--- title: New Relic Synthetics Alternative description: WatchFor compared with New Relic Synthetics: platform consolidation against a focused external monitor with flat pricing and 30 check types. canonical: https://watchfor.io/new-relic-alternative --- [← All comparisons](/comparisons) # The New Relic Synthetics alternative without the platform attached New Relic's synthetics sit inside a large observability platform priced around data ingest and full-platform users. If you are already there, adding synthetic monitors is the sensible move. The reason people look elsewhere is rarely the checks themselves — it is that the pricing model is built for an observability estate, and a team that wants twenty uptime checks and a status page ends up reasoning about ingest volumes. ## Where New Relic Synthetics is better than us - APM, infrastructure, logs and browser monitoring in one platform. - A free tier that is unusually generous by observability standards. - Scripted browser monitors tied to application traces, and a mature alerting engine. Feature WatchFor New Relic Synthetics Free plan 15 monitors, 9 check types, commercial use allowed Platform free tier — 100 GB/mo ingest, 1 full user, 500 synthetic checks Free plan check interval 3 minutes Varies Entry paid plan €7/mo — 50 monitors, 1-minute checks Usage-based — data ingest plus per-user pricing Fastest check interval 30 seconds 1 minute Status pages 3 on Free, 25 from €7/mo Not a status page product Team seats Included on every plan, no per-seat fee Priced per full-platform user Monitor types 30 incl. Playwright browser checks, CDN, MCP, MTR, NTP, IMAP/POP3, email round-trip, blacklist, email policy; 9 on the free plan — plus Linux server monitoring with the open-source watchfor-agent on paid plans Ping, simple browser, scripted browser, API tests Probe locations 20 locations across 7 regions; 1 region per monitor on Free, 2 from €7/mo, 7 on Business Large network, plus private locations APM and distributed tracing Core platform capability Scripted browser monitors Playwright browser checks Yes Public status pages 3 on Free, 25 from €7/mo Not part of the product Unit of pricing Monitors Data ingest and platform users Free diagnostic tools [64 tools, no signup](/free-tools) None found Agent-readiness score (ora.ai) [96/100 · A+](https://ora.ai/score/watchfor.io) watchfor.io · 4 Nov 2026 [77/100 · B](https://ora.ai/score/newrelic.com) newrelic.com · 1 Nov 2026 Agent-readiness score (is-agentic.com) [100/100](https://is-agentic.com/scan/watchfor.io) watchfor.io · 4 Nov 2026 [79/100](https://is-agentic.com/scan/newrelic.com) newrelic.com · 30 Oct 2026 New Relic Synthetics details checked on 11 September 2026 against [their published pricing](https://newrelic.com/pricing). Plans change — see the note at the end of this page. ## Choose New Relic Synthetics if - You already run New Relic for APM and want everything in one place. - You need scripted browser journeys tied to application traces. - Your organisation has standardised on their platform. ## Choose WatchFor if - You want external monitoring priced by monitor count, not by data ingest. - You want status pages, on-call and escalation in the same product. - You need delivery-layer checks: CDN, DNS propagation, mail policy, blacklists, MCP. - You want an MCP server and SDKs that let an agent set monitoring up. ## Moving over Ping and API monitors map onto our HTTP and API types. Scripted browser monitors do not import — rewrite each journey as a Playwright browser check — and alert policies have to be rebuilt as alert rules here. ## Questions people ask Is New Relic expensive for uptime monitoring? It depends on whether you use the rest of the platform. As an add-on to an existing New Relic estate the marginal cost is small. As the only thing you use it for, a plan priced by monitor count is usually simpler and cheaper — but run the numbers for your ingest volume rather than taking our word. Do you do APM? No. We watch from outside — and, with the host agent, the server's own vital signs — but say nothing about what happens inside your application. What do you have that they do not? Public status pages, on-call scheduling in the same product, and delivery-layer checks — CDN cache behaviour, DNS propagation, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, blacklists, MCP servers — that an observability platform does not aim at. ## Try it on the thing you are actually worried about 15 monitors free, commercial use allowed, no card. If it does not beat what you have, keep what you have. [Start free](/auth/sign-up)[See pricing](/pricing) ## About these figures Everything stated here about New Relic Synthetics was read from [their published pricing](https://newrelic.com/pricing) on 11 September 2026 . Pricing, limits and features in this market change often and without notice, so treat this as a starting point and confirm the current terms with both vendors before you buy. We are not affiliated with New Relic Synthetics , and product names belong to their owners. Agent-readiness scores are published by [ora.ai](https://ora.ai) and [is-agentic.com](https://is-agentic.com) for the domain named under each score, as of the date shown. They grade a domain, not a product: a vendor whose developer surface lives on a subdomain can score lower than its product deserves. We show each service's own cached result and never request a scan of another company's site, so a domain neither service has scanned reads as not scanned. Scoring rules change over time; compare the dates as well as the numbers. If something here is wrong or out of date — including if you work at New Relic Synthetics — email [hello@watchfor.io](mailto:hello@watchfor.io) and we will correct the page and update the date on it. This page is provided for information only and is not advice. See our [Terms of Service](/legal/terms) for the full position on published information. --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/new-relic-alternative · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt