New Relic Alternatives 2026: 6 Free Options
New Relic alternatives: Grafana, SigNoz, Netdata, OneUptime and 2 more. Prices and licenses checked October 22, 2026.
•4 min read•Monitoring & Observability
Verdict:New Relic is one hosted product for application performance, infrastructure and logs. The alternatives split into three groups. SigNoz is closest in shape: an observability tool with traces, metrics and logs, MIT-licensed and free to self-host. Grafana is the flexible option when you already have several data sources and want dashboards over all of them, with a free cloud tier of 10k metric series and 50 GB of logs for 3 users. Prometheus is Apache-2.0 metrics collection and querying, which you assemble into your own stack with Grafana on top. For servers rather than application code, Netdata is real-time monitoring under GPL-3.0 with a Cloud Community tier for personal use, and Zabbix is an AGPL-3.0 infrastructure monitor. OneUptime, Apache-2.0 for most code, is built around status pages and incidents, a different job from tracing. The trade-off teams underestimate is operations. Self-hosting moves storage, retention and upgrades onto your team. Pick by the question you ask most often: if it is why a request is slow, start with SigNoz; if it is whether the servers are healthy, start with Netdata.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana | Free (10k metric series, 50 GB logs, 50 GB traces, 3 users, 14-day retention); paid from $19 per month platform fee plus usage (Cloud Pro) | Web, Self-hosted, Grafana Cloud | Teams that want dashboards across many data sources | Docs only |
| SigNoz | Free (self-hosted Community Edition; cloud shows no free allowance); paid from $49 per month incl. $49 of usage (Cloud Teams) | Web, Self-hosted, SigNoz Cloud | Teams that want self-hosted application monitoring | Docs only |
| Netdata | Free (Cloud Community: 5 active nodes, personal non-commercial use); paid from $4.5 per node/month (Business) | Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD, Docker, Kubernetes | Infrastructure monitoring on a handful of servers | Docs only |
| OneUptime | Free (hosted free plan: 1 status page, 100 subscribers; Community Edition self-hosted); paid from $22 per user/month (Growth; billing term not stated on page) | Web, Self-hosted | Teams that want status pages and incident response in one tool | Docs only |
| Prometheus | Free | Self-hosted (Go binary) | Kubernetes teams comfortable running their own metrics stack | Docs only |
| Zabbix | Free | Self-hosted, Zabbix Cloud | Operations teams monitoring hosts and networks | Docs only |
| Datadog | Free (up to 5 hosts, 1-day metric retention); paid from $15 per host/month, billed annually (Infrastructure Pro; $18 on demand) | Web, Agent (Linux, Windows, macOS) | Monitoring and observability | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You want self-hosted APM with traces, metrics and logs (SigNoz is the pick)
- You want dashboards over several existing data sources (Grafana is the pick)
- You monitor a few servers and do not need code traces (Netdata is the pick)
- You want uptime and incident pages next to your monitoring (OneUptime is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on New Relic features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
New Relic today: Free (100 GB data ingest per month, 1 full platform user); paid from $0.4 per GB ingested beyond the free 100 GB (Standard) (New Relic pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Why people look for New Relic alternatives
New Relic's Free plan stops ingest and platform access once you pass 100 GB in a month. Beyond that data costs $0.40 per GB, or $0.60 with the Data Plus option, and users are priced separately: Standard allows 5 full platform users at $10 for the first and $99 for each extra, core users are $49 each, and Pro full users are $349 on annual commitments or $418.80 pay as you go. Compute is billed in capacity units with no published rate.
Grafana
Compared with New Relic: Grafana is AGPL-3.0 open source and its cloud free tier includes 10k metric series, 50 GB of logs and 50 GB of traces for 3 users. Against New Relic you connect your own data sources and build the dashboards yourself, rather than using one bundled product.
Price: Free (10k metric series, 50 GB logs, 50 GB traces, 3 users, 14-day retention); paid from $19 per month platform fee plus usage (Cloud Pro) (Grafana pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web, Self-hosted, Grafana Cloud. AGPL-3.0 (open source).
Project activity: 77.6k GitHub stars · latest release v13.3.0 (Oct 27, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Teams that want dashboards across many data sources.
Worth knowing: Self-hosted Grafana is free; Cloud adds hosted Prometheus, Loki, Tempo and IRM (incident response and on-call) with 3 free IRM users.
