CloudWatch, Amazon's native monitoring and management service, is great for basic monitoring and alerts but may not be ideal for analyzing log data at scale or outside of AWS. Log analytics are crucial for ITOps, DevOps, security, and customer analytics use cases, which often involve processing large volumes and varieties of log data. CloudWatch has limitations, such as a complex UI, lack of data integration depth, and scalability issues, making it impractical for terabyte-scale log retention. New cloud-based platforms like ChaosSearch can alleviate these bottlenecks by compressing indexed data, providing automatic discovery and cataloging, and supporting sophisticated log queries and parsing multiple logs at once. By combining CloudWatch with ChaosSearch, organizations can achieve best-in-class monitoring and a deeper understanding of their systems for business growth.