StatusPulse vs New Relic Synthetics
New Relic Synthetics is a strong fit if you already run the full New Relic observability platform (APM, logs, infra metrics, NRDB). If you just need uptime monitoring + a public status page, StatusPulse covers the same ground at a fraction of the cost — with native protocol-level probes (gRPC, Postgres, WebSocket, SMTP/IMAP) and a customer-facing status page bundled in, not bolted on.
Prices and feature lists last verified 2026-05-22. Vendor pricing can change — check both pricing pages before deciding.
At a glance
~10×
Cheaper at scale
StatusPulse Pro: $19/mo flat, 50 probes, unlimited check runs. A typical New Relic Synthetics bill for a similar team lands at $200-500+/mo once you add per-check usage and the required NR account.
Bundled
Public status page
Public status pages with custom domain, branding, and AI incident updates are part of StatusPulse from Pro. New Relic has internal dashboards; for a customer-facing page you bolt on a separate product like Statuspage.io.
No vendor lock
Standalone tool
StatusPulse works regardless of your observability stack. Synthetics only justifies itself if you're already paying for the rest of New Relic (APM, logs, infra) — otherwise you're buying a platform to get a check runner.
Pricing for a typical team
A team running ~25 HTTP checks at 1-min interval + 5 multi-step browser flows + a public status page. ~1.1M API check runs/month, ~22k browser check runs/month. For background on what these checks actually do, see our HTTP monitoring guide.
| StatusPulse | New Relic Synthetics | |
|---|---|---|
| Plan price | Pro $19 / mo flat | NR account ($99/mo Standard, or PAYG ingest) |
| API check runs (~1.1M/mo) | Included | ~$5-6 / mo (~$0.05 per 10k) |
| Browser check runs (~22k/mo) | Not supported | ~$264 / mo (~$0.12 per 1k) |
| Public status page (custom domain + branding) | Pro+ included | Separate product |
| AI incident summaries | Pro+ included | No |
| Effective total / mo (typical team) | $19 — all-in (API only) | ~$370+ (or higher on PAYG ingest) |
Honest caveat: if you need multi-step browser synthetics (record + replay user journeys, scripted browser tests via a Selenium-like API), StatusPulse doesn't have that today. New Relic Synthetics excels at it. For endpoint / protocol monitoring + a customer-facing status page, the cost gap is substantial.
Feature matrix
| Feature | StatusPulse | New Relic Synthetics |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring | ||
| HTTP / HTTPS probes | Free+ | Yes (Ping + Simple Browser) |
| TCP port | Starter+ | Via scripted API check |
| DNS record probe | Starter+ | Via scripted API check |
| SSL certificate expiry | Free+ | Cert-check monitor |
| Ping (ICMP) | Starter+ | HTTP ping, not ICMP |
| Domain expiry (WHOIS/RDAP) | Starter+ | No |
| Heartbeat / cron probe | Starter+ | No native, build with NRQL |
| gRPC Health probes | Pro+ (Check + Watch, mTLS) | Scripted API check only |
| WebSocket probes | Pro+ (HTTP/1.1 + HTTP/2) | Scripted API check only |
| Database (Postgres / MySQL / SQL Server / Redis) | Business (custom queries) | Via On-Host Integrations (separate) |
| SMTP/IMAP round-trip | Pro+ (3 modes) | No |
| Browser / multi-step user-flow tests | No | Scripted browser (Selenium-like) |
| Anomaly detection (ML) | Business (LightGBM forecast) | Lookout / NRDB anomalies |
| Multi-region probe locations | Business — EU + US + APAC + SA, quorum rules | ~17 public + private minions |
| Status page | ||
| Public status page | Free+ (included) | Separate product |
| Custom domain + auto HTTPS | Pro+ | N/A |
| Custom branding | Pro+ | N/A |
| Subscribers (Email, Slack, Teams, SMS, Webhook) | All five channels; public sign-up + double opt-in | N/A (no public status page) |
| Status badge (SVG + shields.io JSON) | Free+ | N/A |
| Embeddable widget + oEmbed | Free+ (zero-asset iframe) | N/A |
| Component groups | Free+ (flat groups, SortOrder) | N/A |
| Incidents | ||
