Datadog and New Relic both position themselves as observability platforms, but the documented facts point to different buying jobs. Datadog is built around…
| Datadog | New Relic | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | DevOps | DevOps |
| Rating | Not documented | Not documented |
| Pricing model | Freemium / Usage-based modular pricing | Freemium |
| Starting price | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Not documented |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android | Not documented |
| Team collaboration | Not documented | Not documented |
| AI features | Yes | Not documented |
| Public API | Yes | Not documented |
Pricing model
Datadog: Datadog is documented as a Paid pricing model with infrastructure, APM, logs, and security priced and billed separately
New Relic: New Relic is documented as Freemium, with a Free plan offering 100GB of monthly data ingest and all core capabilities
It changes how a team evaluates and enters the product, one requires committing to paid modules from the start while the other allows a genuinely usable free trial period
Cost predictability
Datadog: Datadog's documented con is that highly modular, multi-unit pricing makes total cost significantly harder to estimate than a flat per-seat tier
New Relic: New Relic's paid tiers use per-user pricing, Standard at $99 per additional user per month and Pro at $349 per user per month
Finance and procurement teams need to forecast spend, and a single per-seat number is easier to budget against than several separately metered products
Free tier scope
Datadog: Datadog's documented free plan is Infrastructure Free at $0, scoped to infrastructure monitoring
New Relic: New Relic's Free plan at $0 per month includes 100GB of data ingest and access to all 50+ platform capabilities
A free tier that unlocks the full capability set lets a team properly evaluate the product before paying, while a free tier scoped to one product only previews part of the platform
Entry-level paid pricing structure
Datadog: Datadog's documented Infrastructure Pro tier is $15 per host per month billed annually, and Infrastructure Enterprise is $23 per host per month billed annually
New Relic: New Relic's documented paid tiers are priced per user rather than per host, starting at $99 per additional user per month for Standard
Per-host and per-user billing scale differently depending on whether a team's growth is driven by more infrastructure or more people accessing the platform
AI feature billing
Datadog: Datadog documents AI Credits, a separate credit-based pricing unit specifically for AI-powered features
New Relic: New Relic's provided facts do not document a dedicated AI credit system or AI-specific pricing unit
A distinct AI billing unit signals AI features are metered and monetized separately, which affects how a team forecasts spend if it plans to use AI capabilities heavily
Compliance eligibility
Datadog: Datadog's provided facts do not document specific compliance certifications
New Relic: New Relic documents FedRAMP and HIPAA eligibility, available on its Enterprise plan
Regulated industries such as healthcare and government contracting often cannot adopt a platform without documented compliance eligibility
Platform breadth as stated
Datadog: Datadog's documented feature set emphasizes unified observability, combining infrastructure, application, and log monitoring in one platform
New Relic: New Relic documents 50+ monitoring capabilities across application, infrastructure, and digital experience monitoring unified in one platform
A stated capability count versus a description of unified categories gives buyers different signals about platform scope, though neither confirms exhaustive feature parity
Top-tier pricing transparency
Datadog: Datadog's highest documented plan, Infrastructure Enterprise, has a published price of $23 per host per month billed annually
New Relic: New Relic's highest tier, Enterprise, is listed as Custom pricing with no published number
Published top-tier pricing lets a buyer estimate cost before a sales conversation, while custom pricing requires direct negotiation
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Available | Available |
| Per-seat/per-user pricing | Not documented | Available |
| Per-host infrastructure pricing | Available | Not documented |
| Custom-quoted Enterprise tier | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure monitoring | Available | Available |
| Application performance monitoring | Available | Available |
| Log management | Available | Not documented |
| Digital experience monitoring | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| AI-powered features | Available | Not documented |
| Dedicated AI pricing unit | Available | Not documented |
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| FedRAMP eligibility | Not documented | Available |
| HIPAA eligibility | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium pricing model | Unavailable | Available |
| Modular, unbundled product billing | Available | Not documented |
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| Documented free data ingest allowance | Not documented | Available |
| Full capability access on free plan | Not documented | Available |
| Feature | Datadog | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| Predictability of total monthly cost | Limited | Available |
| Single flat pricing tier | Unavailable | Not documented |
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
New Relic has the more accessible free entry point, its Free plan includes 100GB of monthly data ingest and access to all 50+ platform capabilities, while Datadog's Infrastructure Free plan is scoped to infrastructure only and its paid products, APM, logs, and security, are billed as separate line items, making a true side-by-side total cost hard to determine from the documented facts alone.
Not based on the documented facts, Datadog's modular, multi-unit pricing across infrastructure, APM, logs, and security is explicitly noted as harder to estimate than a flat per-seat tier, whereas New Relic's paid tiers use straightforward per-user pricing at $99 and $349 per month.
Partially, based on the documented facts, New Relic's 50+ capabilities cover infrastructure, application, and digital experience monitoring, but the provided facts do not document a dedicated AI Credits system or an explicit log-management product the way Datadog's facts do, so feature parity is not confirmed in every category.
New Relic, its documented Free plan provides 100GB of monthly data ingest with access to all core capabilities, while Datadog's Infrastructure Free plan is scoped to infrastructure monitoring only.
New Relic documents FedRAMP and HIPAA eligibility available on its Enterprise plan; Datadog's provided facts do not document specific compliance certifications.
New Relic's per-user pricing tiers, Standard at $99 and Pro at $349 per user per month, follow a standard seat-based model that is easier to forecast than Datadog's modular billing across separately priced infrastructure, APM, logs, security, and AI Credits products.
Read the full Datadog review · Read the full New Relic review