PagerDuty vs New Relic
PagerDuty and New Relic are both popular tools in the DevOps & Infrastructure space. PagerDuty uses a paid model starting at $21/mo, while New Relic is freemium from Free. New Relic offers a free tier, while PagerDuty does not. Below we break down features, pricing, strengths, and weaknesses to help you decide which tool fits your workflow best.
Last updated: July 2026
Quick Verdict
Choose PagerDuty if you want ai-powered incident management and response automation.. PagerDuty's biggest strengths include industry standard for incident management and ai dramatically reduces alert fatigue. It's also rated higher (4.2 vs 4.1). Choose New Relic if you prefer full-stack observability platform with ai-powered error analysis.. Key advantages include generous free tier with 100gb monthly data and ai assistant accelerates troubleshooting. It also has a free tier to get started.
AI-powered incident management and response automation.
Full-stack observability platform with AI-powered error analysis.
| PagerDuty | New Relic | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $21/mo | Free |
| Free Tier | No | Yes |
| Pricing Model | Paid | Freemium |
| Rating | ★ 4.2 | ★ 4.1 |
| Categories | DevOps & Infrastructure | DevOps & Infrastructure |
| Key Features | 6 features | 6 features |
| Feature | PagerDuty | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| AI-powered alert correlation and noise reduction | ✓ | — |
| Automated incident response workflows | ✓ | — |
| On-call scheduling and escalation policies | ✓ | — |
| Integration with 700+ monitoring and DevOps tools | ✓ | — |
| Postmortem and incident analytics | ✓ | — |
| Status page for customer communication | ✓ | — |
| Full-stack application performance monitoring | — | ✓ |
| New Relic AI for natural language troubleshooting | — | ✓ |
| Infrastructure and Kubernetes monitoring | — | ✓ |
| Distributed tracing and error tracking | — | ✓ |
| Real user monitoring and session replay | — | ✓ |
| 100GB free data ingest per month | — | ✓ |
PagerDuty
Pros
- + Industry standard for incident management
- + AI dramatically reduces alert fatigue
- + Massive integration ecosystem (700+ tools)
- + Reliable and battle-tested at enterprise scale
Cons
- − Pricing adds up quickly for larger teams
- − Can be complex to configure and maintain
- − Advanced AIOps features require premium tiers
New Relic
Pros
- + Generous free tier with 100GB monthly data
- + AI assistant accelerates troubleshooting
- + Full-stack visibility in a single platform
- + Strong Kubernetes and container monitoring
Cons
- − Costs increase significantly beyond free tier
- − Query language (NRQL) has a learning curve
- − Some features less mature than Datadog equivalents
The Bottom Line
Choose PagerDuty if: you want ai-powered incident management and response automation.. It holds a higher user rating (4.2 vs 4.1). Keep in mind: pricing adds up quickly for larger teams.
Choose New Relic if: you prefer full-stack observability platform with ai-powered error analysis.. It has a free tier to get started, which PagerDuty lacks. It's completely free to use. Keep in mind: costs increase significantly beyond free tier.
Both tools compete in the DevOps & Infrastructure space. The right choice depends on your specific needs, team size, and budget.
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