Observability (APM & logs) — compare pricing, reliability & setup
Generated 2026-11-02 13:17 UTC · JSON
For app observability (logs + metrics), the current pick is New Relic (score 76.5). $0/mo at 100 ingest_gb.
Ranking — App observability (logs + metrics)
| Vendor | Score | 10/mo | 100/mo | 1k/mo | Free | Agent-friction | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Relic | 76.5 | $0 | $0 | $360 | yes | 90 | 2026-11-02 |
| Better Stack | 71.21 | $1.05 | $14.55 | $149.55 | yes | 80 | 2026-11-02 |
| Axiom | 70.41 | $25 | $25 | $25 | no | 100 | 2026-11-02 |
| Grafana Cloud | 65.32 | $19 | $39 | $399 | no | 100 | 2026-11-02 |
| Datadog | 53.5 | $46 | $55 | $145 | no | 100 | 2026-11-02 |
Agent-friction — can a service be set up without a human?
Each check and its weight is published; the column total is the 0–100 agent-friction score.
| Check | New Relic | Better Stack | Axiom | Grafana Cloud | Datadog |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test credentials without a credit card (20) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sandbox or test mode (15) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Setup with no human-only steps (15) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Official CLI (10) | ✓ | × | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Official MCP server (10) | × | × | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Markdown docs, current with the SDK (10) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Typed SDK for main languages (10) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Error messages that name the fix (10) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Score | 90 | 80 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
How this category is scored
Per use case, weights published in the data: fit 25% · cost 20% · integration 20% · agent_friction 15% · health 10% · lock_in 10%. Affiliate status is never an input.