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AWS X-Ray vs New Relic comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS X-Ray
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
New Relic
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
158
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (7th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (6th), IT Operations Analytics (3rd), Mobile APM (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (4th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of New Relic is 6.6%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Willy Moura - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifying and resolving deployment issues while configuring can be challenging
I have two use cases with my customers. One involves using AWS Fargate, and the other involves an application running on WordPress. The WordPress application was very slow, and we used AWS X-Ray to understand the main problem. X-Ray helped us identify issues with our EFS, allowing us to adjust…
Iqbal Khowaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a simple user interface and end-to-end monitoring and self-healing features
My organization uses many application performance management solutions, such as AppDynamics, New Relic APM, Splunk, and Datadog. I'm the CTO for the state of Hawaii, and across the board, different departments use different APM tools. I'm using the latest version of New Relic APM, but I cannot recall the exact version. My company has a dozen engineers using and monitoring New Relic APM. I'd tell anyone planning to use New Relic APM that it has to fit what you have. For example, most of my company's payload is in AWS, and the tool has adopters and features that CloudWatch cannot provide. Still, New Relic APM can, so you should do a demo or trial run first and see if it's a tool that'll help you with end-to-end monitoring. New Relic APM is working well for my company, so an excellent way to start is to do a trial run to see how the tool works out for your current applications. My rating for the tool is nine out of ten because my experience with it has been great. New Relic also worked closely with my company and has always been upfront on what's available and what's not. My company is a New Relic APM customer.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."
"AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."
"The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray."
"The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government."
"The error analysis capabilities of X-Ray are really good."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"To me, the most valuable feature of New Relic APM is the traceability, mainly based on the time travel method, so you get the overall response time, which is pretty helpful for developers and ADR techs looking into issues on a deeper level. New Relic APM is a very good, tailor-made solution."
"Every time there is a crisis, high traffic, or if we see a problem with a server, we go to New Relic and monitor it to determine the cause."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The pricing is pretty good."
"The most valuable features are the dashboards and tracing."
"There are many valuable features in New Relic APM. We developed some software applications and we are able to monitor the errors very easily. Their log security retention is very good."
"We have done the New Relic integration with Serverless AWS, which has helped us with monitoring, and keeping our monitoring from our on-premise part with the cloud part."
"They instrument up from the bottom to the top – every piece of code - they have a very perfect read of what’s being done, and how long it’s taking."
 

Cons

"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts."
"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially."
"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."
"Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"The UX/UI design of New Relic APM could be improved. The solution currently has some slow pages in terms of loading and viewing the pages, for example, the reports. The reports and other pages take a long time to load."
"I would like to see the company implement the AI auto-baseline feature which Dynatrace has."
"New Relic APM could improve error debugging and the correlation with the logs. We are receiving some alerts or alarms but we need to correlate with the error log, but it is difficult if it is more than seven months retention period, it is hard to trace. We need this especially for getting historical information."
"I would like if it could have predictive analysis. Today, we only have the option to configure thresholds."
"I would like to have storage monitoring. E.g., being able to monitor SANS, specifically protocols, like NFS and CIFS metrics."
"One of the things that our enterprise actually had a challenge with was the licensing structure for New Relic."
"I haven't come across any features that are lacking."
"They could improve the education process and how people understand that these tools are very technical. Right now, if someone was to pick it up from day one, it is a very steep learning curve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
"The new licensing model is great, as we pay for what we use (in computational units). However, the pricing is expensive compared to other tools."
"The price of New Relic could improve. It is expensive."
"This is an expensive product."
"We feel it's a little bit pricey."
"It would be nice if we could buy it annually instead of monthly."
"The price of New Relic APM could be less expensive. We are using the New Relic APM pro account and it is more costly. When compared to competitors the solution's pricing should be much more realistic."
"The pricing is fine."
"If it’s the right tool, it doesn’t matter what it costs because you’re going to get it back many-fold from your productivity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Educational Organization
54%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?
AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?
Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts. Customers often seek cheaper solutions. When using many AWS resources, pricing can be a mid-range cost, give...
What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?
Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially. It requires research to understand the correct configurations, especially when deploying on-premises or on an EC2 instance. Usi...
Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
What do you like most about New Relic Insights?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What needs improvement with New Relic Insights?
Email alert customization is limited; it cannot be tailored much, which makes the system more rigid than optimal. The handling of logs from integration tools is not as advanced compared to other to...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
World Fuel Services, Verizon, FootLocker, McDonald's, Trainline, Mondia Media, Confused, Costa Coffee, Ryanair, Marks & Spencer, William Hill, Delivery Hero, Skyscanner, BASF, DAZN, Veygo, Virtuo, movingimage, talabat, Australia Post, Tokopedia, Seven Network, Virgin Australia, Zomato, BigBasket, Mercado Libre, Lending Club
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. New Relic and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.