Why Teams Leave New Relic
New Relic is a genuinely powerful full-stack observability platform. It covers APM, infrastructure monitoring, distributed tracing, log management, synthetic monitoring, browser monitoring, and more. For teams that use all of that, it is one of the most comprehensive tools available.
So why are teams leaving?
The pricing model punishes growth. New Relic charges per user and per GB of data ingested. A 50-person engineering team pays roughly $4,950/month in user licenses alone on the Pro plan ($349/user for full platform access) -- before a single byte of data is counted. Data ingestion adds up fast too: a modest microservices setup with 20 services can generate 6TB of trace data per month, costing $3,000/month just for traces.
Costs are hard to predict. Multiple customers report tracking their New Relic bills in spreadsheets because the invoice is too complex to parse. Between user tiers, data ingest rates, retention policies, and add-on features, forecasting next month's bill requires more effort than it should.
Teams resort to workarounds that defeat the purpose. To manage costs, organizations commonly limit who gets accounts (junior devs get locked out), force aggressive sampling (sometimes down to 1% of traces), or have SREs share logins. When your observability tool forces you to observe less, something has gone wrong.
It is more platform than many teams need. If you joined New Relic for uptime checks and alerting but found yourself paying for a full observability suite, you are not alone. Many teams use 20% of New Relic's capabilities but pay for the overhead of the other 80%.
The learning curve is real. NRQL (New Relic's query language), custom dashboards, alert policies, and the sheer number of configuration options make New Relic powerful for expert users but intimidating for smaller teams that just want to know when something is down.
None of this makes New Relic a bad product. It makes it the wrong product for certain teams at certain stages.
What to Look for in a New Relic Alternative
The right replacement depends entirely on what you were using New Relic for. This matters more than any feature checklist.
If you relied on APM and distributed tracing, you need another full observability platform. Datadog, Grafana Cloud, Elastic Observability, and Dynatrace all play in this space. These tools are not cheap either, but their pricing models may fit your usage pattern better.
If you primarily used New Relic for uptime monitoring, alerting, and status pages, you are dramatically overpaying. Dedicated monitoring tools handle these use cases at a fraction of the cost and with far less complexity.
If you used New Relic for log management, consider whether you need logs tightly coupled with traces (in which case, stick with an APM platform) or whether a standalone log solution like Elastic or Grafana Loki would suffice.
If you used New Relic for synthetic monitoring, most APM platforms include it, but standalone tools like Checkly may be more cost-effective if that is your primary need.
The rest of this guide covers seven alternatives, ranging from full observability platforms to focused monitoring tools. Where a tool only replaces part of New Relic's functionality, we say so.
7 Best New Relic Alternatives
1. Datadog
Datadog is the closest thing to a direct New Relic replacement. It covers APM, infrastructure monitoring, log management, synthetic testing, real user monitoring, security monitoring, and more. If you need full-stack observability and want to stay on a managed SaaS platform, Datadog is the most common destination for teams leaving New Relic.
Pricing: Infrastructure monitoring starts at $15/host/month (Pro) or $23/host/month (Enterprise). APM starts at $31/host/month and goes up to $40/host/month for the Enterprise tier. Log management runs $0.10/GB for indexed logs. All APM plans require a corresponding infrastructure plan. On-demand pricing is roughly 20% higher.
Where it wins: Feature parity with New Relic across almost every category. Strong integrations ecosystem with 800+ integrations. The UI is polished and the documentation is excellent. Per-host pricing is easier to predict than New Relic's per-user model for some team structures.
Where it falls short: Datadog's costs can rival or exceed New Relic's at scale. The per-host model means costs grow with infrastructure rather than team size, which can be worse for teams running many small services. Log management and custom metrics have a reputation for generating surprise bills. You are trading one complex pricing model for a different complex pricing model.
2. Grafana Cloud
Grafana Cloud builds on the popular open-source Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, and Tempo stack but hosts and manages it for you. It is a strong choice for teams that want observability built on open standards without the operational burden of self-hosting.
