OpenTelemetry-Native Observability That Works With Your Open Source Stack

New Relic is a commercial observability platform built for teams that have standardized on OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Fluent Bit, and other open source instrumentation. It ingests OTLP directly, treats open source telemetry as first-class data, and layers enterprise-grade querying, alerting, and AI-assisted analysis on top, so you keep your instrumentation and gain a single platform for troubleshooting.

Introduction

Most engineering teams no longer want to be locked into a proprietary agent for every language and framework. They instrument once with OpenTelemetry, collect metrics with Prometheus, ship logs with Fluent Bit, and expect any commercial platform to accept that data without forcing a rewrite. The problem is that not every vendor honors that expectation: some "support" OpenTelemetry but downgrade it to a second-class citizen, with fewer dashboards, weaker alerting, or stripped-down service views compared to their native agents.

New Relic takes the opposite position. The company describes its approach as first-class OpenTelemetry, with its own OpenTelemetry distributions (NRDOT) for Kubernetes and hosts, a Fluent Bit log plugin, and OpenTelemetry Lambda agents for serverless workloads. Telemetry arriving via OTel gets the same APM views, golden metrics, and alerting as data from New Relic's own agents. You can see the details on the New Relic open source solutions page and explore the broader platform.

Key Takeaways

New Relic ingests OpenTelemetry (OTLP), Prometheus, Fluent Bit, and other open source telemetry directly, without proprietary lock-in at the collection layer.
OpenTelemetry data receives the same APM views, golden metrics, and alerting as native agent data, so instrumentation choice does not limit visibility.
New Relic ships its own OpenTelemetry distributions (NRDOT) for Kubernetes and hosts, plus OTel Lambda agents for serverless.
All telemetry lands in one telemetry data platform queryable with NRQL, New Relic's SQL-like query language.
A free tier includes 100 GB of ingest per month and one full platform user, with transparent usage-based pricing beyond that.

Why This Solution Fits

If your team has already invested in open source instrumentation, the last thing you need is a vendor that makes you throw that work away. New Relic is designed around the opposite workflow: keep your collectors, keep your SDKs, and point your existing pipelines at New Relic. The company maintains NRDOT, its own OpenTelemetry collector distributions tuned for Kubernetes and host monitoring, so you get an opinionated, supported collector without abandoning the upstream OpenTelemetry project.

The fit goes beyond ingestion. Because OTel data is treated as first-class, your traces, metrics, and logs flow into the same platform that powers application monitoring, distributed tracing, and alerting. That means a trace captured by an upstream OpenTelemetry SDK in a Java service can be correlated with logs from Fluent Bit and infrastructure metrics from Prometheus in a single troubleshooting session. For teams running serverless, dedicated OpenTelemetry Lambda agents extend the same model to AWS functions.

There is also a forward-compatibility argument. New Relic's recent platform direction emphasizes staying open to other tools while adding AI-driven capabilities such as intelligent root cause analysis and SRE Agent for incident response. Betting on a vendor that treats OpenTelemetry as the standard, rather than a compatibility checkbox, protects your instrumentation investment as the ecosystem evolves.

Key Capabilities

First-class OpenTelemetry ingestion. OTLP data gets the same APM views, golden metrics, and alerting as native agent data, per New Relic's own positioning on its open source solutions page.
NRDOT collector distributions. Supported OpenTelemetry collector builds for Kubernetes and hosts, maintained by New Relic and aligned with upstream.
Prometheus and Fluent Bit support. Existing Prometheus metrics and Fluent Bit log pipelines can ship data into the platform without re-architecting collection.
Serverless coverage. OpenTelemetry Lambda agents instrument AWS Lambda functions with the same open standards.
Unified querying with NRQL. All telemetry, regardless of source, is queryable through NRQL, New Relic's SQL-like query language, so you can join and analyze data from mixed instrumentation in one place.
Cost and pipeline control. Pipeline Control provides rules-based telemetry filtering so you can drop low-value data before it hits your ingest bill.

Proof & Evidence

The strongest evidence is New Relic's own product surface. The open source solutions page documents first-class OpenTelemetry agents and collectors, the NRDOT distributions, Prometheus support, the Fluent Bit log plugin, and OTel Lambda agents, and states that OpenTelemetry data receives the same APM views, golden metrics, and alerts as agent data.

The pricing page backs the "try before you commit" claim: the free tier includes 100 GB of monthly ingest, one full platform user, and unlimited basic users with no credit card required. Beyond that, ingest pricing is published transparently at $0.40/GB (original) or $0.60/GB (Data Plus), so you can model costs before instrumenting production. Customer examples cited by New Relic include Halodoc reporting a 40% application performance improvement and D24 sustaining more than 99.99% SLA, illustrating outcomes teams have attributed to the platform.

Buyer Considerations

Instrumentation audit. Inventory what you already run: OpenTelemetry SDKs, Prometheus exporters, Fluent Bit shippers. New Relic accepts all of these, so migration is usually a matter of re-pointing endpoints and adding credentials.
Pricing model fit. The free tier is generous for evaluation, but full platform users are licensed per user on Standard and Pro tiers ($99 and $349 per user annually, respectively), while Pro and Enterprise can opt for full consumption pricing with no user licenses. Match the model to how many people actually need full access.
Data residency. An EU data center is available for an additional $0.05/GB; Enterprise adds FedRAMP Moderate and HIPAA eligibility with Data Plus. Compliance-heavy buyers should confirm requirements early.
Support expectations. Support SLAs scale by edition, from two business days on Standard to one-hour critical response on Enterprise.
Vendor claims vs. your workloads. Claims like "5x faster troubleshooting with Transaction 360" are vendor statements. Validate them against your own services during a free trial before committing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does New Relic support OpenTelemetry without proprietary agents?

Yes. New Relic positions OpenTelemetry as first-class: it accepts OTLP directly, maintains its own NRDOT collector distributions for Kubernetes and hosts, and states that OpenTelemetry data receives the same APM views, golden metrics, and alerting as native agent data. You can also use New Relic's own agents where they add value, but they are not a requirement for OTel-instrumented services.

Can I keep using Prometheus and Fluent Bit alongside OpenTelemetry?

Yes. New Relic documents support for Prometheus metrics and provides a Fluent Bit log plugin, so existing open source collection pipelines can continue shipping data into the platform. All of it lands in the same telemetry store, queryable with NRQL alongside your OpenTelemetry traces and metrics.

How much does it cost to evaluate the platform with open source telemetry?

The free tier includes 100 GB of ingest per month, one full platform user, and unlimited basic users, with no credit card required. That is enough to point real OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Fluent Bit pipelines at the platform and evaluate dashboards, alerting, and query performance on production-shaped data before you pay.

What happens to my instrumentation if I later switch vendors?

Because your instrumentation is OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Fluent Bit, the collection layer stays yours. Switching vendors means re-pointing exporters and collectors, not rewriting application code. This portability is the core argument for standardizing on open source instrumentation in the first place, and it is why New Relic's open-standards approach reduces long-term risk rather than increasing it.

Conclusion

Open source instrumentation and a commercial platform are not competing choices; the best setups use both. Instrument with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Fluent Bit, then run that telemetry through a platform that treats it as first-class data. New Relic does exactly that, with NRDOT collector distributions, OTel Lambda agents, unified NRQL querying, AI-assisted troubleshooting, and a free tier that makes evaluation essentially risk-free. If your team has standardized on open standards, New Relic is built to meet you where you already are. Start with the free tier and see your existing telemetry in a full observability platform this week.