Grafana is an open-source visualization platform excelling at customizable dashboards and cost-effectiveness for multi-source monitoring, while New Relic is a comprehensive SaaS platform offering deeper APM capabilities and AI-driven insights at premium pricing.
Grafana vs New Relic — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Open-source visualization platform for metrics, logs, and traces across multiple data sources.
SaaS-based observability platform with full-stack APM, infrastructure monitoring, and AI-powered insights.
Pricing Model. Application Performance Monitoring (APM). Dashboard Customization. Data Retention (free tier). AI-Powered Insights. Data Source Integrations. Deployment Options
Choose Grafana if you need maximum cost efficiency, deployment flexibility, custom multi-source dashboards, and prefer open-source software with strong community support. Choose New Relic if your primary need is comprehensive APM with AI-driven insights, you prefer managed SaaS with zero infrastructure overhead, and budget allows for premium pricing for enterprise monitoring.
Grafana: Yes, full support | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Free (open-source) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Requires Loki plugin | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Plugin-based with limited support | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Unlimited users | New Relic: N/A
Mean Time to Response (MTTR) Improvement
Grafana: Available (Apache 2.0) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Alert grouping available | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Requires integration (OnCall) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 58,000+ (as of 2026) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 90+ (Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Datadog, etc.) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: None (external source dependent) | New Relic: 13 days (metrics) / 8 days (events)
Grafana: 2-4 (depends on datasource type) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Basic (via connected datasources) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: No—requires external datasource | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 30-60 (needs datasource setup) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $0 (self-hosted) | New Relic: N/A
Supported Technologies (Languages/Frameworks)
Grafana: 300+ via integrations | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 500K+ monthly active users | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $25-150+ per user | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: PromQL, SQL, or source-native language | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Visualization only (external routing required) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $0 (open-source) or $9 (Grafana Cloud) | New Relic: $500-$800 typical (based on ~1-2 GB/day ingestion)
Grafana: 450+ pre-built plugins | New Relic: ~700 integrations (includes agents, APIs, partners)
Grafana: 100+ via plugins (manual integration required) | New Relic: 900+ with automatic instrumentation
Grafana: 2-5 days (infrastructure knowledge required) | New Relic: 1-2 hours (wizard-based, automatic)
Grafana: Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, managed cloud (Grafana Cloud) | New Relic: Cloud-only SaaS (no self-hosted option)
Grafana: Limited; basic alerting rules, ML via separate module | New Relic: Built-in with Proactive Detection
Grafana: Community support; no guaranteed SLA | New Relic: 24/7 with 1-4 hour response SLA depending on tier
Grafana: Unlimited (self-hosted) or 15 days (Grafana Cloud free) | New Relic: 30 days (logs), 365 days (metrics)
Grafana: Unlimited on self-hosted; 1 on Grafana Cloud free | New Relic: Full team access included; per-user pricing optional
Grafana: $0 (free open-source) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Basic text filtering | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Limited (requires integration with APM platforms) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: AGPL v3 (user-friendly for most use cases) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $0 (open-source) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 0.001 seconds (milliseconds) | New Relic: N/A
Enterprise Annual License Cost (Single Server)
Grafana: $0 (self-hosted free tier) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 5-10 (intuitive interface) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Supported via RBAC and data source filtering | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $10 (Grafana Cloud Starter) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 5,000-10,000 (Loki) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 470+ integrations | New Relic: 600+ integrations
Grafana: 3-5 (basic anomaly detection) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Basic RBAC, no SIEM module | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 15-30 | New Relic: 4-8 hours for basic APM
Grafana: $12,000 for Grafana Enterprise | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Limited—primarily Prometheus-style queries | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Single container with optional Prometheus | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $0-3 (self-hosted) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: No, requires external tools | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 30-240 minutes (varies) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Fully supported | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: No native features | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: SOC 2, ISO 27001 | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $0-2,500 (self-hosted) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 400+ plugins (Prometheus, InfluxDB, CloudWatch, etc.) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 5-10 seconds (typical) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Self-hosted, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud | New Relic: SaaS only (cloud-hosted)
Grafana: 7-14 days (JSON, API, plugin config) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $120-$3,588/year (Grafana Cloud) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Basic math and aggregation functions | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: No (time-series focused) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 3-5 (via plugins) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: 5-10 minutes with templates | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: Basic text filters | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: No (plugin-based) | New Relic: N/A