Pricing: A generous free tier includes 10,000 metrics series, 50GB of logs, and 3 users. The Pro plan starts at $19/month base plus usage-based charges: $6.50 per 1,000 metrics series, $0.50/GB for logs and traces, and $8/month per active user. Enterprise plans start around $25,000/year with custom SLAs.
Where it wins: Open-source foundation means no vendor lock-in -- your dashboards, alerts, and queries use standard PromQL and LogQL. The free tier is legitimately usable for small teams. Usage-based pricing can be significantly cheaper than per-host or per-user models for teams with modest data volumes. Strong community and ecosystem.
Where it falls short: The breadth of the Grafana ecosystem (Mimir, Loki, Tempo, Alloy, OnCall, Beyla, etc.) creates its own learning curve. The experience is less polished and more "assemble it yourself" compared to Datadog or New Relic. If you want a single pane of glass that works out of the box, you will spend time configuring it.
3. Better Stack
Better Stack combines uptime monitoring, log management, incident management, on-call scheduling, and status pages into a single platform. It is positioned as a more affordable and focused alternative to the big observability suites, though it has been expanding its feature set aggressively.
Pricing: Free tier includes 10 monitors, 1 status page, 3GB of logs, and Slack/email alerts. Paid plans use a component model: $21/month per 50 monitors, $29/month per on-call responder, $12/month per additional status page, and $17/month for 10 additional heartbeats. A team with 100 monitors and 3 on-call responders would pay roughly $129/month.
Where it wins: Combines monitoring, logging, and incidents in one place with a clean UI. The 30-second check intervals are faster than many competitors. Integrated log management means you can correlate downtime with log data without switching tools. Good value for teams that need both monitoring and logging.
Where it falls short: Not a full APM platform -- no distributed tracing, no code-level profiling, no browser monitoring. The component-based pricing model can get complicated as you add monitors, responders, and pages. Per-responder pricing punishes larger on-call rotations.
4. Alert24
Full disclosure: this is our product. We are including it because it genuinely fits a specific use case, but we want to be upfront about what it does and does not do.
Alert24 is an all-in-one platform for uptime monitoring, incident management, on-call scheduling, and status pages. It is not a New Relic replacement for APM, distributed tracing, log management, or browser monitoring. It replaces the uptime monitoring, alerting, escalation, and status page pieces of New Relic -- and nothing more.
Pricing: $9–$8/unit/month (price per unit drops as you add more), minimum 3 units. Free tier available. See exact pricing.
Where it wins: If you were using New Relic primarily for uptime monitoring and alerting, Alert24 covers that at a dramatically lower cost. Setup takes minutes, not days. You get monitoring, incidents, on-call, and status pages in one place without paying for an observability platform you do not fully use. For a small team, you are looking at $24/month versus hundreds or thousands on New Relic. Third-party dependency monitoring is included, which helps distinguish between "our service is down" and "AWS is having issues." The pricing is simple and predictable.
Where it falls short: No APM. No distributed tracing. No log management. No browser monitoring. No synthetic scripted tests. No custom metrics or dashboards. If you need any of those capabilities, Alert24 does not replace New Relic for you. It is a focused tool for a focused job. Teams that need full observability should look at Datadog, Grafana Cloud, or one of the other platforms on this list and potentially use Alert24 alongside them for the monitoring and status page layer.
5. Elastic Observability
Elastic Observability builds on the Elasticsearch platform to deliver APM, log management, infrastructure monitoring, and synthetic monitoring. If your team already runs the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana), adding Elastic's observability features is a natural extension.
Pricing: Elastic Cloud offers tiered plans: Standard starts around $95/month, Platinum at roughly $175+/month for AI-powered features and advanced security, and Enterprise pricing for larger deployments with searchable snapshots and extended retention. Pricing is consumption-based -- you pay for compute, storage, and data transfer rather than per-host or per-user. Self-hosted deployments using the open-source stack avoid licensing costs but carry infrastructure and operational overhead.
