Airbrake vs New Relic: Error Tracking (2026)

Short answer: Airbrake is built around error monitoring (with performance monitoring as a separate quota), priced in error tiers with no permanent free plan. New Relic is a full observability platform priced on data ingest and user type, with a permanent free tier of 100 GB per month and one full platform user. If your question is "which exceptions are happening and who owns them", Airbrake's model is the narrower fit; if you also need traces, logs, infrastructure and dashboards, New Relic is the broader one. Prices below were read from each vendor's own pages on 2026-10-30; re-check them before you buy.

Last verified: 2026-10-30. Sources are linked beside every number. We make no claim about a feature or price we did not read on those pages.

Facts read from the vendors (2026-10-30)

Sources: Airbrake, airbrake.io/pricing, read 2026-10-30. New Relic, newrelic.com/pricing, read 2026-10-30.

An earlier version of this page quoted a $249/month Airbrake Business plan and a $0.30 per GB Standard New Relic rate. Neither appears on the vendors' pricing pages as read today, so both were removed.

What Airbrake is for

Airbrake describes itself on its pricing page as an error and performance monitoring tool, and lists on each plan an account dashboard, advanced search filters, unlimited integrations and deploy tracking. Its Dev tier covers one user; the Basic tier adds unlimited users and up to three teams; Pro lists unlimited users, teams and projects (read 2026-10-30, airbrake.io/pricing). Its language page lists notifiers including Python, Node.js, PHP, Rails, Django, Flask, Express, Go, Java and .NET (read 2026-10-30, airbrake.io/languages).

The quota model matters. Cost is driven by how many errors you send per month, and the FAQ describes five tiers from 25,000 to 5 million errors. A bug that fires on every request raises your error count, so tier choice should follow your noisiest realistic month, not your average one.

The trial deserves a plain note: the pricing page says that during the free trial you get unlimited errors and performance monitoring events with 30 days retention, and also says starting a new account requires a valid email and credit card. If you do not want to enter a card to evaluate, that is a real difference from a permanent free tier.

What New Relic is for

New Relic's pricing page says the free tier gives access to 50+ capabilities, including APM with distributed tracing, infrastructure monitoring, error tracking, log management and more, for one full platform user (read 2026-10-30, newrelic.com/pricing). The price is two levers: data ingested (100 GB free, then $0.40 per GB) and the type of user. The pricing page defines three user types and says core users (from $49) can access error tracking and logs, while full platform users get the full platform.

For error work specifically, New Relic's docs describe an errors inbox that groups errors, lets you assign an error group to a user or to any email address, and links to a trace waterfall (read 2026-10-30, docs.newrelic.com errors inbox). That is a workflow that exists inside a platform, so your error data lives next to the rest of your telemetry.

How the cost behaves in practice

These are two different meters, so you cannot compare sticker prices directly.

• Airbrake scales with the number of errors per month. Predictable if your error volume is stable; a bad deploy that floods errors can push you into the next tier.
• New Relic scales with gigabytes ingested and with who needs full access. Cheap for a team of one on the free tier; it grows with log, trace and metric volume, and with additional full platform users ($99 each on Standard per the page, $349 on Pro with an annual commitment).

A useful exercise is to estimate your own numbers: monthly error count for Airbrake, and monthly GB of telemetry plus the number of engineers who need full access for New Relic. We do not publish a made-up "typical bill" because the answer depends entirely on those two numbers.

Which to choose

• Choose Airbrake if you want an error-focused product with deploy tracking and clear tiers, you are fine with a trial that asks for a card, and you do not need infrastructure or log monitoring in the same tool.
• Choose New Relic if you want traces, logs, infrastructure and errors in one place, you want a permanent free tier to start, and you can manage a usage-based bill.
• Consider neither if you mainly want grouped errors with stack traces and AI explanations on a free plan: that is what Bugsly is for. Bugsly is our own product, and it does not do infrastructure monitoring; see the Bugsly vs Airbrake and Bugsly vs New Relic pages and the pricing page for what a plan includes.

Try the error side for free

Paste any stack trace into the free Explain Error tool to get a plain-language explanation; no account is required for the tool. If you want your own errors grouped, create a Bugsly account and point the standard Sentry SDK at your DSN.

Frequently asked questions

Does Airbrake have a free plan?

Not as listed on its pricing page on 2026-10-30. The page lists paid tiers from $19/month and a free trial, and says starting a new account requires a valid email and credit card.

Does New Relic have a free plan?

Yes. As read on 2026-10-30, New Relic's free tier includes 100 GB of data ingest per month and one full platform user, with no credit card required. Ingest stops if you exceed 100 GB until you upgrade or the next month starts.

Is New Relic an error tracking tool?

It includes error tracking as one of many capabilities. Its errors inbox groups errors and lets you assign them, but it sits inside a broader observability platform with usage-based pricing.

Which is cheaper, Airbrake or New Relic?

It depends on your volumes. Airbrake charges by monthly error quota, from $19 for 25,000 errors. New Relic charges by GB ingested beyond 100 GB free and by user type. Estimate your own error count and telemetry volume against both pricing pages.