Datadog vs New Relic: Which APM Tool Is Better in 2026
Quick Comparison
| New Relic | Datadog | |
|---|---|---|
| Best For | Startups and small teams that want full APM capability without paying anything until they scale past the free tier. | Teams that want the broadest unified observability ecosystem across infrastructure, APM, logs, and security. |
| Pricing | Free tier available / Standard from $10/mo (2nd full-platform user) + $0.40/GB over 100GB / Pro $349/user/yr | Free tier available (5 hosts) / Infra Pro $15/host/mo / APM $31/host/mo bundled (annual billing) |
| Winner | Our Pick |
Tool Breakdown
New Relic
New Relic's permanent free tier includes 100GB/mo of ingest with full platform access and no credit card required — the most generous starting point of the two, while Datadog's free tier is capped at just 5 hosts with 1-day retention.
- Free tier is permanent and includes full platform access — not a watered-down feature set — up to 100GB/mo ingest
- No credit card required to start, with usage-based pricing only kicking in past the free cap
- Standard tier scales gradually: $10/mo for a second full-platform user, $0.40/GB beyond 100GB
- Per-core-user pricing ($49/core user) can add up for teams needing many full-platform seats
- Smaller third-party integration ecosystem than Datadog's broader partner network
Datadog
Datadog is an infrastructure monitoring and APM platform with usage-based, per-host pricing and a narrow free tier limited to basic infrastructure monitoring.
- Unifies infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, and security in one platform with deep cross-product correlation
- Large third-party integration ecosystem covering most cloud and infrastructure tooling
- Pro and Enterprise infrastructure tiers ($15–23/host/mo) are competitively priced for infra-only monitoring
- Free tier is narrow — capped at 5 hosts with only 1-day metric retention, easy to outgrow immediately
- APM has no free tier at all and starts at $31/host/mo bundled, or $36/host/mo standalone
Frequently Asked Questions
Which has a better free tier, Datadog or New Relic? +
New Relic, by a wide margin. Its free tier is permanent with full platform access up to 100GB/mo of ingest. Datadog's free tier is capped at just 5 hosts with 1-day retention, and its APM product has no free tier at all.
Is Datadog more expensive than New Relic? +
It depends on usage, but Datadog's APM starts at $31/host/mo with no free option, while New Relic's free tier covers 100GB/mo before any charges apply — making New Relic generally cheaper for teams still under that data volume.
Which tool is better for a team that needs more than just APM? +
Datadog, since it unifies infrastructure monitoring, APM, log management, and security into one platform with deep cross-product correlation. New Relic covers similar ground but Datadog's ecosystem and integrations are broader.