| Auto-incident from probe transitions | Yes | Yes (Alerts & AI) |
| Manual updates / post-mortems | Pro+ (post-mortems) | NR Incident Intelligence |
| AI-drafted incident summaries | Pro+ | No |
| Incident metrics dashboard (MTTR, time-to-first-update) | Free+ (30/90/365-day windows) | Yes (NR dashboards) |
| Incident CSV export (metadata + components + timeline + SLO) | Starter+ (RFC 4180-escaped) | NRDB data export |
| Observability beyond uptime | ||
| APM / tracing | No | Yes (full New Relic APM) |
| Log management | No | Yes (NR Logs) |
| Infrastructure metrics | No | Yes (NR Infra) |
| Integrations | ||
| Slack / Teams alerts | Yes | Yes |
| Generic webhook (HMAC-signed + retry) | Pro+ | Yes |
| Custom request headers per webhook | Pro+ (PagerDuty / Opsgenie ready) | Yes |
| On-call rotation builder | Pro+ (weekly rotation + escalation policies) | NR Applied Intelligence (separate product) |
| Custom Reply-To on alert emails | Business (route Reply to support@your-co) | No (NR email) |
| SLO / error-budget impact per incident | Pro+ | Via SLM |
| Anomaly-driven incident proposals | Business | Yes (Applied Intel) |
| Internal-only incidents | Free+ | No |
| Severity escalation (auto-page on stale incident) | Pro+ | Via integrations |
| Public trust score panel (MTTR / postmortem rate) | Free+ | No |
| Compliance & hosting | ||
| EU hosting option | Yes (per tenant) | EU data centre as separate account |
| SOC 2 report | In progress | SOC 2 Type II |
| Single sign-on (SAML) | Phase B (planned) | Yes |
| Developer / API & compliance | ||
| Public read API (status / incidents / probes) | Free+ | Yes (NRDB) |
| Audit log API export (cursor-paginated) | Business | Yes (NR audit) |
| SSO domain lock (Microsoft + Google work accounts) | Business | Enterprise |
| White-label (hide "Powered by" + custom footer) | Business | No (NR UI) |
Which one is right for you?
Pick New Relic Synthetics if…
- You're already a New Relic customer with APM, logs, and infra metrics. Synthetics plugs right in: same UI, same NRQL, traces stitched to check runs.
- Scripted browser tests are core — record multi-step user journeys with a Selenium-like API, replay from public or private locations, assert per step. New Relic ships this; StatusPulse doesn't (yet).
- You're an enterprise that needs APM + logs + infra unified under one platform with procurement-tier SOC 2 / SAML on day one.
Pick StatusPulse if…
- You don't have a New Relic account — and the buy-in price for the full stack is way more than you need just to monitor URLs and post incident updates.
- You want flat per-month pricing instead of per-check usage fees that scale with frequency and count.
- You want a public status page bundled — custom domain, branding, AI updates included from Pro at $19/mo. New Relic has no native customer-facing page; you bolt on a separate product.
- Your stack has gRPC, WebSocket, Postgres, or email round-trip you want first-class probes for — not scripted API checks faking it.
- EU hosting matters per tenant, not as a separate account in a separate data centre.
New to comparing tools in this space? Our guides index walks through the building blocks — and our Datadog Synthetics comparison covers the same trade-off from the Datadog side.
Switching from New Relic Synthetics
Most teams who switch keep New Relic for APM/logs and move Synthetics + status pages out:
- Sign up for the free plan. Recreate your top 5 Synthetics monitors as StatusPulse probes.
- Forward alerts to the same Slack channel New Relic uses. Compare detection over 1-2 weeks — confirm parity.
- Publish a parallel public status page on a sub-domain. New Relic never had this; show it to support / sales / customer-success and gather feedback.
- Disable the migrated Synthetics monitors in New Relic. Per-check usage drops immediately. Most teams pocket hundreds per month while keeping APM/logs/infra intact.
Try StatusPulse free
5 probes, 1 status page, forever. No credit card. US or EU host — you choose.