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New Relic vs Sentry: Which Is the Best Tool for Performance Monitoring in 2023?

New Relic vs Sentry: Which Is the Best Tool for Performance Monitoring in 2023?

If you are looking for the best performance monitoring tool, then you are probably on two minds between New Relic vs Sentry. Each of these tools is exceptional and comes with its own set of features and limitations. So which one is right for you?

Continue reading to find out!

What Is New Relic?

New Relic has been around since 2008 and has since grown into an end-to-end observability suite comprised of 16 main tools that make it incredibly versatile for troubleshooting and monitoring applications across multiple platforms. This monitoring tool is compatible with all programming languages, easy to use, and simple to install. In just minutes, you'll be able to start getting insights about your app's performance.

You'll get access to useful information like page load times, errors, browser usage, flow of web transactions, and more. When you view your dashboard, you'll be able to see your app's performance from the point of view of users-making it easy to detect any issues right away.
With New Relic's integration with popular tools like MetricFire, you can push data through these tools in order to get all the functionality you need in one place-making it easier for you and your team to keep track of everything going on with your app.
What I especially liked about the UI were notifications-like alerts and tips addressing observability gaps in my data collection

New Relic Homepage
New Relic Homepage

What Is Sentry?

Sentry is a tool that helps developers monitor performance and identify errors. It is cloud-based and offers a range of features not found in New Relic, such as a custom dashboard to track release frequency, issues by customer or region, or any other custom queries possible. Sentry also allows you to track commits and tags, which helps fix errors quickly.

Sentry Homepage
Sentry Homepage

What Are the Differences Between New Relic and Sentry?

Let's see how New Relic and Sentry differ on some core features.

1. Overview

New Relic provides web and mobile tracking, error and crash reporting, and instant insight into code performance. Sentry also offers crash reporting and error tracking, as well as support for a range of platforms including web-based, iPhone app, Android app, Windows Phone app, and more.
Both providers offer customer support by phone or online chat. New Relic's APM knowledge base features helpful articles and video tutorials to help users make the most out of their software metrics data.

2. User Experience

New Relic is better suited for Microservices and Kubernetes-based applications because of its support for service discovery and distributed tracing. New Relic has a native agent for Kubernetes which discovers the health of all running nodes and pods.
Sentry is great for real-time error detection and logging. It would be useful in any SaaS product environment.
The New Relic dashboard is easy to use and provides clear information about system health. In contrast, Sentry offers a way to see exceptions and stack traces for user-reported issues. Sentry has a generous free tier which allows users to report events up to 10,000 per month. The source map uploading feature is helpful for understanding deploy scripts.

3. Features

New Relic offers all-in-one application performance management for the cloud and the datacenter, while Sentry focuses on error tracking and crash reporting.
New Relic is available for web-based, iPhone app, Android app, Windows Phone app and large enterprise customers, while Sentry is suited for freelancers, small businesses and mid size businesses.
New Relic offers knowledge base articles, video tutorials and phone support, while Sentry provides online support options as well as knowledge base resources.
New Relic provides accurate visibility to errors that were already addressed, as well as the ones which are introduced for the first time.
Sentry offers relevant dashboards that add visual elements to the entire application monitoring system seamlessly.
New Relic allows users to streamline error notifications in their email inbox, while Sentry also offers a platform for tracking issues related to a selected project.
New Relic offers its services in several places across the globe, which makes it useful for businesses that need to be globally available.
The ping checks offered by New Relic are simple and free, and can be used to check the availability of a site in multiple countries.
When users notice errors with New Relic, they can take screenshots and send them to the creators of the software for help.
Overall, New Relic is more feature-rich than Sentry, with more options for monitoring network traffic and performance. New Relic offers a greater range of API access, providing a more comprehensive view of the system's health.

4. Support

New Relic and Sentry offer different ways to query their data. New Relic's query language is more user-friendly. New Relic monitors a lot of different services, with a goal of understanding how each one is performing. New Relic also monitors application metrics from custom sources.