SigNoz
Compared with New Relic: SigNoz is MIT-licensed with a free self-hosted Community Edition; its cloud has no free allowance and starts at $49 a month. It covers traces, metrics and logs in one tool you host yourself, but you run and scale the storage behind it.
Price: Free (self-hosted Community Edition; cloud shows no free allowance); paid from $49 per month incl. $49 of usage (Cloud Teams) (SigNoz pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web, Self-hosted, SigNoz Cloud. MIT (ee/ directory under a separate license) (open source).
Project activity: 32.5k GitHub stars · latest release v0.147.0 (Oct 22, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Teams that want self-hosted application monitoring.
Worth knowing: Cloud usage: logs and traces $0.30/GB, metrics $0.10 per million samples.
Netdata
Compared with New Relic: Netdata's Agent is GPL-3.0 and the Cloud Community tier covers 5 active nodes for personal non-commercial use. It is real-time per-server monitoring with less focus on application traces than New Relic, so it suits infrastructure more than code-level APM.
Price: Free (Cloud Community: 5 active nodes, personal non-commercial use); paid from $4.5 per node/month (Business) (Netdata pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD, Docker, Kubernetes. GPL-3.0+ (Agent); UI and Cloud closed source (open source).
Project activity: 81.2k GitHub stars · latest release v2.12.2 (Oct 23, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Infrastructure monitoring on a handful of servers.
Worth knowing: Homelab plan is $90 per year for unlimited nodes, non-commercial.
OneUptime
Compared with New Relic: OneUptime is Apache-2.0 for most code and its hosted free plan includes 1 status page and 100 subscribers. Against New Relic it leans toward uptime and incident management, with its Growth plan at $22 per user a month, so it is not a full APM replacement.
Price: Free (hosted free plan: 1 status page, 100 subscribers; Community Edition self-hosted); paid from $22 per user/month (Growth; billing term not stated on page) (OneUptime pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web, Self-hosted. Apache-2.0 (ee/ directory under a separate license) (open source).
Project activity: 7.8k GitHub stars · latest release 14.0.94 (Oct 27, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Teams that want status pages and incident response in one tool.
Worth knowing: Community Edition includes on-call schedules and escalation policies. SMS and calls are $0.10 each unless you bring your own Twilio.
Prometheus
Compared with New Relic: Prometheus is Apache-2.0 open source, free to run and queried with PromQL. New Relic gives you hosted APM out of the box, while Prometheus leaves alerting, storage and dashboards to you, though it pairs well with Grafana.
Price: Free (Prometheus pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Self-hosted (Go binary). Apache-2.0 (open source).
Project activity: 66.8k GitHub stars · latest release v3.15.1 (Oct 21, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Kubernetes teams comfortable running their own metrics stack.
Worth knowing: Metrics and alerting only; no built-in dashboards beyond a basic expression browser, so it is usually paired with Grafana.
Zabbix
Compared with New Relic: Zabbix is AGPL-3.0 from version 7.0 and free to run, with agents for host and network monitoring. It is an infrastructure monitor rather than New Relic's application performance tooling, so you give up code-level traces in exchange for self-hosted control.
Price: Free (Zabbix pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Self-hosted, Zabbix Cloud. AGPL-3.0 (7.0 and later); GPL-2.0 up to 6.4 (open source).
Project activity: 6.5k GitHub stars · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Operations teams monitoring hosts and networks.
Other popular options (paid)
Datadog
Compared with New Relic: Infrastructure Pro is $15 per host a month billed annually ($18 on demand), with a free tier for up to 5 hosts. Logs, APM and other products are priced separately, while New Relic charges mainly by data ingested and by user.
Price: Free (up to 5 hosts, 1-day metric retention); paid from $15 per host/month, billed annually (Infrastructure Pro; $18 on demand) (Datadog pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Which one to pick
- You want self-hosted APM with traces, metrics and logs: SigNoz
- You want dashboards over several existing data sources: Grafana
- You monitor a few servers and do not need code traces: Netdata
- You want uptime and incident pages next to your monitoring: OneUptime
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Grafana, SigNoz, Netdata, OneUptime, Prometheus, Zabbix: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from New Relic. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked 2026-10-22: New Relic, Grafana, SigNoz, Netdata, OneUptime, Prometheus, Zabbix, Datadog. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.