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It's a split decision.
Choose New Relic if you want application, infrastructure, log, security, and user-experience monitoring in one platform, with published support SLAs. Its pricing lists a free tier and Standard at $10 for the first full-platform user, then $99 per additional user. Choose Prometheus if free, open-source metrics monitoring is the priority. The project describes PromQL, alerting, and hundreds of integrations; its independent servers use local storage. Prometheus support terms are not published in the available pricing details.
01Side by side
| New Relic | Prometheus | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free; Standard is $10 for the first full-platform user | Free; Apache 2.0 licensed |
| Free plan | 100 GB/month; 1 full-platform user; 8+ days retention | Free; no seat or usage limits published |
| Best for | Teams wanting all-in-one observability | Teams needing open-source metrics monitoring |
| Core strength | App, infrastructure, logs, security, and user experience | PromQL queries, metrics, and alerting rules |
| Learning curve | Not published | Not published |
| Integrations/data | Application, infrastructure, log, security, and experience monitoring | Metrics plus hundreds of official and community integrations |
| Team/seat costs | $99 per additional Standard full-platform user | No seat or usage limits published |
| Support | 2-business-day Standard; 2-hour Pro critical SLA | Support terms not published |
New Relic Choose New Relic if
- Choose New Relic if you need app, infrastructure, logs, and security together.
- Choose New Relic if published support response SLAs matter to your team.
- Choose New Relic if AI interaction and user-experience monitoring matter.
Prometheus Choose Prometheus if
- Choose Prometheus if free, open-source metrics monitoring is the priority.
- Choose Prometheus for PromQL, alerting rules, and local server control.
- Choose Prometheus if avoiding published per-user charges is important.
02Pricing compared
Prometheus is free under the Open Source plan, which is Apache 2.0 licensed. The available pricing details publish no seat or usage limits, though they also do not list support terms.
New Relic has a free tier with 100 GB of monthly data ingest, one full-platform user, unlimited basic users, 500 synthetic checks, and at least eight days of retention. Standard lists $10 per month for the first full-platform user, then $99 per additional user, up to five; core users cost $49 each. Ingest beyond 100 GB costs $0.40 per GB, and additional full-platform users can make the bill climb quickly.
Pro lists $349 per user/month with an annual commitment or $418.80 month to month. So Prometheus wins on listed software cost; New Relic bundles a broader platform, but its user and ingest charges matter.
03Features and depth
New Relic covers application and infrastructure monitoring alongside logs, security, and digital experience. Its feature list also includes AI monitoring for model and agent behavior and costs, plus vulnerability prioritization by production impact. That makes it the broader option if the goal is to bring several monitoring jobs into one platform.
Prometheus focuses on metrics. Its dimensional data model tracks time series by metric name and key-value pairs, while PromQL supports querying and transforming those series for visualizations and alerts. Alerting rules use PromQL, with Alertmanager handling notifications and silencing. The project also lists instrumentation libraries for major programming languages and hundreds of integrations for extracting metrics from existing systems.
The key difference is scope: New Relic presents an all-in-one observability platform; Prometheus supplies an open-source metrics foundation. The available Prometheus description does not list built-in log or security monitoring, so teams needing those capabilities should compare their full requirements rather than assume feature parity.
04Ease of use and learning curve
New Relic puts application, infrastructure, log, security, and user-experience monitoring in one platform, which can mean fewer separate tools to manage. But its pricing separates full-platform and core users, and ingest above the included 100 GB is billed by the gigabyte. Teams should map users and data volume before choosing a plan.
Prometheus is available as a statically linked binary, and its servers use local storage, according to the project description. Teams still need to work with its metrics model, PromQL, alerting rules, and integrations. That is a narrower toolset, not necessarily a simpler setup for every team. New Relic publishes support response SLAs on paid plans; comparable Prometheus support terms are not listed in the available pricing details.
Questions people ask
Which is cheaper, New Relic or Prometheus?
Prometheus is free under its Open Source plan. New Relic also has a free tier, but Standard lists $10 for the first full-platform user and $99 per additional user, plus $0.40 per GB beyond 100 GB of monthly ingest. Your New Relic total depends on users and data volume.
Does New Relic do security monitoring?
Yes. New Relic lists security monitoring as a platform feature, including prioritizing vulnerabilities by production impact and guiding remediation. The published feature details do not specify a separate security-monitoring price, so we cannot say whether particular security capabilities require an add-on or plan.
Is Prometheus open source?
Yes. Its Open Source plan is listed as free and Apache 2.0 licensed. The available pricing details do not publish seat or usage limits, but they also do not specify support terms. Prometheus is described as a metrics monitoring system, with PromQL queries and alerting.
Should I choose New Relic or Prometheus?
Choose New Relic if you want application, infrastructure, log, security, and user-experience monitoring in one platform and can account for per-user and ingest costs. Choose Prometheus if free, open-source metrics monitoring is the priority and its local-storage server model fits your needs.