New Relic is a SaaS monitoring platform that enables businesses to track, debug, and optimize the performance of their web, mobile applications, and IT infrastructure in real time.
What is New Relic?
New Relic is a cloud solution offering full-stack monitoring, meaning complete visibility across applications, infrastructure, and user experiences. It collects and analyzes performance data to help IT teams:
Monitor real-time performance and availability.
Detect anomalies and resolve issues quickly.
Optimize resources through actionable insights.
Founded in 2008, New Relic is now used by over 50,000 customers in 190 countries, from startups to large enterprises (New Relic).
Key Features
New Relic excels with a suite of powerful tools:
APM (Application Performance Monitoring): Analysis of response times, error rates, and application performance.
Infrastructure monitoring: Supervision of servers, containers, and cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP).
Log management: Centralization and rapid log analysis.
Synthetic Monitoring: Simulation of user interactions to test availability.
AI Insights: Anomaly detection and recommendations based on artificial intelligence.
Interactive dashboards: Customized visualization of critical data.
Smart alerts: Proactive notifications on thresholds or anomalies.
Integrations: Compatible with over 500 tools (Slack, Jira, Kubernetes, etc.).
New feature: Predictive observability via AI to anticipate incidents (New Relic).
Pros and Cons
👍 Advantage
✨ Description
⚠️ Drawback
👁️ Complete observability
Unified monitoring of infrastructure, APM, logs, browser, and mobile with >650 integrations (AWS, Azure, Kubernetes).
Steep learning curve to fully leverage complex features.
🤖 Proactive AI detection
New Relic AI (Pixie) anticipates incidents through automated alerts and diagnostics.
Frequent false positives requiring fine-tuning of alert thresholds.
💸 Usage-based pricing
Free plan 100 GB/month, billing per ingested byte ($0.30/GB) and user ($549/year).
Unpredictable costs for large data volumes or multiple agents.
⚙️ Extensive integrations
Quickstarts for AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Jenkins, and modern DevOps tools.
Niche integrations often require custom development.
📊 Dashboards & NRQL
Customizable dashboards and NRQL for advanced data queries.
Slowed UI performance on large datasets, NRQL complex for beginners.
📱 Mobile monitoring
SDK for iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, with real-time UX tracking.
Occasional SDK instability on certain versions or frameworks.
👩💼 SLA & support
1h SLA for Enterprise plans, email support and forums for free/standard plans.
Long support delays for non-Enterprise plans, forums sometimes insufficient.
🔒 Security and compliance
SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA certifications, with data encryption and access controls.
Compliance settings configuration can be complex for SMBs.
User Reviews and Feedback
Positive reviews of this monitoring platform (based on TrustRadius, 4.5/5, 5927 reviews):
"An essential solution for full-stack monitoring."
"AI alerts reduced our incident response times by 35%."
Negative reviews:
"Initial configuration is time-consuming."
"Costs escalate quickly with a large team."
New Relic Alternatives
Here's a comparative table of top alternatives in 2025:
Advanced Compute Capacity Unit
Container/serverless monitoring
$0.60/CCU
🔒 Security & Compliance
SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA features
Audit trails and access controls
Included in Pro/Enterprise
Which Businesses and Roles?
New Relic is suitable for:
Large enterprises with critical and distributed infrastructures.
SaaS startups looking to scale with integrated monitoring.
DevOps teams and developers for monitoring and debugging.
CIOs/CTOs for strategic IT performance view.
Demanding sectors like e-commerce, fintech, or media, where availability is key.
Conclusion
New Relic is a robust SaaS monitoring platform, ideal for businesses seeking real-time monitoring, proactive anomaly detection, and continuous optimization of their applications and infrastructure.
Despite potentially high costs and demanding onboarding, its rich integrations and full-stack approach make it a valuable tool for DevOps teams, developers, and IT decision-makers.
Final Thoughts
New Relic is a comprehensive SaaS observability platform that enables businesses to monitor, debug, and optimize their applications and IT infrastructure performance in real time. With advanced features like APM, infrastructure monitoring, and AI insights, New Relic is a powerful tool for DevOps teams, developers, and IT decision-makers.
While its cost and complexity may be barriers for some organizations, its benefits in terms of visibility and optimization make it a valuable solution for companies looking to improve their digital performance.
FAQ
What is New Relic?
New Relic is a SaaS observability platform that enables monitoring and optimization of application and IT infrastructure performance in real time.
What are the main advantages of New Relic?
New Relic offers complete visibility across the technology stack, rich integrations, proactive anomaly detection through AI, and flexibility for small and large structures.
What are the disadvantages of New Relic?
The main disadvantages are its initial complexity, requiring adaptation time, and its cost, which can be high for large data volumes.
What are the alternatives to New Relic?
The main alternatives are Datadog, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Splunk, and Prometheus.
What are New Relic's pricing plans?
New Relic offers a free plan with 100 GB/month, then paid plans starting at $99/user/month for the Standard plan, $349/user/month for the Pro plan, and an Enterprise plan on quote.
Is New Relic suitable for small businesses?
Yes, New Relic offers a free plan and affordable options for small businesses, although advanced features are better suited to large organizations.
How do I get started with New Relic?
You can sign up at newrelic.com to test the platform with 100 GB of free data.
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