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Head-to-head · Application Performance Monitoring

Datadog APM vs New Relic APM

  • Updated Oct 2026
  • Both researched from official sources
  • 6 checks side by side
Higher score Datadog APM #5 in Application Performance Monitoring 9.0/10 14-day trial Free trial✓ 5 of 5 features Visit Datadog
New Relic APM #7 in Application Performance Monitoring 8.8/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 5 of 5 features Visit New Relic

Datadog APM leads on 0 checks, New Relic APM on 1, and 5 are even. Who comes out ahead on the 6 yes/no, price and count checks where we have data for both products. The editor score weighs everything else too.

Our verdict

  • Highest scoreDatadog APM · 9.0/10
  • Free planonly New Relic APM
  • Free trialonly Datadog APM

Datadog APM scores higher on our rubric for application performance monitoring: 9.0 against 8.8 out of 10; our editors rank them #5 and #7.

New Relic APM offers free plan; Datadog APM doesn't.

Datadog APM is the better fit for full-featured cloud APM at host scale. New Relic APM is the better fit for teams wanting a mature cloud platform.

  • Datadog APM fits best

    Full-featured cloud APM at host scale

  • New Relic APM fits best

    Teams wanting a mature cloud platform

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature Datadog APM 9.0/10 Visit ↗ New Relic APM 8.8/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 9.0 8.8
Ranking #5 in Application Performance Monitoring #7 in Application Performance Monitoring
Best for Full-featured cloud APM at host scale Teams wanting a mature cloud platform
Pricing model Paid Free plan + paid
Starting price $31/unit/mo $10/user/mo
Free plan — ✓ (best)
Free trial 14 days —
Deployment Cloud Cloud
Platforms Web, iOS, Android Web
Support Live chat, Email, Community, Docs Tickets, Docs, Community
Compliance SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA SSO/SAML
Integrations 1 integrations 780+ integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Datadog APM 5/5 · New Relic APM 5/5
Distributed tracing ✓ ✓
Transaction tracing ✓ ✓
Dependency mapping ✓ ✓
Real user monitoring ✓ ✓
Log correlation ✓ ✓
Specs
Deployment model Cloud Cloud
Our review
Pros
  • Distributed tracing across browser, mobile, backend, and database services
  • Service maps, request flow maps, and span-level trace analysis
  • Correlates traces with logs, metrics, RUM, dashboards, monitors, and SLOs
  • Distributed traces, transaction traces, and database query analysis
  • Service maps, error tracking, alerts, and logs in trace context
  • Free plan includes 100 GB monthly data ingest and 50+ capabilities
Cons
  • No free plan is available
  • Starts at $31 per APM host per month with annual billing
  • Requires the Datadog Agent for telemetry collection in supported environments
  • Free plan includes just one full platform user
  • Standard is limited to five full platform users
  • Pricing also depends on data ingest or compute usage
Our verdict

Datadog APM is a cloud application performance monitoring service for teams managing browser and mobile applications, backend services, databases, and distributed systems. It combines code-level tracing with service dependency views, trace…

Read the review →

New Relic APM helps engineering teams monitor application and service performance, investigate slowdowns, and trace failures across distributed systems. It suits teams that want APM alongside broader observability capabilities, from small…

Read the review →
  1. Datadog APMApplication Performance Monitoring 9.014-day trial
  2. New Relic APMApplication Performance Monitoring 8.8Free plan

Strengths and trade-offs

  • Datadog APM — where it wins

    • Distributed tracing across browser, mobile, backend, and database services
    • Service maps, request flow maps, and span-level trace analysis
    • Correlates traces with logs, metrics, RUM, dashboards, monitors, and SLOs

    Where it doesn't

    • No free plan is available
    • Starts at $31 per APM host per month with annual billing
    • Requires the Datadog Agent for telemetry collection in supported environments

  • New Relic APM — where it wins

    • Distributed traces, transaction traces, and database query analysis
    • Service maps, error tracking, alerts, and logs in trace context
    • Free plan includes 100 GB monthly data ingest and 50+ capabilities

    Where it doesn't

    • Free plan includes just one full platform user
    • Standard is limited to five full platform users
    • Pricing also depends on data ingest or compute usage

More comparisons

All application performance monitoring comparisons → · Full ranking →

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Last updated · How we research and update