New Relic vs Grafana
Side-by-side — pricing, strengths, tradeoffs, and fit.
New Relic
All-in-one observability platform with usage-based pricing.
Grafana
Multi-platform analytics and visualization web application.
At a glance
Free TierEnterprise
● Established·From $0.30/GB ingested
Open SourceFree Tier
● Established·From Freemium
Overview
One-liner
One-liner
All-in-one observability platform with usage-based pricing.
One-liner
Multi-platform analytics and visualization web application.
Maturity
Maturity
EstablishedMaturity
EstablishedOpen source
Open source
✕ NoOpen source
✓ YesPricing
Free tier
Free tier
✓ Available100GB data/month free, 1 full user
Free tier
✓ AvailableStarts at
Starts at
$0.30/GB ingested
Starts at
Freemium
Model
Model
Usage-based
Model
Flat rate
Enterprise
Enterprise
✓ AvailableEnterprise
✕ NoneBest for
✓ Best for
Full-stack observability on a budgetGenerous free ingest tier
APM for web appsApplication performance monitoring
✓ Best for
Teams needing comprehensive monitoring and visualization capabilities across multiple data sources.
Organizations that require customizable dashboards to track various metrics in real-time.
Not ideal for
✕ Not for
—
✕ Not for
Projects with very limited budget as the enterprise features are paid.
Users who prefer a cloud-hosted solution without self-management overhead.
Strengths
↑ Strengths
Generous free tier
Full-stack observability
Simple data-based pricing
↑ Strengths
Customizable dashboards and visualizations
Real-time data monitoring
Alerting and notifications
Extensive plugin ecosystem
Weaknesses
↓ Weaknesses
Per-user costs add up
UI/learning curve
↓ Weaknesses
Steep learning curve for new users
Limited native support for certain data sources
Performance issues with large datasets
Complex setup for advanced use cases