs and posts the outcome to Slack or PagerDuty automatically. |
| Pricing model | Per-metric/alarm/log-GB; costs compound across metrics, dashboards, alarms, and data retention. | Per-workspace tiers with hard pod caps — predictable bill, independent of AWS metric volume or alarm count. |
| Integrations | AWS-native: EC2, ECS, RDS, Lambda, etc. Cross-cloud requires agents or workarounds. | Kubernetes-first but cloud-agnostic; ingests CloudWatch signals alongside Datadog, Grafana, Splunk — no rip-and-replace. |
| Getting started | IAM roles, metric filters, alarm policies, SNS topics, and Lambda wiring — steep configuration surface. | Connect-cluster plus curated playbooks — point Paxis at existing CloudWatch alarm output and pick a remediation template. |
CloudWatch is Amazon's native observability layer. Paxis isn't a swap — it's the remediation layer that runs alongside the monitoring you already trust, including CloudWatch itself. Alarm signals in, closed-loop playbook executions out.
Wire Paxis into your CloudWatch alarms today.
Pick a plan and start today — Starter ($49/mo) or Team ($199/mo) ships the full self-healing loop end-to-end. Point it at your existing CloudWatch alarm source and watch the first playbook run before your first billing period ends.
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