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Laminar vs New Relic

Laminar scores higher on the AgentReady, 57/100 against 51/100. They differ on 10 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Laminar. Laminar is an open-source, OpenTelemetry-native observability and debugging platform built for AI agents.

New Relic. Intelligent Observability platform that resolves issues at scale before they impact bottom line

Where Laminar is ahead

Laminar passes llms-full.txt / full agent docs and mcp discoverable, and New Relic does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: authentication documented. New Relic misses it.

And on adopt, mcp integration available. New Relic misses it.

Finally, on operate, agent compatibility verified. New Relic misses it.

Where New Relic is ahead

New Relic passes clear canonical domain, and Laminar does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds adopt: agent-compatible signup flow, fast time to first request and copyable quickstart. Laminar misses those.

And on operate, observable execution. Laminar misses it.

What neither does

Both fail structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented, no mandatory sales call, programmatic credential creation, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover is whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists. Laminar leads 93 to 80. Laminar misses clear canonical domain; New Relic misses llms-full.txt / full agent docs, mcp discoverable.

Understand. Laminar leads 31 to 23. Laminar misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; New Relic misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt. New Relic leads 65 to 60. Laminar misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart; New Relic misses no mandatory sales call, programmatic credential creation, mcp integration available.

Operate. Laminar leads 44 to 35. Laminar misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution; New Relic misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Laminar starts at $0/mo and has a free tier. New Relic does not publish one and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Signal counts are level here, so fit and price decide it. Full profiles: Laminar and New Relic. Alternatives to each: Laminar, New Relic.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["lmnr", "newrelic"]}