New Relic vs Zabbix - Which Monitoring Tool to Choose? [2025 Guide]
Monitoring and observability are critical for ensuring system performance, stability, and reliability. New Relic and Zabbix are two widely used monitoring solutions, each catering to different needs. While Zabbix focuses on comprehensive infrastructure monitoring, New Relic excels in application performance monitoring (APM) and full-stack observability.
This blog gives you a comparison of New Relic and Zabbix, covering deployment, monitoring capabilities, data collection, visualization, alerting, scalability, and pricing. By the end, you will have a clear understanding of which tool aligns best with your needs.
Table of Content:
- Overview of New Relic and Zabbix
- Deployment and Ease of Use
- New Relic vs. Zabbix: Monitoring Capabilities
- New Relic vs. Zabbix: Data Collection and Metrics
- Dashboards and Visualization
- Alerting and Incident Management
- Scalability and Performance
- New Relic vs Zabbix: Pricing Comparison
- New Relic vs Zabbix: Choosing the Right Tool
- A Better Alternative to New Relic and Zabbix: Atatus
Overview of New Relic and Zabbix
New Relic
New Relic is a cloud-based observability platform offering deep insights into application performance, infrastructure health, and end-user experience. It provides real-time tracing, logging, Application Performance Monitoring(APM), and infrastructure monitoring, helping DevOps, SREs, and IT teams optimize performance and resolve issues faster.
New Relic supports auto-instrumentation for many languages and frameworks, reducing the complexity of manual configuration. It also integrates with major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, making it a preferred choice for cloud-native environments.
Zabbix
Zabbix is a powerful open-source monitoring tool that specializes in network, server, and device monitoring. It provides agent-based and agentless monitoring capabilities, enabling IT teams to track performance metrics across various infrastructure components.
Unlike New Relic, Zabbix requires self-hosted deployment, meaning users need to install and manage it manually. However, this also gives organizations greater control over their monitoring setup without relying on third-party cloud services.
Deployment and Ease of Use
- New Relic operates as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform, making it easy to set up. Users simply sign up, install an agent, and start collecting data instantly.
- Zabbix, on the other hand, requires a self-hosted setup, where users must install, configure, and maintain their own monitoring infrastructure.
While New Relic provides a seamless onboarding experience, Zabbix has a steeper learning curve, requiring manual configuration and maintenance.
New Relic vs. Zabbix: Monitoring Capabilities
New Relic’s Monitoring Features
- Application Performance Monitoring (APM): Provides deep insights into application performance, including transaction monitoring, database queries, and external service dependencies.
- Distributed Tracing: Helps track requests across microservices, making it easier to identify bottlenecks.
- Infrastructure Monitoring: Monitors servers, containers, and cloud environments in real-time.
- Real User Monitoring (RUM): Analyzes front-end performance and user experience metrics.
- Log Management: Centralized log collection, correlation, and anomaly detection.
Zabbix’s Monitoring Features
- Infrastructure & Network Monitoring: Tracks system performance metrics like CPU, memory, disk usage, and network traffic.
- Agent-Based & Agentless Monitoring: Uses lightweight agents or standard protocols like SNMP and IPMI to collect data.
- Custom Metrics & Scripts: Allows users to create custom monitoring scripts.
- Device Monitoring: Provides detailed visibility into routers, switches, and other network hardware.
New Relic excels in APM and full-stack observability, while Zabbix excels in infrastructure and network monitoring.
New Relic vs. Zabbix: Data Collection and Metrics
New Relic supports auto-instrumentation, OpenTelemetry, and integrations with cloud services, making data collection seamless and efficient. It provides prebuilt integrations that simplify the process, allowing teams to gather and analyze data with minimal effort.
Zabbix, on the other hand, collects data using SNMP, IPMI, and custom scripts, offering greater flexibility but requiring more manual configuration. This makes Zabbix a suitable choice for teams that prefer full control over their data collection methods.
