Both are long-standing APM platforms. Dynatrace leads on AI-driven automation and premium pricing. New Relic reinvented itself with usage-based consumption pricing. Here's how they compare today.
Dynatrace OneAgent installs once and auto-discovers everything on the host. It's the fastest 'install to insight' in the industry.
New Relic has an installer wizard and language-specific agents. Setup is quick but less automatic than Dynatrace.
Both support OpenTelemetry alongside their proprietary agents.
If you want zero-config observability, Dynatrace wins. If you prefer explicit control, New Relic feels less magical.
Dynatrace Davis AI is the clear differentiator: real-time root-cause analysis, auto-grouping of related events, and predictive detection.
New Relic has NR AI (incident intelligence) — competent but less mature than Davis.
If your team values 'the platform figures it out', Dynatrace is ahead. If your team wants to write and tune their own detection, New Relic + NRQL is more transparent.
Dynatrace: Full-stack monitoring at ~$0.08/host-hour per 8 GiB RAM. A 50-host, 32 GiB-each environment ≈ $140k/year before DEM units.
New Relic: Free up to 100 GB/month ingest. Beyond that, $0.30/GB ingested. 1 full user free, additional at $49–$549/month depending on tier.
New Relic can be dramatically cheaper for low-telemetry workloads and surprise you for high-cardinality ones. Dynatrace is predictable per-host but expensive.
Both offer committed-spend discounts.
Atatus delivers APM + infra + logs + RUM + SIEM-light at flat per-host pricing — no per-memory and no per-GB meter.
You get managed observability without Dynatrace's enterprise price tag or New Relic's data-volume surprises.
Atatus AI SRE delivers autonomous root-cause analysis and cross-signal correlation across logs, metrics, and traces — comparable to the Davis-style experience without Dynatrace pricing.
OTel-native, PromQL-compatible, with on-prem option.
Pros
Cons
Pricing: ~$0.08/host-hour per 8 GiB + DEM units
Best for: Enterprises wanting AI-driven ops
Pros
Cons
Pricing: $0.30/GB ingest + per-user
Best for: Teams starting small or with variable volume
Pros
Cons
Pricing: Flat per-host, all signals included
Best for: Teams wanting predictable cost + full-stack coverage
Dynatrace wins on automation if your budget supports it. New Relic wins on flexibility and generous free-tier onboarding. Both have pricing modes that can surprise finance. Atatus offers a predictable flat-per-host alternative with coverage comparable to either — plus AI SRE for autonomous root-cause analysis across every signal.
Unified APM, logs, RUM, infrastructure monitoring, and SIEM in one AI observability platform. Flat pricing, zero bill shock.