Industry’s Largest Survey Finds Enterprises Realize 2X ROI on Observability
- Respondents receive a median $2 return per $1 of investment in observability
- Full-stack observability leads to 59% lower outage costs
- Full-stack observability increased 58% YoY
- 82% of respondents expected to deploy each of the 17 different observability capabilities by mid-2026
- Tool sprawl remains an obstacle for organizations
- Observability solution reduces outage costs by $3.66 million per year
- Higher operation costs and revenue loss from downtime without observability solution
Findings from 1,700 technical professionals across 15 countries revealed
The third annual study is once again the largest, most comprehensive of its kind, and the only study to open-source its raw data. This year’s report surveyed 1,700 technology professionals, including 1,100 practitioners — day-to-day users of observability tools — and 600 IT decision-makers across 15 countries, to understand the current state of observability, the areas with the most and least amount of growth, and the external forces influencing spending and adoption.
According to the research, organizations are using fewer observability tools than in 2022 and are beginning to adopt single, consolidated observability platforms. While monitoring is still fragmented and most organizations do not yet monitor their full technology stacks, more observability capabilities were deployed year-over-year, and
Findings from the 2023 Observability Forecast include:
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Downtime costs
$500 K+ per hour:32% of respondents said critical business app outages cost more than per hour of downtime. Respondents report a median annual outage cost of$500 K , those with full-stack observability experience a median outage cost$7.75 million 59% lower than those without full-stack observability. -
Full-stack observability is on the rise: While most organizations still don’t monitor their full tech stack, this is changing. Full-stack observability increased
58% YoY. By mid-2026, at least82% of respondents expected to deploy each of the 17 different observability capabilities. - Tool consolidation is preferred: Tool sprawl remains an obstacle for organizations of all sizes despite a 2-to-1 preference for a single, consolidated platform. However, the proportion using a single tool more than doubled year-over-year, and the average number of tools deployed has gone down by almost one tool.
“High-business-impact outages are incredibly expensive for today’s organizations,” said Peter Pezaris, Chief Strategy and Design Officer at New Relic. “The Observability Forecast shows that teams with full-stack observability consistently have fewer outages while detecting and resolving issues faster than those without. This translates to lower outage costs, a higher annual return on investment, and a positive effect on an organization’s bottom line. The business value of observability is clear.”
Observability Improves Service-Level Metrics
One of the report’s key takeaways is that organizations that achieve full-stack observability improve service-level metrics — particularly mean time to resolution (MTTR) and mean time to detection (MTTD) — and get the most out of their investments. Respondents with full-stack observability were more likely to experience the fastest MTTR and MTTD (less than 30 minutes), as well as seeing the most improvement for both metrics year-over-year.
The research shows that investing in observability pays off. For example, respondents who said their organization has more than five observability capabilities currently deployed were
Respondents recognize the hard financial stakes attached to observability. Asked to name the most significant business outcome if an organization did not have an observability solution, they pointed to the concrete impacts of higher operation costs and revenue loss from downtime.
Benefits of Observability
According to the Observability Forecast, practitioners and IT decision-makers are seeing clear but different benefits as a result of their current observability solution. The report reveals that observability:
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Increases productivity and release velocity: Almost half (
46% ) of practitioners said it increases their productivity so they can find and resolve issues faster. -
Makes the job easier: About a third (
35% ) of IT decision-makers said it helps them achieve technical key performance indicators (KPIs) and/or business KPIs (31% ). -
Ensures peak demand performance: Of the total respondents, two out of five (
40% ) said improved system uptime and reliability is a primary benefit —13% more than last year — while38% cited increased operational efficiency and34% focused on security vulnerability management.
Trends Driving Observability
Observability remains a business imperative for forward-thinking enterprise leaders. By mid-2026,
Nearly half (
The New Relic 2023 Observability Forecast is available today. For more information:
Research Methodology:
New Relic and ETR surveyed 1,700 technology professionals in 15 countries across
About New Relic
As a leader in observability, New Relic empowers engineers with a data-driven approach to planning, building, deploying, and running great software. New Relic delivers the only unified data platform that empowers engineers to get all telemetry—metrics, events, logs, and traces—paired with powerful full stack analysis tools to help engineers do their best work with data, not opinions. Delivered through the industry’s first usage-based consumption pricing that’s intuitive and predictable, New Relic gives engineers more value for the money by helping improve planning cycle times, change failure rates, release frequency, and mean time to resolution. This helps the world’s leading brands including adidas Runtastic, American Red Cross, Australia Post, Banco Inter, Chegg, GoTo Group, Ryanair, Sainsbury’s, Signify Health, TopGolf, and World Fuel Services (WFS) improve uptime, reliability, and operational efficiency to deliver exceptional customer experiences that fuel innovation and growth. www.newrelic.com.
Forward-looking statements
This press release contains “forward-looking” statements, as that term is defined under the federal securities laws, including but not limited to statements regarding anticipated trends and benefits related to observability and our products, and expected business impacts related thereto. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements are based on New Relic’s current assumptions, expectations, and beliefs and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that may cause New Relic’s actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement. Further information on factors that could affect New Relic’s financial and other results and the forward-looking statements in this press release is included in the filings New Relic makes with the SEC from time to time, including in New Relic’s most recent Form 10-Q, particularly under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” Copies of these documents may be obtained by visiting New Relic’s Investor Relations website at http://ir.newrelic.com or the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. New Relic assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
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New Relic, Inc.
PR@newrelic.com
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New Relic, Inc.
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Source: New Relic Corporate Communications