New Relic vs OpenTelemetry(2026)
New Relic is better for teams that need generous free tier (100gb/month). OpenTelemetry is the stronger choice if vendor-neutral (works with any backend). New Relic is freemium (from $0 (100GB free data/month)) and OpenTelemetry is free.
Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.
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New Relic
New Relic is an observability platform offering APM, infrastructure monitoring, logs, and synthetic tests.
Starting at $0 (100GB free data/month)
Visit New RelicOpenTelemetry
OpenTelemetry is an open-source observability framework for generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data.
Visit OpenTelemetryHow Do New Relic and OpenTelemetry Compare on Features?
| Feature | New Relic | OpenTelemetry |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium | free |
| Starting price | $0 (100GB free data/month) | Free |
| APM | ✓ | — |
| Infrastructure monitoring | ✓ | — |
| Log management | ✓ | — |
| Distributed tracing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Browser monitoring | ✓ | — |
| Synthetic monitoring | ✓ | — |
| Metrics | — | ✓ |
| Logs | — | ✓ |
| Auto-instrumentation | — | ✓ |
| Multiple exporters | — | ✓ |
| SDK for all languages | — | ✓ |
New Relic Pros and Cons vs OpenTelemetry
New Relic
OpenTelemetry
Should You Use New Relic or OpenTelemetry?
Choose New Relic if…
- •Generous free tier (100GB/month)
- •Full-stack observability
- •Good query language (NRQL)
Choose OpenTelemetry if…
- •Vendor-neutral (works with any backend)
- •Industry standard
- •Auto-instrumentation