New Relic vs SolarWinds Observability
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 2.2 for SolarWinds Observability, and ranks ahead in 67% of the answers that name both.
Choose New Relic if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (47.1 vs 2.2)
- You want a free plan to start
- AI answers describe it more positively (42% vs 17% positive)
- You need SOC 2 Type II or FedRAMP Moderate (eligible accounts) or HIPAA eligibility or ISO 27001 or ISO 42001 AI certification coverage
Choose SolarWinds Observability if…
- You want a lower entry price ($8 vs $10)
- You need a self-hosted or on-premises option
- broad unified monitoring across applications, servers, and networks
- strong network and infrastructure visibility
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | New Relic | SolarWinds Observability |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 47.1% | 2.2% |
| Change vs last week | New | New |
| Rank in Observability | #3 | #24 |
| Share of voice | 10.7% | 0.9% |
| Mentions this run | 63 | 5 |
| Positive in AI answers | 42% | 17% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
New Relic 0pp · SolarWinds Observability 0pp over 0 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
New Relic leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
6 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | New Relic | SolarWinds Observability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which observability platform offers a free trial? | Perplexity | #8 | #4 |
| Which observability tools offer annual discounts? | Perplexity | #3 | #5 |
| Official website of the top observability platform vendors | ChatGPT | #3 | #12 |
| Official website of the top observability platform vendors | AI Mode | #3 | #13 |
| Official website of the top observability platform vendors | Perplexity | #3 | #13 |
| What are the pros and cons of SolarWinds Observability? | ChatGPT | #5 | #1 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | New Relic | SolarWinds Observability |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $10 / mo | $8 / mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No · 30-day trial |
| Deployment | Cloud-based SaaS | SaaS and self-hosted, including hybrid |
| 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 | — |
| Founded | 2008 | — |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, United States | Austin, Texas, United States |
| Employees | 1,001–5,000 | 1,001–5,000 |
| Funding | Post-IPO raise (not corroborated by other sources) | Take-private by Turn/River Capital |
| Best for | Engineers responsible for application and system uptime and reliability, and teams that want full-stack observability starting from a free tier. | IT operations teams running hybrid and cloud-native environments |
Plans side by side
New Relic
SolarWinds Observability
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
SolarWinds Observability
- broad unified monitoring across applications, servers, and networks
- strong network and infrastructure visibility
- full-stack observability for hybrid infrastructure
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 100%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “New Relic vs SolarWinds Observability”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/new-relic-vs-solarwinds-observability, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.