Honeycomb Enterprise vs New Relic comparison

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Honeycomb Enterprise

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

New Relic and Honeycomb Enterprise are observability tools competing in the monitoring and analysis space. Honeycomb Enterprise seems to have the upper hand with advanced features offering in-depth insights despite higher initial costs.

Features: New Relic provides comprehensive monitoring with robust dashboards, effective alerting capabilities, and strong integration with diverse IT environments. Honeycomb Enterprise focuses on advanced event-driven architecture, powerful query capabilities, and in-depth trace analysis, offering rich insights primarily for complex systems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: New Relic's deployment is user-friendly, supported by extensive documentation and responsive customer support, ensuring smooth integration with existing systems. Honeycomb Enterprise, though feature-rich, requires more initial setup and learning, but it offers thorough support for complex issues.

Pricing and ROI: New Relic offers flexible pricing models perceived as cost-effective and offers clear ROI through user-friendly analytics and broad integrations. Honeycomb Enterprise, while having higher upfront costs, provides significant ROI for organizations needing detailed performance insights, especially with high-cardinality data management.

To learn more, read our detailed Honeycomb Enterprise vs. New Relic Report (Updated: September 2025).

Honeycomb Enterprise vs. New Relic

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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

Honeycomb Enterprise

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

25th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AI Code Assistants (11th)

New Relic

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

160

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), IT Operations Analytics (3rd), Mobile APM (3rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (5th), AIOps (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Honeycomb Enterprise is 1.4%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of New Relic is 5.1%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
New Relic	5.1%
Honeycomb Enterprise	1.4%
Other	93.5%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

meetharoon

CEO at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Its pattern-matching and code transformation capabilities can be adapted for mass identification and remediation of vulnerable libraries

I asked very specific questions to Mr. Pell about consideration of code security scenarios in pattern design and rules, specifically that tuned with OWASP Top 10. I believe addition of code security focus can be a value-add, though the way Grit architecture is designed and how it works, it is and may not become an alternative choice of code security solutions. Rather, it must be treated as a powerful supplementary tool that augments the existing code security solutions (such as Snyk or Checkmarx) in a DevSecOps or Secure DevOps environment. Anyone interested in learning more on this front or have queries, can get in touch with me for a consulting.

Read full review

Rahul -Jain

SDET ANALYST SENIOR at TSYS

Good for application Performance Monitoring but not stable

There are two types of teams we have in every organization. One is for DevOps, and the second one is for performance testing. Those who are using these tools, like AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or whatever tool we have on the APM side. These tools are used by two teams: one is the performance team, and another one is the DevOps team. So, the setup and the alert system belong to the DevOps team, not for performance. So, I don't use any alerts in AppDynamics, Dynatrace, or any of the tools.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's most valuable features are the queries for the OpenTelemetry events and all the tracing."

"The solution's initial setup process was straightforward since we were getting enough support from Honeycomb.io's team."

"The approach offers significant benefits in terms of efficiency, consistency, and proactive security management, particularly valuable for organizations with large, distributed development teams."

"They have baseline level alerting."

"New Relic's dashboard is nice, and it's reliable. It's also compatible with many services, especially Java and the Python ecosystem."

"The tool's most valuable features were APM and core reliability. We get alerts whenever an anomaly is detected. The solution is very friendly."

"The most important thing is that it tells us where the latency in throughput and response time are."

"We detect issues using dashboards that we built on New Relic."

"You don't have to go through a list of 500 servers."

"The service maps that it creates, the health maps that it creates, the insights that it provides, etc., are all quite useful."

"It is a software solution as a service, so I don't have to manage it on-premise."

More New Relic pros

Cons

"The process of log scraping gets delayed on Honeycomb.io. At times, it gives false alerts to the application team."

"We can make alerts based on static numbers, which may block us from building alerts that could be generic enough or could be serviced."

"The way Grit architecture is designed and how it works, it is and may not become an alternative choice of code security solutions."

"I think that there have been some questionable product enhancements. Over a year ago, New Relic rolled out a new navigation that really disrupted our workflow."

"There are certain features that are not supported in New Relic, such as CATSEARCH, which allows you to do a full-text search."

"The older view is much better than the new view that they have. We'd like to go back to that previous version. The user interface just isn't as nice as it used to be."

"The customization of the start and end time is kind of cool."

"There were some settings we had issues with."

"They need to improve the alerting and dashboarding as these are the key features in DevOps."

"It is complicated, especially in how you interpret the data that it provides. If it had a bit more canned, out-of-the-box features, especially some of the reporting features, that would be more useful."

"There are times when you restart the engines and the servers have a unique ID for the host and you need to remove the server. It is difficult because some are on-premise and others are production hosts. Having downtime is not very good when updating. However, it is not a constant issue."

