AWS X-Ray vs New Relic comparison

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AWS X-Ray

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

New Relic and AWS X-Ray are two powerful monitoring tools with distinct strengths. New Relic has the upper hand in features and ease of deployment, while AWS X-Ray is preferred for its pricing and support.

Features: New Relic offers detailed server metrics, application performance visualization, and a comprehensive monitoring capability. AWS X-Ray provides robust tracing features, deep insights into distributed applications, and easy debugging of programs.

Room for Improvement: New Relic needs better scalability under heavy traffic, improved integration options, and enhanced performance during peak times. AWS X-Ray requires better documentation, a more intuitive setup process, and improved user interface clarity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: New Relic is praised for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service, leading to a smooth onboarding experience. AWS X-Ray has a positively rated deployment but receives mixed feedback on customer service.

Pricing and ROI: New Relic users express concerns about higher costs but acknowledge strong ROI due to comprehensive features. AWS X-Ray is seen as cost-effective, providing significant value for its price despite the lower overall feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS X-Ray vs. New Relic Report (Updated: April 2026).

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AWS X-Ray vs. New Relic

April 2026

Helped 896,202 peers since 2012

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

18th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

New Relic

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

174

Ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 1.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of New Relic is 3.8%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
New Relic	3.8%
AWS X-Ray	1.3%
Other	94.9%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Allan Møller

Consult Manager at Conscia

Provides quick insights into service interactions and identifies bottlenecks effortlessly

The challenges we faced with AWS X-Ray were that some of the AWS services we were using did not support it, which we discovered at a later stage. This was potentially a design consideration we should have known about, requiring us to redeploy some services in another SKU version to get it functioning. This is the only challenge, as AWS X-Ray is relatively new. It is important to consider that not all AWS services support it out of the box. My recommendation for AWS X-Ray would be broader support. We have been working in a relatively small area of AWS, using approximately six or seven services, so I have not explored all other available services. In general, the more services it supports, the better it would be. AWS X-Ray should be able to support more services for improved functionality.

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BasilJiji

System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Real-time alerts have reduced server outage impact and support fast incident response

In the dashboard, if they could show a little more metrics regarding the application and related things, that would be how New Relic could be improved. Currently, there are things showing from the server level and application level, but it can be improved. That is what I felt. Regarding user interface, I do not feel much concern, but for some kind of issues when we are trying to get support from the New Relic team, their SLA seems to be long. They are taking seven to ten working days for resolving some kind of scenario or issue. That is a bit difficult for us. If they could improve the customer support by reducing their SLA within three to five days, if they could remediate everything, that will be so much helpful. When it comes to the customer support part, I felt they need to be a little more improved on that part. The support overall is good, but they can improve. That is the reason I have given it eight out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"I would give AWS X-Ray a nine out of ten overall."

"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."

"The error analysis capabilities of X-Ray are really good."

"The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints."

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."

"The most beneficial feature is that it shows a dashboard for performance intervals, which reveals latencies."

"AWS X-Ray shows us exactly when there are delays, helping us understand the depth of issues and what is happening point-to-point."

More AWS X-Ray pros

"It has a simple initial setup."

"New features are added often."

"With the metrics from New Relic, we can improve the performance and reduce the downtime because we can identify problems and solve them more quickly."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to manage the application flow."

"The most valuable feature is application monitoring."

"New Relic has positively impacted my organization by providing peace of mind to my clients, and it also gives a lot of insight to their marketing department on how users interact with their websites or how they work with them."

"I really love it."

"One of the most outstanding features of any APM tool is the anomaly detection part."

More New Relic pros

Cons

"Sometimes, the collector agents are confusing to configure initially."

"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."

"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."

"A significant downside is that it is very expensive."

"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."

"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."

"Compared to other open-source tools, AWS X-Ray needs improvement in providing discounts."

More AWS X-Ray cons

"I've heard Dynatrace say that New Relic's pricing model was very expensive, so that would be a concern."

"How granular I could go down at looking at certain data, especially related to the operations, is limited."

"The solution does not provide input on how the page performs in a big group. It just says that the page performance is bad, but it does not say what can be done to improve it. If they could provide some insight or guidance on how to make improvements, that would be a big help."

"I'd like to see alerting based on custom insight queries."