Grafana: $0 (open-source) or $231 (Pro) | New Relic: $99 (Standard tier minimum)
Grafana: 5+ (requires manual agent setup) | New Relic: 10+ (auto-instrumented)
Grafana: Unlimited panels, custom plugins, full code access | New Relic: Pre-built templates with limited custom visualization options
Grafana: 4 options (Self-hosted, Cloud, Hybrid, Kubernetes) | New Relic: 1 option (SaaS cloud-only)
Grafana: Basic threshold-based alerts only | New Relic: Advanced ML-powered anomaly detection and root cause analysis
Grafana: 18.5k stars | New Relic: ~5k stars
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Limited trial only
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Native (servers, containers, Kubernetes)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: $1,200+ (Enterprise tier)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Integrated with 100+ data sources
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Advanced profiling and error intelligence
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: $0.30 per GB ingested
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Solid core capabilities
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: More intuitive, faster onboarding
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Good with cloud-native focus
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 40+ including Java, Python, Node.js, Go, Ruby
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Multi-tenant SaaS limit (typically 50-500TB per org)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 3 (NRQL - SQL-like, intuitive)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Method-level profiling
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Rule-based thresholds
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 35-45% reduction
Monthly Platform Cost (100GB/month ingestion)
Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) Improvement
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 30-40% faster (manual investigation)
Setup Time for Multi-Service Environment
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 7-14 days (manual per service)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 14 days unlimited
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Supported via agents, requires configuration
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 4.6 stars (1,800+ reviews)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 600+ integrations
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Advanced ML-based detection
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 16,000+ customers
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 600 calls/minute
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Transaction tracing, error stack traces
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Native (full instrumentation out-of-box)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 4.6 stars (2,400+ reviews)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 100 GB ingestion/month
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Advanced cluster intelligence with pod diagnostics
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Manual configuration required
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Available with premium add-on
Average Customer Satisfaction (G2 Rating)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 4.3/5.0 (2,100+ reviews)
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: Enterprise-grade
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: 75% noise reduction
Grafana: N/A | New Relic: NRQL (natural language-like, easier to learn)
How to choose between Grafana and New Relic
Grafana vs New Relic — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Grafana vs New Relic. Contains 183 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Grafana vs New Relic — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Grafana vs New Relic.
Can I use Grafana and New Relic together?
Yes, they serve complementary purposes. Many organizations use New Relic for APM/full-stack observability and Grafana as a visualization layer for infrastructure metrics and custom dashboards. New Relic can export metrics to Grafana via APIs, allowing flexible monitoring architectures.
Which is better for cost-sensitive startups?
Grafana is significantly more cost-effective, offering a fully-featured free open-source version with 15-day data retention. New Relic's minimum $99/month cost makes it less suitable for early-stage startups, though it excels once budgets increase and APM becomes critical.
Yes, Grafana includes alerting capabilities with multiple notification channels (email, Slack, PagerDuty, etc.). However, New Relic's AI-powered alerting with anomaly detection is more sophisticated; Grafana alerts are primarily threshold-based unless enhanced with plugins.
No, New Relic is SaaS-only and does not offer self-hosted deployment. If data sovereignty or on-premise requirements are critical, Grafana is the only option between these two, as it supports full self-hosting and Kubernetes deployments.
Which platform has better APM for microservices?
New Relic's enterprise-grade APM with automatic instrumentation, distributed tracing, and service dependency mapping is purpose-built for microservices. Grafana requires additional agents (Jaeger, Prometheus) to achieve similar observability, making New Relic the better choice for complex microservices architectures.
How to Choose Between Grafana and New Relic
Pricing Model: Grafana has Open-source (free) + optional paid tiers ($0-$231/month), while New Relic has SaaS only, starts at $99/month for Standard tier.
Consider: Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
Application Performance Monitoring (APM): Grafana has Limited native APM; requires additional agents/plugins, while New Relic has Enterprise-grade APM with full stack visibility included.
Dashboard Customization: Grafana has Highly customizable with unlimited panels and data sources, while New Relic has Pre-built dashboards with moderate customization flexibility.
Data Retention (free tier): Grafana has 15 days default (configurable), while New Relic has 1 day for free tier (upgrade required for 30 days).
AI-Powered Insights: Grafana has Limited; basic alerting and anomaly detection, while New Relic has Advanced AI-powered incident detection and root cause analysis.
Data Source Integrations: Grafana has 470+ native integrations and plugins, while New Relic has 600+ integrations but less community-driven flexibility.
Deployment Options: Grafana has Self-hosted, cloud, hybrid, Kubernetes-native, while New Relic has SaaS cloud-only (no self-hosted option).