New Relic and Grafana are often evaluated together by teams building out their reliability stack. New Relic (observability platform for every engineer, founded 2008) is typically a fit for Developers, DevOps Teams, and SREs, while Grafana (open-source observability and data visualization, founded 2014) leans toward Engineers, SREs, and Data Teams. Both cover 14 of the same core capabilities, so the decision usually comes down to where they diverge.
Observability platform for every engineer
Pricing: Usage-based limits: Free (500 checks/mo), Standard (10k checks), Pro (1M checks)
Founded: 2008
Best for: Developers, DevOps Teams, SREs
Open-source observability and data visualization
Pricing: Open source free, Cloud from $0 (scalable usage-based)
Founded: 2014
Best for: Engineers, SREs, Data Teams
| Feature | New Relic | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
| Synthetic Monitoring | ||
| Real User Monitoring | ||
| API & Browser Testing | ||
| Self-Healing Tests | ||
| AI-Powered | ||
| Uptime Monitoring | ||
| Alerting | ||
| Slack Integration | ||
| CI/CD Integration | ||
| Multi-Location Checks | ||
| SSL Monitoring | ||
| Status Page | ||
| Open Source | ||
| On-Premise / Self-Host | ||
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Dashboards | ||
| Incident Management |
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
Grafana covers more unique ground in this comparison, notably Open Source and On-Premise / Self-Host. That said, New Relic (Usage-based limits: Free (500 checks/mo), Standard (10k checks), Pro (1M checks)) is the better choice when you value a leaner setup.
New Relic is observability platform for every engineer, while Grafana is open-source observability and data visualization. Grafana brings Open Source and On-Premise / Self-Host that New Relic does not.
New Relic pricing: Usage-based limits: Free (500 checks/mo), Standard (10k checks), Pro (1M checks). Grafana pricing: Open source free, Cloud from $0 (scalable usage-based). Evaluate against your check volume and team size; entry pricing rarely reflects total cost at scale.
New Relic is designed with Developers, DevOps Teams, and SREs in mind, whereas Grafana targets Engineers, SREs, and Data Teams. If your team matches the former profile, New Relic is usually the closer fit.
ObserveOne combines synthetic monitoring with AI browser checks that adapt as your UI changes. It offers a free tier, so you can benchmark it against New Relic and Grafana directly.
ObserveOne combines AI browser checks with uptime, API, and SSL monitoring on per-run pricing. The free tier is enough to benchmark it against New Relic and Grafana directly.
Each tool has its own alternatives page too, not just this matchup.