"The product has good documentation for Linux, however, their documentation for Windows is lacking substantially. It's something they need to develop."

"The deployment process could be improved."

"However, there could be problems or hiccups with the integration with Java-based services and microservices."

"More configurability through the dashboard, for example, being able to ignore transactions without the need to update the config or code."

More New Relic cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"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 pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."

"I think the pricing is reasonable."

"Pricing is better with New Relic APM than Dynatrace."

"If I remember it correctly, the pricing was based on the core, and the monthly subscription used to cost us $1,500 or $2,000. We had pre-prod and production services. Costing was different for pre-prod and production. For pre-prod, it was 40% less than the production service cost. It was a combined package."

"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."

"The pricing could be better. We did not purchase the full version. Maybe if we applied all the other features of the full version of New Relic, we could get all the features that we feel are missing."

"The price was one of the reasons we chose this solution."

"New Relic is either free with low retention and minimal functionalities, or expensive with full options and retention."

"The pricing model is a little confusing for beginners. They find it a little expensive, and if you are using it already, then that is not good."

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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896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	65
Midsize Enterprise	51
Large Enterprise	78

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS X-Ray?

While I have not compared it with GCP or Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ), AWS generally offers cost-effective services. Some services, like Athena ( /products/odyssey-software-athena-eo...

What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?

What is your primary use case for AWS X-Ray?

I have been using AWS X-Ray for creating insights to our applications we have developed. It is used to correlate different services in AWS when a transaction happens, allowing us to see the flow of...

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 needs improvement with New Relic Insights?

I have noticed discrepancies between New Relic's documentation and Terraform resources. For example, there have been instances where new features launched in the New Relic UI have not been updated ...

What is your primary use case for New Relic Insights?

My day-to-day activities in New Relic include infrastructure monitoring, APM monitoring, browser monitoring, and database monitoring. In cloud environments, I monitor multiple clouds like AWS, GCP,...

Google Cloud's operations suite (formerly Stackdriver) vs AWS X-Ray

Comparisons

Datadog vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 9% of the time

Sentry vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 9% of the time

Compared 8% of the time

Dynatrace vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 6% of the time

Grafana vs AWS X-Ray

Compared 5% of the time

More AWS X-Ray Competitors

Dynatrace vs New Relic

Compared 6% of the time

Datadog vs New Relic

Compared 6% of the time

Splunk AppDynamics vs New Relic

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Monitor vs New Relic

Compared 2% of the time

More New Relic Competitors

Product Reports

Download AWS X-Ray product report

AWS X-Ray

May 2026

Download New Relic product report

May 2026

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

AWS X-Ray offers comprehensive visibility into service flow, aiding in error tracking and regulatory compliance. It enhances performance tuning and real-time tracing, allowing users to effectively analyze, debug, and monitor microservices environments.

AWS X-Ray is leveraged to correlate data effortlessly and analyze logs, providing insightful service flow visibility. It aids in debugging and meeting compliance standards. Users rely on it for identifying bottlenecks, real-time issue tracing, and monitoring latency and endpoints via performance dashboards. While integration is smooth, enhancements in navigation and broader AWS service support are needed. Improving log filtering, KPI visualization, and integration with external APIs would benefit deployments. Costs and configuration complexities also present areas for improvement.

What are the key features of AWS X-Ray?

Error Tracking: Correlating data automatically for streamlined error identification.
Service Flow Visibility: Comprehensive insights into service interactions and performance.
Performance Tuning: Identifying bottlenecks and optimizing application performance.
Real-Time Tracing: Effective tracing of requests and issues in real-time.
Latency Checks: Monitoring latency across services to ensure prompt response times.

What benefits should users look for in AWS X-Ray?

Efficient Debugging: Streamlined debugging leading to faster issue resolution.
Compliance Support: Assistance in achieving regulatory and security compliance standards.
Insightful Metrics: Access to trace metrics for detailed analysis and decision-making.
Performance Monitoring: Comprehensive monitoring capabilities for system performance.
Cost Management: Analysis of costs associated with tracing and monitoring.

Organizations in microservices environments use AWS X-Ray to gain insight into system behavior by tracing HTTP requests, monitoring performance, and identifying vulnerabilities. It is integrated with other AWS tools to enhance performance monitoring and code execution analysis, ensuring efficient detection of errors and improvement opportunities.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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

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