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Most buyers should pick New Relic.
Choose New Relic if you want broad monitoring and a listed Standard entry price of $10 for the first full-platform user, then $99 per additional user. Choose Honeycomb for event-based investigation of distributed services and AI workflows, with Pro starting at $150 per 50M events. Both offer free tiers, but their limits use different units, so compare expected usage before calling either cheaper. New Relic publishes support SLAs; Honeycomb's published pricing details do not publish one.
01Side by side
| New Relic | Honeycomb | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $10 for first Standard full-platform user | $150 per 50M events on Pro |
| Free plan | 100 GB/month; 1 full-platform user; unlimited basic users | 20M events and 100M data points monthly |
| Best for | Broad monitoring across apps, infrastructure, logs, and security | Investigating distributed services and AI workflows |
| Core strength | Unified application, infrastructure, log, security, and experience monitoring | Real-time queries on high-cardinality production data |
| Learning curve | Not published | Not published |
| Integrations and data | Integrations not listed; broad monitoring data types | Integrations not listed; events, traces, logs, and AI workflows |
| Team and seat costs | $99 per additional Standard full-platform user | Pro starts at $150 per 50M events |
| Support | Standard: 2-business-day; Pro: 2-hour critical response SLA | Support response SLA not published |
New Relic Choose New Relic if
- Choose New Relic if you want application, infrastructure, log, and security monitoring together.
- Choose New Relic if you need a published support response SLA.
- Choose New Relic if its per-user pricing fits your team and usage.
Honeycomb Choose Honeycomb if
- Choose Honeycomb if you investigate production issues across distributed services.
- Choose Honeycomb if real-time queries on high-cardinality data fit your workflow.
- Choose Honeycomb if you need AI workflow and LLM observability.
02Pricing compared
New Relic has the lower listed entry price: Standard is $10/month for its first full-platform user, then $99/month for each additional full-platform user, capped at five. Standard also lists Core users at $49/user and $0.40/GB beyond 100 GB. Pro is $349 per user/month with an annual commitment or $418.80 month to month.
Honeycomb Pro starts at $150/month for 50M events and includes up to 750M events/month; its annual price or discount is not published. Its free plan allows 20M events and 100M data points/month.
Both have free tiers, but New Relic measures data ingest and users while Honeycomb sets event and data-point allowances. Those limits are not directly comparable. Honeycomb telemetry collection starts at $0.10/GB; New Relic lists overage at $0.40/GB beyond 100 GB, or $0.60/GB with Data Plus.
03Features and depth
New Relic covers a wide range of observability work in one platform: application and infrastructure monitoring, logs, security, and digital experience. Its feature list also includes AI monitoring for model and agent behavior and costs, plus vulnerability prioritization based on production impact. That breadth may suit teams trying to bring several monitoring needs into one platform.
Honeycomb is more focused on investigating production systems through event-based data. Its listed strengths include distributed tracing, real-time queries on high-cardinality data without sampling or preaggregation, heatmaps, BubbleUp, SLOs, and unlimited attributes. For AI workflows, it lists tracing for multi-agent systems and monitoring of LLM calls, failures, token costs, and latency. Canvas, Team Agents, and an MCP server support AI-assisted investigations.
Both include log and AI observability capabilities. The practical distinction in the published feature lists is New Relic’s breadth across monitoring categories versus Honeycomb’s emphasis on detailed event-driven investigation.
04Ease of use and learning curve
The product descriptions point to different learning curves, not a clear winner. New Relic brings several monitoring categories into one platform, so it may appeal to teams that want one place for application, infrastructure, logs, security, and user experience. Its Standard pricing also separates full-platform users from Core users, which teams will need to account for.
Honeycomb centers on event-based investigation and gives users tools such as BubbleUp, heatmaps, and high-cardinality queries. That focus may be a natural fit for teams already working with distributed tracing, but the published material does not describe onboarding or setup effort. The review scores published rate ease of use at 7/10 for New Relic and 6/10 for Honeycomb; treat that as a directional signal, not a migration guarantee.
Questions people ask
Which costs less, New Relic or Honeycomb?
New Relic lists Standard at $10/month for its first full-platform user, while Honeycomb Pro starts at $150/month for 50M events. Those are different pricing units, and usage affects the bill. Compare your user count, ingest volume, and event volume before deciding which is cheaper.
Do New Relic and Honeycomb have free plans?
Yes. New Relic Free includes 100 GB of data ingest/month, one full-platform user, unlimited basic users, and at least eight days of retention. Honeycomb Free allows up to 20M events and 100M data points/month, with two triggers.
Which platform is better for AI observability?
Both list AI observability features. New Relic covers model and agent interactions, behavior, and costs. Honeycomb lists tracing for multi-agent workflows and monitoring of LLM calls, failures, token costs, and latency. Choose based on which of those workflows and wider monitoring needs matter to your team.
Does New Relic offer better support than Honeycomb?
New Relic lists support response SLAs: two business days on Standard, two hours for critical issues on Pro, and one hour for critical issues on Enterprise. The published Honeycomb pricing details do not publish a support SLA, so we can’t compare response commitments.