More New Relic cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"I recommend using the free version of New Relic. If you like the free version and understand its importance for your company, you can move to the trial. Then, you can migrate to the paid version."

"They gave us aggressive discounts when they were brought in for the first time, but they have also kept them for the year-on-year renewals, which has been absolutely fine."

"The detection piece of it brings us a big return on investment."

"The solution is cheap, but prices can go up when users grow."

"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one means cheap, and ten means very expensive."

"Cost is significant with a lot of extras."

"We deploy everything on AWS. Purchasing the product on AWS Marketplace made it easier for us."

"The pricing and licensing are too high."

More New Relic pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	65
Midsize Enterprise	50
Large Enterprise	61

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Honeycomb.io?

We faced some OpenTelemetry metrics lost between the communication from the service and the Honeycomb.io. I can't say if this is a Honeycomb.io issue or if there are some limitations in OpenTelemet...

What is your primary use case for Honeycomb.io?

The solution is mainly used for stack observability. It observes service behavior or any kind of failure that may be happening. The tool is also related to research. My company is working more on t...

What advice do you have for others considering Honeycomb.io?

We set up Honeycomb.io on all the services so that we can have all the set traces of the communication between all the services inside the company. This helps us understand where it could be failin...

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?

I reviewed another observability tool, DataDog, and we moved away from New Relic because the pricing was not convenient and didn't fit our budget. With DataDog, some of the APM features we were loo...

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Product Reports

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Download Honeycomb Enterprise product report

Download New Relic product report

Also Known As

Grit

New Relic Browser, New Relic Applied Intelligence, New Relic Insights, New Relic Synthetics, New Relic Servers, New Relic APM

Overview

Honeycomb Enterprise is designed to optimize performance visibility, offering a robust platform for distributed system observability. It provides insights for complex data and aids in faster issue resolution, making it a valuable tool for IT professionals.

This tool is tailored for real-time data tracking and improving system performance efficiency. Enterprises benefit from its capacity to handle large-scale data, ensuring seamless operations and continuity. Honeycomb Enterprise helps teams to tackle data challenges head-on by delivering comprehensive analytics that enhance infrastructure reliability and performance metrics.

What Features Make Honeycomb Enterprise Stand Out?

High-Resolution Visibility: Enables detailed system monitoring to identify issues quickly.
Trace Analysis: Offers powerful tracing of distributed systems for in-depth insights.
Data Scalability: Manages extensive data sets effortlessly for better decision-making.
Real-Time Alerts: Provides instant alerts to preempt potential disruptions.
Collaboration Tools: Facilitates teamwork with integrated tools enhancing productivity.

What Benefits and ROI Can Users Expect?

Reduced Downtime: Faster detection and resolution of issues minimizes operational interruptions.
Cost Efficiency: Optimizes resources leading to lower operational costs.
Improved Decision Making: Enhanced data analytics lead to smarter business strategies.
Enhanced Productivity: Streamlined processes improve team efficiency and output quality.

In industries like finance, e-commerce, and technology, Honeycomb Enterprise implementations demonstrate its utility in managing complex data flows and optimizing system reliability. Businesses in these sectors leverage its capabilities to maintain high service standards and operational efficiency.

Honeycomb.io

New Relic offers real-time application monitoring and insight into performance bottlenecks. Its customizable dashboards and APM integration provide efficient operational support, while server performance alerts ensure quick issue detection.

New Relic provides comprehensive monitoring of application performance, tracking bottlenecks across databases and front-end components. Users employ it for server and infrastructure monitoring, as well as analyzing key metrics such as CPU and memory usage. The solution's ability to integrate with tools like PagerDuty enhances incident management capabilities. However, users have expressed a need for improvements in query language simplicity, more detailed historical insights, and better mobile app monitoring support.

What are New Relic's most important features?

Real-Time Monitoring: Provides instant visibility into application performance.
Detailed Transaction Tracing: Identifies specific transaction issues quickly.
Error Rate Tracking: Monitors and reports on error occurrences efficiently.
Customizable Dashboards: Tailors dashboard views for specific needs.
APM Integration: Seamlessly integrates with application performance management tools.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Operational Efficiency: Quick issue detection reduces downtime.
Improved Debugging: Enhanced error analysis supports rapid problem resolution.
Comprehensive Monitoring: Offers a holistic view of application performance and user behavior.
Incident Management: Integration with incident tools helps streamline responses.
Efficient Alerts: Rapid alert systems ensure timely notifications of issues.

In industries like e-commerce and financial services, New Relic supports application performance monitoring to enhance user experience and system reliability. Organizations leverage its insights for optimizing performance, particularly in server operations and infrastructure management. Its ability to monitor API failures through synthetic monitoring is crucial for maintaining high service levels.

Sample Customers

Clover Health, Eaze, Intercom, Fender

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

Honeycomb Enterprise vs. New Relic