Where it wins: Unified platform for logs, metrics, traces, and security on a single data store. Extremely powerful search and analytics capabilities courtesy of Elasticsearch. No per-query or per-seat charges -- consumption-based pricing can be favorable for teams with many users. Strong for log-heavy workloads. Self-hosting is a real option.
Where it falls short: Elasticsearch clusters require care and feeding, even on Elastic Cloud. The learning curve for ELK-based tooling is steep for teams without prior Elasticsearch experience. The UI, while improved, is not as intuitive as Datadog or New Relic for APM workflows. Resource sizing and cost optimization require expertise.
6. Dynatrace
Dynatrace is an enterprise-focused observability platform known for its AI-powered root cause analysis (Davis AI) and automatic discovery of application topology. It is a common choice for large organizations with complex, hybrid cloud environments.
Pricing: Dynatrace uses the Dynatrace Platform Subscription (DPS) model, which is consumption-based and quote-dependent. Published rates include infrastructure monitoring at $0.04/host-hour and log management ingestion at $0.20/GiB. Synthetic monitoring runs $0.001 per request. Extended data retention and premium support add 10-20% to annual costs. No free plan is available, though a free trial is offered. Expect to negotiate -- list prices are starting points.
Where it wins: Davis AI genuinely reduces mean time to resolution by automatically identifying root causes across complex distributed systems. Automatic topology mapping means less manual configuration. Strong in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Deep code-level insights with minimal instrumentation effort. Enterprise-grade compliance and support.
Where it falls short: Expensive, even by observability platform standards. Pricing is opaque -- you will not know your actual cost until you talk to sales. The platform is built for enterprise complexity, which means smaller teams will find it over-engineered for their needs. Vendor lock-in is significant given the proprietary nature of Davis AI and the platform's instrumentation approach.
7. Prometheus + Grafana (Self-Hosted)
The Prometheus and Grafana open-source stack is the most customizable option on this list. Prometheus handles metrics collection and alerting, Grafana provides visualization, and you can add Loki for logs and Tempo for traces to build a complete observability stack.
Pricing: The software is free and open source (Apache 2.0). Your costs are infrastructure ($50-500+/month depending on scale) and engineering time for setup, maintenance, and scaling. There are no per-user, per-host, or per-GB charges.
Where it wins: Complete control over your data and infrastructure. No vendor lock-in whatsoever. PromQL is an industry standard, and skills transfer across many tools and platforms. At scale (500,000+ metrics series), self-hosting can be 50-70% cheaper than managed alternatives. Massive community and ecosystem with exporters for nearly every technology. You can build exactly the observability stack your team needs, nothing more.
Where it falls short: "Free" is misleading. Getting a production-ready Prometheus stack running requires significant engineering expertise. High availability, long-term storage (Thanos or Cortex), scaling Loki, and managing Tempo all demand operational investment. Smaller teams often find the total cost of ownership -- including engineering hours -- exceeds a managed service. There is no built-in incident management, on-call scheduling, or status pages; you need separate tools for those. You are responsible for upgrades, security patches, and capacity planning.
Which Alternative Is Right for You?
Skip the comparison matrix. Answer one question: what were you actually using New Relic for?
Full APM and distributed tracing: Datadog (easiest migration), Grafana Cloud (best value, more assembly required), Dynatrace (enterprise with AI), or Elastic Observability (log-heavy workloads).
Primarily uptime monitoring and alerting: Alert24 or Better Stack. You will save significant money by not paying for APM capabilities you do not use.
Logs and metrics with maximum control: Prometheus + Grafana self-hosted, or Elastic Observability if you want managed infrastructure.
Everything, and budget is secondary: Datadog or Dynatrace will cover the most ground with the least assembly.
The most expensive monitoring setup is the one that does more than you need. Figure out what you actually need, then pick the simplest tool that covers it.