Datadog vs New Relic

This article provides an in-depth comparison of two popular monitoring and security solutions for cloud-native applications: Datadog and New Relic. Both platforms offer a wide range of features to help developers, operations teams, and DevOps professionals manage the complexity of modern cloud-based applications. This comparison focuses on key aspects such as monitoring, logging, security, ease of use, and pricing.

Overview

Datadog

Datadog is a cloud-based monitoring service that provides observability for cloud-native applications, containers, and hybrid and multi-cloud environments. It offers monitoring, logging, APM, and security solutions with real-time visualizations and analytics.

New Relic

New Relic is a software analytics company that provides application performance management (APM) and observability solutions for cloud-native applications, infrastructure, and digital business metrics. New Relic’s solutions help developers, operations teams, and business leaders make data-driven decisions to optimize application performance and improve user experience.

Monitoring

Datadog

Datadog’s monitoring solution offers real-time visibility into the performance, availability, and health of cloud-native applications. Key features include:

• Metric collection: Datadog collects and visualizes metrics from more than 300 integrations, including AWS, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, and Docker.
• Log management: Datadog’s log management solution allows users to collect, analyze, and visualize logs from various sources.
• Synthetic monitoring: Datadog offers synthetic monitoring to proactively test the performance and availability of user-facing applications and APIs.
• Tracing: Datadog’s distributed tracing helps developers identify performance bottlenecks and errors in complex microservices architectures.

New Relic

New Relic’s monitoring solution provides insights into the performance, availability, and health of applications, infrastructure, and digital business metrics. Key features include:

• Application Performance Management (APM): New Relic’s APM helps developers diagnose and resolve application performance issues with real-time visibility into transaction traces, error tracking, and code-level diagnostics.
• Infrastructure monitoring: New Relic’s infrastructure monitoring solution provides visibility into the performance and health of servers, databases, and other infrastructure components.
• Synthetic monitoring: New Relic offers synthetic monitoring to proactively test the performance and availability of user-facing applications and APIs.
• Log management: New Relic’s log management solution allows users to collect, analyze, and visualize logs from various sources.

Security

Datadog

Datadog’s security solution focuses on detecting and responding to security incidents in real-time. Key features include:

• Security monitoring: Datadog’s security monitoring solution helps identify and respond to security incidents by analyzing logs, metrics, and traces for anomalies and threats.
• Continuous security monitoring: Datadog’s continuous security monitoring solution leverages machine learning to identify abnormal behavior patterns and potential security threats.
• Incident response: Datadog’s incident response capabilities help teams respond to security incidents quickly and efficiently.

New Relic

New Relic’s security solution focuses on securing applications and infrastructure against threats. Key features include:

• Application security: New Relic’s application security solution helps identify and remediate vulnerabilities in applications and APIs.
• Infrastructure security: New Relic’s infrastructure security solution provides visibility into the security posture of servers, databases, and other infrastructure components.
• Continuous security monitoring: New Relic’s continuous security monitoring solution leverages machine learning to identify abnormal behavior patterns and potential security threats.
• Incident response: New Relic’s incident response capabilities help teams respond to security incidents quickly and efficiently.

Ease of Use

Datadog

Datadog is known for its intuitive user interface and user-friendly features. The platform provides a unified view of monitoring, logging, and security data, making it easier for teams to collaborate and respond to incidents.

New Relic

New Relic’s user interface is also intuitive and user-friendly, with a focus on providing actionable insights to developers and operations teams. However, some users may find the platform’s granularity and the sheer amount of data it collects overwhelming.

Pricing

Both Datadog and New Relic offer flexible pricing models tailored to the needs of different organizations. Pricing can vary based on the number of hosts, metrics, and transactions monitored, as well as additional features such as log management, security monitoring, and APM.

Datadog

Datadog offers a free tier with limited metrics, logs, and traces. Paid plans start at $23 per host per month for the Basic plan, which includes more advanced features such as APM, log management, and security monitoring.

New Relic

New Relic offers a free tier with limited transactions and metrics. Paid plans start at $15 per month for the Standard plan, which includes more advanced features such as APM, infrastructure monitoring, and log management.

Conclusion

Both Datadog and New Relic offer powerful monitoring and security solutions for cloud-native applications. The choice between the two ultimately depends on an organization’s specific needs, budget, and preferences. Datadog may be a better fit for organizations that require a more comprehensive monitoring and observability solution, while New Relic may be more suitable for those focused on application performance and security.