Cloudcraft
Cloudcraft automatically generates interactive diagrams of cloud infrastructure, showing discovered resources and relationships, with additional operational insights through Datadog.
Why it caught my attention
Infrastructure diagrams often describe how systems were designed, not necessarily how they look today. Cloudcraft can build a visual representation from discovered resources and keep live views current. That makes architecture diagrams useful for understanding existing environments, not just documenting proposed ones.
What problem does this actually solve?
Cloudcraft could be worth considering if you recognise any of these challenges.
Architecture documentation becomes outdated
Infrastructure changes can leave diagrams inaccurate. Live views reflect discovered resources without requiring every change to be redrawn.
Resource relationships are difficult to understand
Visualising discovered connections helps teams understand how supported cloud resources fit together across an environment.
Investigations lack infrastructure context
Datadog overlays place alerts, security findings and other operational information alongside affected resources, helping narrow investigations.
Infrastructure knowledge is hard to share
Generated diagrams give colleagues a common reference for architecture reviews, onboarding and discussions about existing systems.
Is this a good fit for you?
A quick way to see if Cloudcraft is relevant for your situation.
- You manage AWS or Azure environments that change frequently.
- You need to understand infrastructure you did not originally design.
- Your team spends time manually updating architecture diagrams.
- You use Datadog and want infrastructure context alongside operational data.
- You need visual references for onboarding, architecture reviews or documentation.
- You only need simple, manually drawn diagrams of proposed systems.
- Your infrastructure is outside Cloudcraft's supported discovery sources and integrations.
How does it work?
In practice, the workflow looks something like this:
Connect supported AWS or Azure accounts to standalone Cloudcraft, or use cloud accounts already integrated with Datadog.
Cloudcraft uses collected infrastructure metadata to identify supported resources and relationships, then arranges them into a visual architecture.
Filter resources by account, region, type or tags, inspect individual components and focus on relevant sections of the environment.
In Datadog, switch between available infrastructure, observability, security and cost overlays to investigate resources from different perspectives.
What else should I know?
A few important things to be aware of before you investigate further.
Standalone and Datadog experiences differ
Standalone Cloudcraft supports AWS and Azure diagramming; Datadog offers broader provider coverage and integrated operational overlays.
Live diagrams have editing limits
Editing a standalone live diagram switches it to a static snapshot, which no longer updates automatically.
Discovery requires appropriate access
Cloud accounts need suitable permissions and resource collection; the completeness of diagrams depends on supported resources and available metadata.
Check plans and feature availability
Standalone plans distinguish manual diagramming from live scanning; verify current Datadog entitlements, pricing and overlay availability separately.
Think Cloudcraft could fit your environment?
Visit the Cloudcraft website to find out more, request a demo or speak to their team.
Something you'd like to know about Cloudcraft?
Is there something I haven't covered in my research? Send me your question and I'll look into it and reply personally by email.