5. Integration

New Relic and Sentry differ in their integrations in a few key ways. New Relic offers open standards and instrumentation, while Sentry is committed to real-time error tracking. New Relic and Sentry offer different integrations that can help companies measure and improve their performance.

6. Security

New Relic and Sentry both offer robust security features to organizations of all sizes. New Relic has built-in intrusion detection and response (IDR) capabilities, ensuring that you're protected from malicious attacks. Sentry also offers comprehensive data loss prevention (DLP) protections, ensuring that your data is always safe and secure.
Both providers also offer comprehensive web application vulnerability scanning and automatic patch management to help ensure that your systems are always up to date and protected from attack.

7. Scalability

New Relic and Sentry differ in terms of scalability. New Relic offers a comprehensive application performance management solution, with features for various programming languages. Sentry provides a faster solution for resolving app errors, by providing real-time feedback on errors and their resolution.

8. Alerts

New Relic and Sentry both have APIs that allow you to track project events and issues. New Relic's API is better suited for tracking project events, while Sentry's API is better suited for tracking issues. You can integrate New Relic and Sentry easily with leading cloud providers. New Relic is committed to open standards and open instrumentation.
Both New Relic and Sentry offer comprehensive alerting capabilities across a wide range of industries. Networks are critical for both small businesses and large enterprises, and both companies have a solution to fit everyone's needs. However, they differ in the level of alerting capability offered.

9. Logging

New Relic and Sentry differ in logging in that New Relic is better for monitoring production environments while Sentry is better for development and testing.

10. Monitoring

New Relic and Sentry both offer real-time error tracking and integration with leading cloud providers. New Relic is committed to open standards, while Sentry uses open instrumentation. New Relic offers a range of learning resources, including a knowledge base and sample customers. Sentry also offers a variety of features to increase your monitoring capabilities, such as crash reporting and real-time analysis.
New Relic focuses on performance and reliability while Sentry focuses on vulnerability detection and prevention. Each tool has its own strengths and weaknesses, which are important to consider when choosing a monitoring solution.

11. Tracing

New Relic and Sentry both offer tracing capabilities, but they differ in the amount of detail that is provided. New Relic offers more detailed transaction tracing, while Sentry focuses on providing near real-time reporting. New Relic is more expensive, but it provides a more user-friendly interface.

12. Reporting

New Relic and Sentry both offer real-time error tracking and different reporting options. New Relic is committed to open standards, open instrumentation, and the open communities that support them. Sentry also offers historical data and crash reports.

13. SLA

An SLA, or Service Level Agreement, is a contract between a company and its customers or users that specifies the level of service to be provided. This can include things like how many customer service tickets must be answered within a certain timeframe, or how many hours of server downtime must be avoided. SLAs can also specify the level of quality that should be delivered, such as the number of Failed Requests per Million (FRPM).
New Relic and Sentry both offer centralized monitoring solutions for applications deployed on Amazon EKS. However, they differ in terms of what is included in their SLAs. New Relic'sSLA only covers their core product features, while Sentry's SLA covers their core product features as well as their add-on products.

14. Documentation

New Relic and Sentry have different strengths when it comes to documentation. New Relic is better at providing detailed performance data, while Sentry is better at providing real-time updates and complete context. New Relic also has an easy setup process and great visuals.

15. Community

New Relic has an active and helpful community, while Sentry's community is smaller. New Relic's commitment to open standards and instrumentation makes it a good choice for companies of all sizes and stages in their development cycle.

16. Production Experience

New Relic provides real-time performance data retention and comprehensive context, making it easier to identify and fix issues. Sentry consolidates information from multiple microservices so that resolution is easy, even for complex issues.
New Relic also provides performance monitoring from the moment a user opens the app to when they leave it.
With real-time performance data retention and comprehensive context, you'll be able to better focus on fixing issues at the source rather than spending time on low-impact tasks.
Even with a large number of microservices, Sentry manages to keep everything consolidated so resolution is easy - even for complex issues.
With over 20K GitHub stars and 2 million customers, New Relic has a lot of believers in its product. However, if you're looking for an enterprise grade application performance monitoring solution, Sentry may be the right choice for you!

