New Relic vs Prometheus
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
New Relic is the stronger AI pick in Observability: it has a visibility score of 47.1 versus 20.8 for Prometheus, and ranks ahead in 58% of the answers that name both.
Choose New Relic if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (47.1 vs 20.8)
- AI answers describe it more positively (42% vs 13% positive)
- You need SOC 2 Type II or FedRAMP Moderate (eligible accounts) or HIPAA eligibility or ISO 27001 or ISO 42001 AI certification coverage
- Generous permanent free tier with 100 GB monthly ingest
Choose Prometheus if…
- Open-source, standards-driven telemetry
- Mature, widely adopted Prometheus ecosystem
- Strong OpenTelemetry and Prometheus support
- Low cost and flexible
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | New Relic | Prometheus |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 47.1% | 20.8% |
| Change vs last week | New | New |
| Rank in Observability | #3 | #7 |
| Share of voice | 10.7% | 6.1% |
| Mentions this run | 63 | 36 |
| Positive in AI answers | 42% | 13% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
New Relic 0pp · Prometheus 0pp over 0 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
New Relic leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
36 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | New Relic | Prometheus |
|---|---|---|---|
| How do I choose an observability platform for a mid-market team? | ChatGPT | #5 | #4 |
| How do I choose an observability platform for a mid-market team? | AI Mode | #3 | #6 |
| How do I choose an observability platform for a mid-market team? | Perplexity | #5 | #2 |
| What should an observability platform integrate with? | Perplexity | #4 | #2 |
| How long does it take to roll out an observability platform? | AI Mode | #4 | #5 |
| What are the best observability tools in 2026? | ChatGPT | #8 | #4 |
| What are the best observability tools in 2026? | AI Mode | #5 | #8 |
| What are the best observability tools in 2026? | Perplexity | #4 | #11 |
| Top observability platform options for B2B SaaS companies | ChatGPT | #3 | #7 |
| Top observability platform options for B2B SaaS companies | AI Mode | #6 | #3 |
| Top observability platform options for B2B SaaS companies | Perplexity | #3 | #6 |
| Best observability platform for startups | ChatGPT | #9 | #5 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | New Relic | Prometheus |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | — |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $10 / mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Deployment | Cloud-based SaaS | Self-hosted; the server runs as a single binary with no external dependencies. |
| Integrations | 800+ | — |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, FedRAMP Moderate (eligible accounts), HIPAA eligibility, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 AI certification | — |
| Support | Ticketed support, 2-hour critical initial response SLA on Pro, 1-hour critical initial response SLA and priority ticket routing on Enterprise | Community support, Training |
| Founded | 2008 | 2012 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, United States | — |
| Employees | 1,001–5,000 | — |
| Funding | Post-IPO raise (not corroborated by other sources) | — |
| Best for | Engineers responsible for application and system uptime and reliability, and teams that want full-stack observability starting from a free tier. | Teams monitoring cloud native and containerized applications, systems, and services |
Plans side by side
New Relic
Prometheus
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
New Relic
- Generous permanent free tier with 100 GB monthly ingest
- Easy setup and quick APM start with minimal upfront cost
- Unified, consumption-based pricing model
- Strong full-stack observability platform and APM pioneer
- Value and accessibility with AI-assisted querying and diagnostics
- Costs can surprise as log and trace volume scales
- Pricing requires careful cost governance and depends on usage
Prometheus
- Open-source, standards-driven telemetry
- Mature, widely adopted Prometheus ecosystem
- Strong OpenTelemetry and Prometheus support
- Low cost and flexible
- Avoids vendor lock-in
- Self-hosting requires setup, storage, upgrades and maintenance
- Needs significant engineering time to scale and maintain
- Infrastructure and maintenance costs still apply
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 100%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “New Relic vs Prometheus”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/new-relic-vs-prometheus-grafana, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.