Harbor
New Relic
| Feature | Harbor | New Relic |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free only | Free / from $0.3/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | enterprise-devops, container-teams, security-teams, regulated-industries | development-teams, sre-teams, startups, devops-engineers |
| Founded | 2016 | 2008 |
| Container Registry | ✓ | ✗ |
| Vulnerability Scanning | ✓ | ✗ |
| Rbac | ✓ | ✗ |
| Image Signing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Replication | ✓ | ✗ |
| Garbage Collection | ✓ | ✗ |
| Audit Logs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Apm | ✗ | ✓ |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | ✗ | ✓ |
| Log Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Browser Monitoring | ✗ | ✓ |
| Synthetics | ✗ | ✓ |
| Ai Assistant | ✗ | ✓ |
| Distributed Tracing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Error Tracking | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Harbor Pros
- Completely free and CNCF graduated project
- Built-in vulnerability scanning (Trivy integration)
- Image signing and policy enforcement
- Multi-registry replication for geo-distribution
✗ Harbor Cons
- Requires self-hosting and infrastructure management
- UI is functional but not modern
- Initial setup complexity for production
✓ New Relic Pros
- Generous free tier with 100GB/month data ingest
- Full-stack observability in one platform
- Usage-based pricing is cost-effective for many teams
- Strong AI assistant (New Relic AI) for troubleshooting
✗ New Relic Cons
- Per-user pricing for full platform access
- Data retention limits on free tier
- Can be complex to set up comprehensively
The Verdict
Harbor is built for enterprise devops and container teams, with a focus on container-registry and vulnerability-scanning. New Relic targets development teams and sre teams and leads with apm and infrastructure-monitoring.
Harbor uses custom enterprise pricing, while New Relic starts at $0.3/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, New Relic offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 7), while Harbor takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.