What is the difference between Sentry and New Relic?

Sentry is best for Development teams that need to catch, triage, and fix errors quickly, while New Relic is best for Engineering teams wanting all-in-one observability. Sentry starts at $26/mo and New Relic starts at Free.

Is Sentry or New Relic cheaper?

Sentry starts at $26/mo with a free tier. New Relic starts at Free with a free tier.

Is there a free alternative to New Relic?

Both Sentry and New Relic offer free tiers.

Sentry vs New Relic

Sentry is application monitoring platform focused on error tracking, performance monitoring, and session replay, while New Relic is full-stack observability platform with APM, infrastructure, logs, and browser monitoring. The biggest difference up front: New Relic is free, while Sentry starts at $26/mo. Sentry is built for development teams that need to catch, triage, and fix errors quickly, whereas New Relic targets engineering teams wanting all-in-one observability.

At a glance

	Sentry	New Relic
Best for	Development teams that need to catch, triage, and fix errors quickly	Engineering teams wanting all-in-one observability
Starting price	$26/mo	Free
Free tier	✓	✓
Open source	✓	—
Free tier available	✓	✓
Open source	✓	—
APM	—	✓
Alerts	✓	—
Browser	—	✓
Error Tracking	✓	—
Infrastructure	—	✓
Logs	—	✓
Performance Monitoring	✓	—
Release Tracking	✓	—
Session Replay	✓	—
Synthetics	—	✓

Sentry

Strengths

Best-in-class error tracking with detailed stack traces
Session replay shows exactly what users experienced
Open source with self-hosting option
Supports virtually every language and framework

Weaknesses

Event-based pricing can get expensive with noisy apps
Performance monitoring is less mature than dedicated APM tools
Alert fatigue if not configured carefully
Self-hosted version requires significant infrastructure

Try Sentry → Full review

New Relic

Strengths

Includes APM as a core feature, purpose-built for monitoring workflows
Includes Infrastructure as a core feature, purpose-built for monitoring workflows
Free 100 GB/mo — generous enough for most small teams to get real work done
Established product with 18+ years on the market and a mature ecosystem

Weaknesses

Free plan exists but key features are locked behind the paid upgrade
Enterprise-focused design means the interface can feel heavy for smaller teams
Ecosystem of third-party integrations is smaller than the market leaders in monitoring
Overkill for freelancers or small teams who need something lightweight

Try New Relic → Full review

The bottom line

Pricing: New Relic is completely free (Free 100 GB/mo), which makes it the obvious pick if budget is the top concern. Sentry starts at $26/mo, but Free for 5K errors and 10K performance events/mo. That cost buys you a more polished or feature-rich experience, so it comes down to whether the extras justify the spend.

Feature gaps: Sentry offers Alerts, Error Tracking and Performance Monitoring that New Relic lacks. New Relic brings APM, Browser and Infrastructure that Sentry does not have.

Team fit: Sentry is geared toward any size teams, while New Relic is aimed at enterprise teams. Pick the one that matches where your team is today and where it is headed — migrating tools later is always painful.

Open source: Sentry is open source, meaning you can self-host, audit the code, and avoid vendor lock-in. New Relic is proprietary — you are trusting the vendor with your data and uptime.

Where each tool shines: Sentry's biggest strengths are: best-in-class error tracking with detailed stack traces. session replay shows exactly what users experienced. New Relic's biggest strengths are: includes apm as a core feature, purpose-built for monitoring workflows. includes infrastructure as a core feature, purpose-built for monitoring workflows.

Watch out for: With Sentry, users commonly note that event-based pricing can get expensive with noisy apps. With New Relic, the main complaint is that free plan exists but key features are locked behind the paid upgrade.

Choose Sentry if...

You need a tool built for development teams that need to catch, triage, and fix errors quickly
You need self-hosting, data sovereignty, or the ability to audit source code
You specifically need Alerts and Error Tracking
You care about session replay shows exactly what users experienced
Your team size fits the any size profile Sentry is designed for

Choose New Relic if...

You need a tool built for engineering teams wanting all-in-one observability
Budget is a hard constraint — New Relic is free, Sentry is not
You specifically need APM and Browser
You care about includes infrastructure as a core feature, purpose-built for monitoring workflows
Your team size fits the enterprise profile New Relic is designed for