Observability platforms · October 2026 Edition
New Relic vs Honeycomb
Nine of fourteen models named New Relic first on the direct prompt; one named Honeycomb. New Relic was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and Honeycomb by ten and New Relic carries 63 labels and Honeycomb 19, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in eight categories this edition.
Named in six categories this edition.
First-choice share27%2%Of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, 0 to 100.
Negative rate14%11%Negative labels as a share of the product's labels, 0 to 100.
Rank in category#2#7A position in a field of 12; printed, not drawn.
Labels6319A count; the two differ.
The two percentage rows are drawn on one 0 to 100 track, New Relic reading right to left. Rank and label count are printed, not drawn.Grafana was named alongside these two in eight of the fourteen direct answers. Grafana vs New Relic · Grafana vs Honeycomb · New Relic vs Datadog
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the observability platforms page.
By framing
How many of the fourteen models made each the first choice, per way of asking, and how many argued against it.
New RelicFirst choices, of fourteen modelsHoneycomb
Direct91
Paraphrase60
Comparative20
Budget-constrained202 against New Relic
Scale-constrained10
Negative007 against New Relic · 2 against Honeycomb
Bars are first choices, 0 to 14 each sideModels that argued againstA model can name both, so the two sides of a row do not sum to fourteen.
Every model, every framing
The eighty-four answers behind the chart above, one cell each: where New Relic and Honeycomb stood in it.
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | | | |
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | ||||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | |||||
| Grok 4.1 Fast | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | | | ||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | | ||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | | |
| Kimi K2 | | | | | | |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | | |||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
New Relic Honeycomb first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, New Relic on the left and Honeycomb on the right.The direct prompt
The plain question, one answer per model, grouped by where New Relic and Honeycomb stood in it.
New Relic first, Honeycomb not the choice
9 of 14 modelsHoneycomb was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Claude Haiku 4.5New Relic alternatives: Atatus, Datadog, Elastic Observability, Grafana, Grafana Labs' LGTM+ stack, Motadata ObserveOps
GPT-5.4 miniNew Relic alternatives: Dynatrace, Grafana
Grok 4.1 FastNew Relic alternatives: Datadog, Dynatrace, Grafana Labs
Mistral SmallGrafana, New Relic alternatives: Middleware.io, OpenObserve
DeepSeek V4 FlashNew Relic alternatives: Elastic Observability, Grafana
Llama 4 MaverickNew Relic alternatives: Datadog, Motadata ObserveOps
Qwen 3.7 FlashGrafana, New Relic
Kimi K2New Relic alternatives: Grafana, SigNoz
GLM 4.7 FlashXNew Relic alternatives: Datadog, Grafana + Prometheus, Splunk Observability Cloud
Honeycomb first, New Relic an alternative
1 of 14 modelsNew Relic was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Gemini 3.5 FlashHoneycomb alternatives: Grafana, New Relic
Neither was the first choice, one was named
2 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.GPT-6 LunaDatadog alternatives: Grafana, Honeycomb, New Relic
Muse Glimmer 30BDatadog alternatives: Atatus, Middleware.io, New Relic, OpenObserve, Sematext
Neither was named
2 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Perplexity SonarDatadog alternatives: Coralogix, Middleware.io, Motadata ObserveOps, OpenObserve
MiniMax M2.5Datadog, Grafana Labs alternatives: Dynatrace
Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment and they are never added together. The figures above are the mid-market standing, which is the one the category orders by.
Small business
New Relic leads by thirteen points.
New Relic15%#2 of 12Honeycomb2%#8 of 12Mid-marketThe figures above
New Relic leads by twenty-six points.
New Relic27%#2 of 12Honeycomb2%#7 of 12Enterprise
New Relic leads by eight points.
New Relic12%#3 of 10Honeycomb4%#– of 10What the models said about New Relic
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of three in this category shown.
“| New Relic/Datadog | SaaS | Limited free | High ($0.35/GB + users) | Avoid for tight budgets |” Grok 4.1 Fast · budget prompt · hard negative
“New Relic Why be cautious: - Complex pricing model” Kimi K2 · negative prompt · hard negative
“New Relic is recommended for teams wanting all telemetry types on a single ingest meter with a genuinely useful free tier” Claude Haiku 4.5 · direct prompt · first choice
What the models said about Honeycomb
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Three of three in this category shown.
“Event-based pricing creates a structural incident risk because volume spikes during production incidents increase costs” Claude Haiku 4.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Using them now carries a "hold my horse" risk.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · negative prompt · soft negative
“Go with Honeycomb if you are a B2B SaaS company that suffers from customer-specific performance issues” Gemini 3.5 Flash · direct prompt · first choice
Also compared
Grafana vs New RelicGrafana vs HoneycombNew Relic vs DatadogNew Relic vs SigNozNew Relic vs OpenObserveNew Relic vs DynatraceNew Relic vs PrometheusDatadog vs HoneycombSigNoz vs HoneycombOpenObserve vs HoneycombDynatrace vs HoneycombHoneycomb vs PrometheusAll twenty-eight head-to-head pages and the full observability standing
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.