Top 1 Alternative to New Relic Synthetics for Synthetics/E2E

Introduction and Context

Synthetic monitoring has evolved significantly over the last decade. Early on, teams relied on simple uptime checks (pings and HTTP status verifications). As web applications grew richer and more interactive, the industry adopted scripted browser automation—driven largely by browser automation frameworks like Selenium—to emulate real user flows from login to checkout. This shift helped teams validate not just availability but also critical user journeys, latency, content correctness, and integration points.

New Relic Synthetics emerged as part of New Relic’s broader observability platform, extending beyond server and application performance monitoring (APM) to active, script-driven testing. It became popular because it:

• Runs reliable web and API checks across global locations.

• Supports scripted browser tests in JavaScript for realistic end-to-end (E2E) flows.

• Integrates with CI/CD and New Relic’s alerts, dashboards, and APM for operational visibility.

• Centralizes monitoring signals (APM, logs, and synthetics) across the same vendor platform.

New Relic Synthetics focuses on web and API scenarios with scripted browser checks, enabling teams to create sophisticated E2E monitors using JavaScript. Its strengths include broad test automation capabilities, support for modern workflows, and seamless CI/CD integration. Like any powerful tool, it requires thoughtful setup and maintenance, and tests can become flaky if not structured well—particularly when dealing with dynamic frontends, timing issues, or complex authentication.

As organizations scale their testing programs and diversify technology stacks, they often compare New Relic Synthetics to other platforms. Some teams seek platforms with different authoring experiences (e.g., recorder plus code), distinct cost models, or deeper integrations with their existing observability stack. This article highlights a top alternative and helps you decide when it might be a better fit.

Overview: The Top Alternative Covered

Here is the top 1 alternative for New Relic Synthetics:

• Datadog Synthetic Tests

Why Look for New Relic Synthetics Alternatives?

New Relic Synthetics remains a strong option, but teams commonly explore alternatives for the following reasons:

• Coding-centric authoring: Scripted browser checks in JavaScript offer flexibility, but they can increase ramp-up time for non-developers and slow down iterative test creation without a visual recorder.

• Maintenance overhead and flakiness: Complex DOM interactions, timing, and third-party scripts can cause brittle tests. Stabilizing locators and waits requires ongoing maintenance.

• Cost at scale: As the number of locations, frequencies, and test coverage expands, teams scrutinize cost models and seek price-performance optimizations.

• Coverage constraints: While excellent for web and API, organizations with native mobile app flows often want unified coverage across web, API, and mobile synthetics under one umbrella.

• Debugging depth: Although New Relic integrates with APM, some teams want even tighter coupling between synthetics, logs, traces, RUM, and session replay to speed root-cause analysis.

• Governance and rollout complexity: Regulated organizations might require granular RBAC, private locations, data residency choices, or tailored workflows that match enterprise governance models.

• CI/CD ergonomics: Teams may prefer alternative CLI tools, test runners, or pipelines that fit their current delivery toolchain and developer experience.

If one or more of these considerations resonates with your needs, the following alternative is worth a closer look.

Detailed Breakdown of the Top Alternative

Datadog Synthetic Tests

Datadog Synthetic Tests is a commercial synthetics/E2E solution for web and API testing. Built by Datadog, it sits alongside the company’s observability offerings—APM, logs, metrics, and real user monitoring—providing a cohesive, single-vendor experience for monitoring, testing, and troubleshooting. Unlike tooling that centers solely on scripting, Datadog combines a recorder-driven authoring experience with code-based customization, making it approachable for a range of skill levels.

What makes it different:

• Authoring flexibility: Start with a recorder for UI flows, then refine tests with code and variables as complexity grows.

• Tight observability integration: Tests can correlate with APM traces, logs, and infrastructure metrics in the same platform for faster triage.

• Web/API parity: Browser and API tests coexist, letting teams validate full user journeys that span front-end interactions and back-end endpoints.

Core strengths and unique capabilities:

• Balanced authoring model (Recorder + Code):

• Rich browser and API monitoring:

• Seamless CI/CD integrations:

• Global and private locations:

• Strong debugging and triage features:

• Enterprise readiness:

Comparison with New Relic Synthetics:

• Authoring experience:

• Ecosystem integration:

• Breadth of checks and workflows:

• Test stability and maintenance:

• Cost and scale:

• Security and enterprise controls:

Who it’s best for:

• Teams automating end-to-end flows across browsers and platforms who value a recorder-plus-code authoring approach and want tight integration with a Datadog-based observability stack.

Potential trade-offs:

• Recorder isn’t a substitute for good test design: While the recorder accelerates authoring, complex apps still require thoughtful locators, parameterization, and stabilization techniques.

• Maintenance still matters: Dynamic UIs, third-party dependencies, and frequent releases will require ongoing test care in any platform.

• Cost considerations: As with all commercial synthetic solutions, validate pricing at your planned test volume and cadence.

In summary, Datadog Synthetic Tests delivers a modern synthetics experience with an approachable authoring model and strong observability integration. It is a credible, enterprise-ready alternative to New Relic Synthetics, especially for organizations that already run on the Datadog observability stack or want a recorder-led workflow without sacrificing code-level control.

Things to Consider Before Choosing a New Relic Synthetics Alternative

Selecting a synthetics/E2E platform is as much about how your teams work as it is about feature lists. Before you choose, evaluate the following:

• Project scope and coverage

• Authoring model and language support

• Ease of setup and onboarding

• Execution speed and reliability

• CI/CD integration

• Debugging and triage experience

• Test data and environment management

• Scalability and performance at volume

• Governance, security, and compliance

• Cost and pricing predictability

• Vendor ecosystem fit

By weighing these considerations, you can match platform capabilities to your organizational needs, not just to a checklist of features.

Conclusion

New Relic Synthetics remains a widely used, capable solution for web and API synthetic monitoring, with strong JavaScript-based scripted browser tests, modern workflow support, and CI/CD integrations. It fits particularly well for teams that prefer code-first authoring and already rely on the New Relic observability ecosystem.

However, as teams mature their E2E coverage, watch costs at scale, and seek faster authoring with recorder support, alternatives can be attractive. Datadog Synthetic Tests stands out if you value a recorder-plus-code approach and want deep, out-of-the-box correlation with logs, traces, metrics, and RUM within a single observability platform. It can reduce time-to-author, streamline triage, and help teams operationalize synthetics more broadly across engineering and QA.

If your organization is:

• Standardized on Datadog for observability and wants unified troubleshooting across synthetic tests, APM, logs, and metrics; or

• Looking for a recorder-led workflow to accelerate E2E test creation without giving up code extensibility,

then Datadog Synthetic Tests is a top choice to evaluate alongside New Relic Synthetics.

Ultimately, the right fit depends on your authoring preferences, scale, governance needs, and where your observability investments already live. Pilot both tools with a representative set of critical journeys, integrate them into your CI/CD pipelines, and evaluate the authoring, stability, debugging, and total cost at the scale you expect to run in production. This hands-on comparison will illuminate which platform best supports your team’s path to reliable, maintainable, and scalable synthetic monitoring.