17. Platforms Supported

New Relic and Sentry support a wide range of platforms, including com, Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, Uber, and more. New Relic One is the all-in-one performance management provider for the cloud and datacenter. Sentry provides error tracking and crash reporting so developers can see how their code affects production. New Relic integrates easily with leading cloud providers (such as Amazon AWS and Google Cloud Platform). Financial services firms are the most heavily represented industry on New Relic's platform. Computer software companies are the most heavily represented industry on Sentry's platform.

18. Customization

New Relic and Sentry are both performance monitoring tools that offer a variety of customization options. New Relic's query language is more user-friendly, while Sentry offers more complete context and real-user response time. New Relic is approved by more companies and is used by more developers than Sentry, but both tools are popular for their "easy setup" and "powerful" features.

Verdict

New Relic is a full-featured network monitoring software that offers a wide range of features and capabilities. Its tracking capabilities are reliable and its feature set is expandable, making it a strong contender in this category.
Sentry is a budget-friendly network monitoring software that offers some valuable features and capabilities. Its pricing structure is more affordable than that of New Relic overall, but it lacks some of the robustness and versatility of its competitor.

FAQs

1. What are the main features of New Relic?

New Relic's main features are application performance monitoring, end-user experience monitoring, and server monitoring. Application performance monitoring includes features such as application maps, transaction tracking, and custom dashboards. End-user experience monitoring includes features such as synthetic transactions and Real User Monitoring. Server monitoring includes features such as CPU utilization and memory usage.

2. What are the main features of Sentry?

Sentry is a powerful error detection and recovery platform that supports 30+ coding languages and integrates with popular tools. Sentry's customizable dashboards help you understand how errors impact users, so you can quickly identify and fix them. In addition to error detection, Sentry also offers quick recovery options to keep affected users from being stranded.

3. How does New Relic compare to Sentry?

New Relic is committed to open standards, open instrumentation, and the open communities that support them.
Sentry offers real-time error tracking that gives you insight into production deployments and information to reproduce and fix crashes.
New Relic is ranked 30th in Network Monitoring Software, while Sentry is ranked 24th. In addition, New Relic offers more features than Sentry but it's also more expensive.

4. What are the user ratings for New Relic and Sentry?

New Relic and Sentry have high user ratings. The ratings reflect the quality of the products. New Relic is a great product for Microservices and Kubernetes-based applications. Sentry has great real-time error detection features. The ability to send alerts to Slack allows for quick triage and monitoring of issues. The Verified User rating is a great way to ensure that only trusted users have access to sensitive information.

5. Which is better, New Relic or Sentry?

Sentry offers real-time error tracking which gives you insight into production deployments and information to reproduce and fix crashes. Both New Relic and Sentry offer integrations with leading cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix, OpenStack Swift and more.
New Relic is ranked 30th in Network Monitoring Software while Sentry is ranked 24th in Application Performance Management (APM) with 1 review.
New Relic lacks reviews compared to Sentry, which may give you a better idea of what users think about it.

6. How do I choose between New Relic and Sentry?

You will need to decide which provider offers the features that are important to you.
New Relic is committed to open standards, open instrumentation, and the open communities that support them. Sentry offers real-time error tracking that gives you insight into production deployments and information to reproduce and fix crashes.
New Relic is better suited for Microservices and Kubernetes-based applications than Sentry. New Relic is more reliable than Sentry, with good monitoring capabilities. Both New Relic and Sentry are easy to install and manage.
New Relic and Sentry are both great options for monitoring traffic rates and server usage on real time.
New Relic is helpful in diving deep into an issue, while Sentry provides high-level system health status of different components.