Head-to-head
Datadog LLM Observability vs New Relic: which one in 2026?
Datadog is a monitoring and security platform from Datadog, Inc. sold as separate per-product meters, and New Relic is an observability platform from New Relic, Inc. that bills data ingest and user seats. The practical difference is a price per host and product at Datadog against 100 GB free plus a user-type model at New Relic.
Verdict
New Relic ranks higher on this site than Datadog for most small and mixed teams, because its free 100 GB and plain per-GB price make the first bill easy to predict. Datadog suits larger estates that value the breadth of its catalog and accept several meters. Check New Relic's Pro seat price of $349 for each full platform user before scaling a large engineering team, and check Datadog's span and log line items.
Datadog LLM Observability and New Relic side by side
| Datadog LLM Observability | New Relic | |
|---|---|---|
| Price entry | Quoted | 100 GB free per month, then $0.40 per GB |
| What you are billed on | Per host for Infrastructure and APM, per ingested gigabyte for logs, and per product for feature flags, security and AI credits. | Gigabytes of data beyond the free 100 GB each month, plus fees for each user type, with no per-host charge. |
| Where pricing starts | Infrastructure Pro from $15 per host per month billed annually, or $18 on demand; APM from $31 per host with Infrastructure attached. | Free plan at $0; on Standard and Pro, data beyond 100 GB costs $0.40 per GB, or $0.60 on the Data Plus option. |
| Free tier | Free Infrastructure covers up to five Basic hosts with one-day metric retention, so it works as a trial, not a monitoring setup. | Free tier has 100 GB ingest, one full platform user, unlimited basic users and retention of at least 8 days, with no credit card. |
| People costs | No seat price on the pages read; cost scales with hosts, data and products, and Code Coverage is priced per committer. | Core users $49 each; full platform users $10 for the first and $99 more on Standard, or $349 each on Pro with annual commitment. |
| AI investigation | Bits Chat, Bits Investigation, Bits Code and Bits Agent Builder run on AI credits, starting at $500 per 500 credits per month. | Grounded Intelligence, automatic root cause analysis, natural language questions, and AI Monitoring for model cost and agent traces. |
| Open standards intake | Infrastructure Pro lists OpenTelemetry among more than 1,000 integrations, alongside container monitoring, so open-standard data can feed the same host-priced product. | Lists OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, StatsD and eBPF as supported ways to send data in, all billed through the same per-gigabyte model. |
| Compliance claims | Enterprise lists FedRAMP Moderate and HIPAA eligibility with Data Plus; SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are not named on the pages read. | Enterprise lists FedRAMP Moderate and HIPAA eligibility with Data Plus; the trust center page returned no readable content. |
| Data location and retention | Region not stated; data may be stored outside your country, including in the United States, and kept as long as necessary for the purpose. | EU data center storage is an add-on at $0.05 per GB per month; training and retention terms were not stated on the pages read. |
Where each one wins
Datadog LLM Observability wins on
- Widest product range under one vendor, from Infrastructure and APM to Cloud SIEM, Code Security and feature flags
- Lists more than 1,000 integrations and a free tier for a few hosts, so a first pilot costs nothing
- Annual billing lowers host prices, and published per-product starting rates let you add one product at a time
New Relic wins on
- 100 GB of ingest free every month with a permanent plan, so a small team can run production at no charge
- Prices by data volume and user type instead of by host, which suits fleets of many small hosts or containers
- Lists an EU data center storage add-on at a published $0.05 per GB per month
Which to pick
Pick Datadog LLM Observability if
You want infrastructure, tracing, logs and security from one vendor, and you can model each product meter before signing an annual commitment.
Pick New Relic if
Your data volume is modest, only a handful of engineers need full access, and you would rather start free than negotiate host counts.
Each tool in context: Datadog LLM Observability, New Relic, and the full Best AI Observability and APM Software in 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is New Relic cheaper than Datadog?
For a small team, usually yes: New Relic's free tier covers 100 GB a month and extra data is $0.40 per GB on Standard and Pro. Datadog charges from $15 per host for Infrastructure Pro and $31 for APM. A large team on New Relic Pro pays $349 per full platform user, so model your seats.
Does Datadog or New Relic have a free plan?
Both do. Datadog's free Infrastructure tier covers up to five Basic hosts with one-day metric retention. New Relic's free plan includes 100 GB of ingest each month, one full platform user, unlimited basic users and at least 8 days of retention. New Relic's free tier is the larger of the two for logs and traces.
Which tool has stronger AI incident investigation?
Both ship named features. Datadog sells Bits Chat, Bits Investigation and Bits Code through AI credits starting at $500 per 500 credits per month. New Relic lists automatic root cause analysis, predictive alerting and natural language questions on the platform. Neither vendor's claims were tested here, so try each on your own incidents.
Can I send OpenTelemetry data to both?
Yes. Datadog lists OpenTelemetry among the features of Infrastructure Pro, and New Relic lists OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, StatsD and eBPF as ingest options. Check how each vendor meters that data, because Datadog's per-host and per-product meters differ from New Relic's per-gigabyte charges.