New Relic vs PagerDuty: Which Monitoring Tool is Right for You?
Compare New Relic and PagerDuty for application monitoring and incident management. New Relic focuses on observability and performance monitoring, while PagerDuty specializes in incident response and on-call management.
Updated 2026-03 · 2026
New Relic
Full-stack observability platform for monitoring applications and infrastructure
Strengths
- +Comprehensive APM with distributed tracing and real-time monitoring
- +Deep code-level diagnostics and performance insights
- +Extensive integrations with 500+ technologies
Weaknesses
- -Steep learning curve for advanced features
- -Can become expensive at scale with data retention
- -Alert configuration can be complex for beginners
Best for
Development teams needing deep application performance insights and full-stack observability across complex microservices architectures
PagerDuty
Incident management and on-call scheduling platform
Strengths
- +Industry-leading incident response and on-call management
- +Smart alert grouping and noise reduction
- +Robust escalation policies and scheduling
Weaknesses
- -Limited monitoring capabilities without third-party tools
- -Free tier restricted to 10 services
- -Advanced features require expensive plans
Best for
Operations teams managing on-call rotations and incident response workflows who need reliable alerting and escalation
Feature Comparison
| Feature | ||
|---|---|---|
| Application Performance Monitoring | Full APM with transaction tracing, error tracking, and code-level insights | No native APM - relies on integrations with monitoring tools |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | Built-in infrastructure monitoring for servers, containers, and cloud services | No infrastructure monitoring - focuses on incident management |
| Incident Management | Basic alerting and incident workflows, not the primary focus | Core feature with advanced incident response, war rooms, and postmortems |
| On-Call Scheduling | Limited on-call capabilities through third-party integrations | Sophisticated on-call scheduling with rotations, overrides, and escalations |
| Alert Routing | Rule-based alerting with notification channels | Intelligent routing with event orchestration and noise reduction |
| Mobile App | Mobile app for viewing dashboards and metrics on the go | Robust mobile app designed for incident response and acknowledgment |
| Custom Dashboards | Powerful dashboard builder with NRQL queries and visualizations | Basic dashboards focused on incident metrics and team performance |
| Log Management | Built-in log aggregation and analysis with correlation to APM data | No log management - integrates with external log tools |
| Distributed Tracing | Native distributed tracing across microservices | No tracing capabilities |
| Free Tier | 100GB data ingest/month, 1 full user, basic features | Up to 10 services, basic incident management, limited users |
| Integrations | 500+ integrations focused on data collection and monitoring | 700+ integrations focused on alerting and incident workflows |
| Pricing Model | Based on data ingestion and user seats, can scale quickly | Per-user pricing with tiered feature access |
The Verdict
New Relic and PagerDuty serve different purposes and are often used together. Choose New Relic if you need deep application monitoring, performance insights, and observability across your stack. Choose PagerDuty if your primary need is managing incidents, on-call schedules, and alert routing. Many teams use both: New Relic for monitoring and PagerDuty for incident response.