A like-for-like comparison of Checkly and New Relic Synthetics — what each one monitors, what it costs at the entry tier, and where each one falls short.
Pricing and intervals
Checkly: free tier available, Team from $40/mo, checks as often as every 0 min.
New Relic Synthetics: free tier available, Standard (per user) from $49/mo, checks as often as every 1 min.
Checkly — strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
Playwright-native synthetic checks — great for E2E API flows
Monitoring-as-code via CLI and Terraform
10-second check interval on Team tier
Weaknesses
Aimed at engineers; agency/marketing use cases are secondary
No visual change detection for marketing pages
Priced per check run — high-frequency monitors get costly
New Relic Synthetics — strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
Unified with New Relic APM, RUM, and logs
Free tier includes 100 GB ingest per month
Scripted browser checks with real Chrome
Weaknesses
Per-user pricing model is punishing for shared use
Data-cap billing can spike unexpectedly
Not designed for SEO or marketing-site monitoring
Which should you pick?
Choose Checkly when Your team writes Playwright scripts and wants synthetic API + browser checks in code.
Choose New Relic Synthetics when You already run New Relic APM and want synthetic checks tied to the same account.
Facts last verified 2026-06-28 (Checkly) and 2026-06-28 (New Relic Synthetics) against each vendor's public pricing page.