New Relic makes it easier to collect and analyze data with its automated approach, whereas Zabbix demands more manual effort but provides a higher level of customization in data collection.
Dashboards and Visualization
Both New Relic and Zabbix offer customizable dashboards, but their approaches differ significantly.
New Relic features a modern UI with prebuilt dashboards and AI-driven anomaly detection, making it easy for teams to gain insights at a glance. It leverages AI-powered insights to provide real-time anomaly detection, helping users identify and resolve issues proactively.
In contrast, Zabbix has a traditional UI that relies on customizable widgets and manual dashboard configuration. While it offers flexibility, it requires more effort to set up and maintain.
If you are looking for automated, AI-enhanced visualization, New Relic is the more advanced choice. However, if you prefer custom configurations and manual control, Zabbix is a viable option.
Alerting and Incident Management
New Relic uses AI-powered anomaly detection to automatically detect and alert users about performance issues. It seamlessly integrates with third-party tools, ensuring that teams receive real-time alerts through their preferred channels. Additionally, dynamic alerting based on performance trends helps reduce noise and prioritise critical incidents.
On the other hand, Zabbix follows a rule-based alerting approach, where users define specific conditions for generating alerts. It supports custom notification mechanisms and is particularly strong in network-related alerts, making it a great choice for infrastructure monitoring.
While New Relic’s AI-driven alerts help minimise false positives, Zabbix provides greater manual control over alerting configurations.
Scalability and Performance
New Relic is a cloud-native solution, designed to scale effortlessly with enterprise-level applications. It offers automatic scaling and optimization, making it ideal for cloud environments.
Zabbix, while capable of handling large-scale deployments, requires manual tuning and optimization to ensure performance efficiency. This makes it a better choice for on-premises infrastructure where organizations have complete control over their monitoring setup.
For cloud applications, New Relic is the better option due to its scalability and automation. However, for on-premises infrastructure monitoring, Zabbix is more suitable as it provides greater flexibility and customization.
New Relic vs Zabbix: Pricing Comparison
When it comes to pricing, New Relic pricing follows a usage-based model with a free tier. However, costs can increase based on data ingestion and usage. In contrast, Zabbix is an open-source tool, with the option for paid support services if needed.
New Relic vs Zabbix: Choosing the Right Tool
| Feature | New Relic | Zabbix |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Application & full-stack monitoring | Infrastructure & network monitoring |
| Deployment | SaaS, easy to set up | Self-hosted, complex setup |
| APM & Tracing | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Infrastructure Monitoring | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Network Monitoring | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| AI & Anomaly Detection | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| Customization | ✅ High | ✅ High |
| Scalability | ✅ Cloud-native, highly scalable | ✅ Scalable but requires tuning |
| Pricing | Paid (with free tier) | Open-source |
A Better Alternative to New Relic and Zabbix: Atatus
If you are looking for an alternative that combines the best features of both New Relic and Zabbix while offering additional advantages, Atatus is a powerful alternative that enhances your observability stack.
Atatus vs New Relic
- Focus Area: New Relic specializes in full-stack observability, while Atatus provides a cost-effective alternative with APM, infrastructure monitoring, real user monitoring (RUM), and log management in one platform.
- Data Collection: New Relic relies on proprietary agents, whereas Atatus supports OpenTelemetry and lightweight agents, offering flexibility in data ingestion.
- Pricing: New Relic’s usage-based pricing can become expensive, while Atatus offers transparent and budget-friendly pricing without hidden costs.
Atatus vs Zabbix
- Deployment: Zabbix requires self-hosted deployment and manual setup, whereas Atatus is a fully managed SaaS platform, allowing instant setup.
- Observability: Unlike Zabbix, which focuses on infrastructure monitoring, Atatus provides full-stack observability, including distributed tracing, log correlation, and AI-powered insights.
- Scalability: Zabbix requires manual tuning for large-scale environments, while Atatus auto-scales effortlessly for cloud-native applications.
Try Before You Decide – Experience Atatus for yourself with a free trial and see the difference today!