What is New Relic?
New Relic is a cloud observability platform that combines application performance monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, logs, digital experience and AI-assisted operations. It is made by New Relic and collects telemetry from applications, hosts, containers, serverless functions and browsers. The problem it solves is blind spots in production: teams can trace a slow request across services, correlate it with logs and infrastructure metrics, and investigate with AI support in one platform.
Key features
- Application performance monitoring. Distributed tracing, service maps and error tracking show where requests slow down or fail.
- Infrastructure monitoring. Hosts, containers, Kubernetes, serverless functions and cloud services report metrics and alerts without per-host pricing.
- Log management. Logs can be ingested, searched, obfuscated and retained alongside traces and metrics.
- Digital experience monitoring. Browser and mobile monitoring, session replay and synthetic checks cover the user-facing side.
- AI observability and AIOps. New Relic monitors AI applications and uses AI to correlate anomalies and assist with investigations.
- OpenTelemetry support. Telemetry can be sent through OpenTelemetry or New Relic agents and integrations.
- Usage-based pricing. Data ingest, users and optional compute are metered separately, with unlimited hosts included.
Who is New Relic for?
SRE, DevOps and platform teams running cloud-native applications, and engineering organisations that want observability without counting hosts. It suits teams standardising on OpenTelemetry, companies that need logs, traces and front-end monitoring in one place, and smaller teams that want a free tier with a full platform user. It is also used by teams that need to monitor AI applications and model usage.
Use cases
- Tracing a slow checkout request across microservices.
- Monitoring Kubernetes clusters and serverless functions.
- Correlating application errors with logs and deployments.
- Tracking browser and mobile performance for customer-facing apps.
- Watching AI application latency, errors and token usage.
Pricing
New Relic has a Free tier with 100 GB of data ingest per month, one full platform user, unlimited basic users, 500 synthetic checks and at least eight days of retention. Standard charges $0.40 per GB beyond the free 100 GB and $10 for the first full platform user and $99 for each additional user, up to five. Pro includes unlimited full platform users at $349 per user per month with an annual commitment, or $418.80 monthly. Data Plus costs $0.60 per GB and adds extended retention and compliance options. Enterprise pricing is custom. See the official New Relic pricing page.
Getting started
- Create a free New Relic account and choose a data region.
- Install the agent for your language, host or Kubernetes cluster.
- Add the license key and start sending telemetry.
- Open the APM or infrastructure view and create an alert policy.
Alternatives
- Datadog is a cloud observability and security platform.
- Grafana Cloud combines metrics, logs, traces and dashboards.
- Sentry focuses on application error tracking and performance.
- Axiom is a log and event analytics platform.
FAQ
Is New Relic free?
Yes. The Free tier includes 100 GB of data ingest per month, one full platform user, unlimited basic users and 500 synthetic checks. Paid editions add more users and data.
What is New Relic used for?
New Relic is used to monitor applications, infrastructure, logs and digital experiences. It helps teams find performance problems, correlate telemetry and respond to incidents.
New Relic vs Datadog?
Both are broad observability platforms. New Relic prices by data ingest and users, with unlimited hosts, while Datadog prices many products per host or per volume. The better fit depends on your telemetry volume, team size and which products you need.
Does New Relic support OpenTelemetry?
Yes. New Relic supports OpenTelemetry for metrics, logs and traces, alongside its own agents and integrations.
Does New Relic charge per host?
No. New Relic includes unlimited hosts, containers and functions at no extra host charge. Pricing is based on data ingest and user type, with optional compute for advanced capabilities.
