diff --git a/playbooks/roles/common_vars/defaults/main.yml b/playbooks/roles/common_vars/defaults/main.yml
index b81f99637ea..d49c268cb6d 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/common_vars/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/common_vars/defaults/main.yml
@@ -102,6 +102,7 @@ COMMON_MONGO_READ_ONLY_PASS: !!null
 COMMON_ENABLE_DATADOG: False
 # Enable APM monitoring with Datadog (metrics, traces, and logs)
 COMMON_ENABLE_DATADOG_APP: False
+COMMON_ENABLE_SPECIFIC_DATADOG_APPS: []
 COMMON_ENABLE_NGINXTRA: False
 COMMON_ENABLE_SPLUNKFORWARDER: False
 COMMON_ENABLE_NEWRELIC: False
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/defaults/main.yml b/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/defaults/main.yml
index e0a1da0f162..1e169fb97f8 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/defaults/main.yml
@@ -104,6 +104,7 @@ edx_django_service_basic_auth_exempted_paths: '{{ edx_django_service_basic_auth_
 edx_django_service_newrelic_appname: '{{ COMMON_ENVIRONMENT }}-{{ COMMON_DEPLOYMENT }}-{{ edx_django_service_name }}'
 edx_django_service_enable_newrelic_distributed_tracing: false
 edx_django_datadog_service: 'edx-{{ edx_django_service_name }}'
+edx_specifically_enabled_datadog_apps: '{{ COMMON_ENABLE_SPECIFIC_DATADOG_APPS }}'
 
 edx_django_service_repos:
   - PROTOCOL: '{{ edx_django_service_git_protocol }}'
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/tasks/main.yml b/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/tasks/main.yml
index 14004b11dcc..333c53dc9ae 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/playbooks/roles/edx_django_service/tasks/main.yml
@@ -213,7 +213,7 @@
     - install:app-requirements
 
 - name: "Install Datadog APM requirements"
-  when: COMMON_ENABLE_DATADOG and COMMON_ENABLE_DATADOG_APP
+  when: COMMON_ENABLE_DATADOG and ( COMMON_ENABLE_DATADOG_APP or {{ edx_django_service_name }} in edx_specifically_enabled_datadog_apps )
   pip:
     name:
       - ddtrace