New Relic

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Introduction

New Relic is an observability platform that collects metrics, events, logs and traces from applications, infrastructure, browsers and mobile apps in one place. Its homepage describes AI-powered observability that correlates telemetry across the entire stack to isolate root causes and reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR), and now emphasises observability for AI applications.

The platform covers application performance monitoring (APM), infrastructure monitoring, log management, distributed tracing, browser real user monitoring, mobile monitoring, synthetic monitoring, error tracking, dashboards and alerting. It accepts data from its own agents and from OpenTelemetry. For testers, browser monitoring and synthetic checks are the most relevant parts: synthetic monitors run scripted browser and API checks on a schedule from global locations, and browser RUM shows Core Web Vitals and JavaScript errors from real users.

New Relic’s pricing model is distinctive: a generous free tier with 100 GB of data ingest per month and one full platform user, then charges for data ingest beyond the free allowance and for user seats. That makes it easy to start, but costs need managing as data and teams grow.

How it compares: Datadog and Dynatrace are the main full-platform rivals; Grafana and Honeycomb suit teams that want open-source or event-driven approaches; Sentry focuses on errors and performance from the application’s point of view. New Relic is often chosen for its free tier and all-in-one coverage.

In the quality loop New Relic sits in production monitoring, and its synthetic monitors and deployment markers help connect releases to performance changes.

Features

1. APM and tracing: Application performance and distributed traces.
2. Infrastructure and logs: Hosts, containers, Kubernetes and log management.
3. Browser and mobile monitoring: Real user monitoring, Core Web Vitals and errors.
4. Synthetic monitoring: Scheduled browser and API checks from global locations.
5. AI-assisted correlation: Correlate telemetry to find root causes.
6. OpenTelemetry support: Ingest OTel data alongside agents.
7. Dashboards and alerts: Custom dashboards and alert policies.

Pros

1. Free tier: 100 GB ingest per month and one free full platform user.
2. All-in-one: Broad coverage across the stack.
3. Usage-based model: Pay mainly for data and users, not hosts.

Cons

1. Cost management: Ingest and user costs can rise quickly at scale.
2. Complexity: Broad platform with a learning curve.

Usage and Links (Example)

Sign up for the free tier, install an APM agent or OpenTelemetry exporter in your service, add the browser agent to your site, and create a synthetic monitor for a critical journey. Add deployment markers from CI so performance changes can be tied to releases. When comparing monitoring tools, run the same two or three critical pages or journeys in each trial for a couple of weeks, from the regions where your users are, and compare alert quality, false positives, data retention and the total price at your required check frequency.

Useful links:

• New Relic pricing

Pricing

At the time of review New Relic’s pricing page listed 100 GB of free data ingest per month, then $0.40 per GB (original data option) or $0.60 per GB (Data Plus). Basic users are free; core users are $49 per user; full platform users include one free user on the Free plan, Standard at $10 for the first user and $99 per additional user (maximum five), and Pro at $349 per user with annual commitment. See site.

Recommended for?

• Teams that want full-stack observability with a free starting tier
• Organisations correlating releases with performance via synthetic and RUM data
• Teams adopting OpenTelemetry who want a managed backend

Conclusion

New Relic is a comprehensive observability platform with an unusually generous free tier. It is a strong choice for teams that want APM, RUM and synthetics together, provided they keep an eye on ingest and seat costs.