New Relic and Katalon 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 Katalon (low-code test automation for web, api, mobile and desktop, founded 2016) leans toward QA Teams, Manual Testers, and SDETs. Both cover 7 of the same core capabilities, so the decision usually comes down to where they diverge.
On capability breadth, New Relic pulls ahead here: it uniquely offers Synthetic Monitoring, Real User Monitoring, Uptime Monitoring, and Alerting, among others. Choose New Relic if those matter to your workflow; Katalon (Free tier; paid from $67/seat/mo (annual)) remains a solid option if Self-Healing Tests and On-Premise / Self-Host is what you need.
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
Low-code test automation for web, API, mobile and desktop
Pricing: Free tier; paid from $67/seat/mo (annual)
Founded: 2016
Best for: QA Teams, Manual Testers, SDETs
9 of 18 capabilities separate these two. Those come first.
| Feature | New Relic | Katalon |
|---|---|---|
| Where they differ (9) | ||
| Synthetic Monitoring | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| Real User Monitoring | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| Self-Healing Tests | New Relic: no | Katalon: yes |
| Uptime Monitoring | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| Alerting | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| Multi-Location Checks | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| SSL Monitoring | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| On-Premise / Self-Host | New Relic: no | Katalon: yes |
| Incident Management | New Relic: yes | Katalon: no |
| Both tools have (7) | ||
| API & Browser Testing | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| AI-Powered | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| Slack Integration | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| CI/CD Integration | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| Free Tier | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| API Access | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| Dashboards | New Relic: yes | Katalon: yes |
| Neither tool has (2) | ||
| Status Page | New Relic: no | Katalon: no |
| Open Source | New Relic: no | Katalon: no |
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
New Relic is observability platform for every engineer, while Katalon is low-code test automation for web, api, mobile and desktop. New Relic adds Synthetic Monitoring, Real User Monitoring, and Uptime Monitoring on top of the shared feature set. Katalon brings Self-Healing Tests 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). Katalon pricing: Free tier; paid from $67/seat/mo (annual). 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 Katalon targets QA Teams, Manual Testers, and SDETs. 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 Katalon 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 Katalon directly.
Each tool has its own alternatives page too, not just this matchup.