What is New Relic?
New Relic is a full-stack observability platform offering APM, infrastructure monitoring, logging, and synthetic monitoring. While comprehensive, teams often find themselves paying for far more than they need.
What is OnlineOrNot?
OnlineOrNot helps software teams monitor their websites, APIs, and scheduled jobs with 30-second checks from multiple global locations.
Every check runs from multiple regions before alerting—eliminating false positives. When something actually breaks, you get notified instantly via Slack, SMS, PagerDuty, or email.
Status pages are included on all paid plans. And when you need help, you email the founder directly.
New Relic often presents three critical challenges that hold engineering teams back:
1. Synthetic monitoring isn't their strength
New Relic's core competency is APM and distributed tracing, not synthetic monitoring. Their uptime checking capabilities feel disconnected from their other products and lack the focus of dedicated monitoring tools.
2. Complex pricing and surprise bills
New Relic's consumption-based pricing sounds simple but becomes expensive fast. Data ingestion costs, user seats, synthetic check limits, and retention fees add up quickly. Teams regularly report bill shock as usage scales.
3. Heavy platform, steep learning curve
New Relic is a massive platform with hundreds of features. Getting value requires significant investment in learning, configuration, and ongoing maintenance. Many teams use less than 20% of what they pay for.
Compare New Relic Synthetics vs OnlineOrNot
| Feature | New Relic | OnlineOrNot |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per-GB ingestion + seats + checks | Simple $2/check/month |
| Check frequency | Variable by tier | 30 seconds on all plans |
| Setup complexity | Agent install, extensive config | No agents, 5-minute setup |
| False-alarm prevention | Configurable | Multi-location by default |
| Cron job monitoring | ||
| Status pages | Not included | Included on all paid plans |
| Bill predictability | Complex, often surprises | Completely predictable |
| Time to value | Days to weeks | Minutes |
| Support | Tiered by plan | Direct founder access |
How OnlineOrNot improves reliability
Faster detection without the noise
30-second checks catch issues before users notice. Multi-location verification filters out false positives. You get speed without alert fatigue.
Everything in one place
Monitor websites, APIs, cron jobs, and heartbeats from one dashboard. Track SSL certificate expiry on every check. No need to stitch together multiple tools.
Status pages included
Keep customers informed with hosted status pages on your domain. Subscribers get automatic notifications when incidents are created or resolved. Included on all paid plans—not an upsell.
Unlimited team members, real support
Add your whole team on any plan. When you need help, email the founder directly—no ticket queues, no tiered support, responses within hours.
The migration process
1. Sign up free
Create your account with a 14-day trial. No credit card required.
2. Add your critical monitors
Start with your most important endpoints—core URLs, key APIs, any cron jobs that can't fail silently.
3. Run in parallel
Run OnlineOrNot alongside your current tool for 1-2 weeks. Compare alert quality and response times.
4. Migrate fully
Move all monitors over. We offer white-glove migration support—email the founder directly.
5. Cancel the old tool
Turn off your previous monitoring. You'll likely save money while getting faster, more reliable alerts.
Need to pitch OnlineOrNot to your bosses?
Here are the key points to help you get stakeholder buy-in:
"We'll catch issues before customers report them"
30-second checks detect outages 10x faster than 5-minute intervals. Multi-location verification means we only get real alerts.
"We're going to save money"
Transparent per-check pricing. No surprise overages. Status pages included, not an add-on.
"We get everything in one tool"
Uptime, API monitoring, cron jobs, heartbeats, and status pages. One subscription, one dashboard.
"We can actually get support"
Direct access to the founder. No tickets, no tiers, no waiting days for answers.