Google Analytics vs New Relic

March 10, 2025 | Author: Michael Stromann
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Google Analytics
Google Analytics shows you the full customer picture across ads and videos, websites, apps and social tools, tablets and smartphones. That makes it easier to serve your current customers and win new ones. Provides real-time data and reporting to monitor user interactions and traffic trends instantly.
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New Relic
New Relic gets you immediate code-level visibility to build faster software, create better products, and delight your customers. New Relic gets you immediate code-level visibility to build faster software, create better products, and delight your customers.

Google Analytics and New Relic, much like two space travelers who’ve found themselves stuck in the same galactic system, share a certain, inevitable affinity. Both are relentlessly focused on delivering real-time data, much like an overly enthusiastic robot constantly pointing out where things went wrong. They love integrations—everything must talk to everything, as if the universe itself would collapse if one tiny API didn’t join the party. Both love dashboards, probably because every self-respecting digital tool worth its salt must feature a screen full of flashing numbers. And, naturally, they both claim to help optimize performance, though exactly which performance is slightly open to interpretation.

Now, Google Analytics, the venerable old entity that’s been around since 2005, has one true passion: websites and their endless streams of visitors. It's the marketing department’s best friend, available for free, but not without its premium perks if you're serious about managing traffic and audience segmentation. It does, however, tend to focus mostly on the traffic coming to your digital doorstep, offering useful data for those interested in clicks, conversions and how many people are following your cat memes. Of course, it’s not perfect for those who need to know how their servers are humming—Google’s system rarely cares about what happens behind the curtain.

Then there’s New Relic, the younger but more tech-savvy sibling. Born in 2008 and hailing from the United States, it’s more interested in what’s going on behind the scenes. Servers? Backends? Transactions? These are its bread and butter. Developers and IT teams sing its praises because, unlike Google Analytics, it allows them to pinpoint exactly where the performance is bottlenecking, right down to the millisecond. New Relic isn’t the one to send you endless reports on your audience’s whims, but it’s the one you’ll want when you need to track down exactly why your app is crawling like a spaceship stuck in the mud of a distant planet.

See also: Top 10 IT Monitoring software
Author: Michael Stromann
Michael is an expert in IT Service Management, IT Security and software development. With his extensive experience as a software developer and active involvement in multiple ERP implementation projects, Michael brings a wealth of practical knowledge to his writings. Having previously worked at SAP, he has honed his expertise and gained a deep understanding of software development and implementation processes. Currently, as a freelance developer, Michael continues to contribute to the IT community by sharing his insights through guest articles published on several IT portals. You can contact Michael by email stromann@liventerprise.com