New Relic
Sprout Social
| Feature | New Relic | Sprout Social |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $0.3/mo | From $249/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Best For | development-teams, sre-teams, startups, devops-engineers | enterprise, agencies, marketing-teams, brand-managers |
| Founded | 2008 | 2010 |
| Apm | ✓ | ✗ |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | ✓ | ✗ |
| Log Management | ✓ | ✗ |
| Browser Monitoring | ✓ | ✗ |
| Synthetics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Ai Assistant | ✓ | ✗ |
| Distributed Tracing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Error Tracking | ✓ | ✗ |
| Publishing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Social Inbox | ✗ | ✓ |
| Analytics | ✗ | ✓ |
| Social Listening | ✗ | ✓ |
| Advocacy | ✗ | ✓ |
| Chatbots | ✗ | ✓ |
| Review Management | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ 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
✓ Sprout Social Pros
- Best-in-class social analytics and reporting
- Unified inbox across all platforms
- Social listening for brand monitoring
- Excellent customer support
✗ Sprout Social Cons
- Very expensive — starts at $249/month
- Additional profiles cost extra
- Overkill for small businesses
The Verdict
New Relic is built for development teams and sre teams, with a focus on apm and infrastructure-monitoring. Sprout Social targets enterprise and agencies and leads with publishing and social-inbox.
On pricing, New Relic is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $0.3/mo compared to $249/mo for Sprout Social. That $248.7/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
New Relic has a free plan, which gives it a meaningful edge for individuals and small teams exploring their options. Sprout Social requires a paid subscription from day one.
Feature-wise, New Relic offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 7), while Sprout Social 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.