Datadog, Inc. (DDOG): Among the Best Enterprise Software Stocks to Buy Now

We recently published a list of 12 Best Enterprise Software Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) stands against other best enterprise software stocks to buy now.

In 2024, the global enterprise market size was estimated at $263.79 billion, according to Grand View Research. It’s expected to now grow at a CAGR of 12.1% from 2025 to 2030, due to the increasing demand for automated and integrated solutions. Enterprise software becomes more desirable as organizations seek reduced reliance on HR to eliminate manual errors and automate routine tasks. Therefore, ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management), and data analytics software are becoming increasingly popular.

Enterprise software is actively transforming with the integration of AI technologies, which changes how it’s designed, deployed, and utilized. According to Endava, GenAI is driving this transformation by incorporating creative and analytical capabilities into enterprise applications. This enables software to undergo intelligent tasks like generating reports, creating personalized training materials, and writing codes. AI not only automates manual jobs but also allows hyper-personalization of customer-facing enterprise software. This allows platforms like CRM and e-commerce to deliver targeted content and recommendations, which leads to higher customer satisfaction and improved sales. This is fueled by adaptive AI-enhanced enterprise software that learns from vast datasets to provide real-time and individualized interactions.

AI-driven automation is also becoming more popular in core business processes. ERP and workflow management systems are automating complex tasks and reducing manual intervention to improve overall efficiency. Enterprises are streamlining operations and making data-driven solutions through the integration of now-standard features like process mining, intelligent document processing, and predictive analytics. Agentic AI is further pushing enterprise software towards greater autonomy. These are AI systems that act like human agents and autonomously perceive, reason, and analyze data to achieve certain goals. As enterprise software continues to integrate advanced AI capabilities in its regular applications, the technology becomes more proactive and intelligent.

Our Methodology

We sifted through ETFs and financial media reports to compile a list of the top enterprise software stocks. We then selected the 12 stocks that were the most popular among elite hedge funds and that analysts were bullish on. The stocks are ranked in ascending order of the number of hedge funds that have stakes in them, as of Q4 2024. The hedge fund data was sourced from Insider Monkey’s database which tracks the moves of over 900 elite money managers.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Is Datadog Inc. (DDOG) the Best Enterprise Software Stock to Buy Now?

A close-up of a laptop with a software engineer coding on the monitor.

Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 83

Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) operates a global observability and security platform for cloud applications. It offers diverse products, such as infrastructure and application performance monitoring, log management, digital experience monitoring, error tracking, and workflow automation among other services.

On March 17, DA Davidson analysts assigned a Buy rating and a $165 price target on the company. This was due to the company’s ongoing transition from AI hardware to AI software infrastructure. It focuses on its monitoring and analytics platform which integrates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM), log management, and cloud security for various enterprises. About 3,500 of the company’s customers adopted AI and ML integrations into their ML, AI, and LLM usage in Q4 2024.

The company’s existing customers are increasingly adopting multiple products. As of Q4, 83% of customers used 2+ products, 50% used $4+, and 26% used 6+ products. Larger enterprise customers have also grown with 45% of the Fortune 500 now using Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG). This indicates a 42% rise in the customer base year-over-year. However, the median ARR for Fortune 500 customers is below $0.5 million, which showcases substantial growth potential in this direction.

Parnassus Growth Equity Fund stated the following regarding Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“We also added several new positions, including two in Information Technology: Atlassian, a maker of innovative software that allows IT developers and other employees to seamlessly collaborate on complex projects, and Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG), a dominant cloud monitoring platform.

Datadog, a dominant cloud monitoring platform, should have outsized growth due to its category leadership, sticky product suite, best-in-class product innovation and highly regarded management team. We believe the market has misinterpreted cyclical headwinds, such as reductions in IT spending, as secular trends, and we see Datadog benefiting from growth in Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service.”

Overall, DDOG ranks 5th on our list of best enterprise software stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the growth potential of DDOG, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than DDOG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.