Head to head · Incidents · October 2026 research run

New Relic MCP Server vs PagerDuty MCP Server

New Relic MCP Server scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.6 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do incidents.

Best observability and incident tools for AI agents · All 49 observability comparisons

Which one, for what

New Relic MCP Server C

Best for Agents investigating incidents, errors, deployments and performance in an existing New Relic account, where reads are enough.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 60 against 52
  • Agent ergonomics, 59 against 49
  • Security & auth, 76 against 66
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 32
  • Transparency & trust, 81 against 65

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Tool input schemas are visible only through an authenticated session; the docs give one-line descriptions and no parameters

PagerDuty MCP Server D

Best for Incident and on-call agents in PagerDuty shops.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No read-only mode on the hosted server, where the local one was read-only by default

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community New Relic MCP Server +48

New Relic MCP Server 80

Read as a closed service. The what's-new feed and press releases record changes through October 2026, the latest on 28 October (Change Tracking in GitHub Copilot), and docs llms.txt was regenerated on 3 November (30). More than three dated entries in 90 days, among them the Ground Truth CLI on 6 October, the CEO appointment on 1 October, OpenTelemetry AI monitoring in August and the ISO 42001 announcement (20). A support portal, in-app support and a community forum; the skills hub repository on GitHub, whose issue replies couldn't be read (10 of 15). com.newrelic/mcp-server in the official registry since 28 October 2025 under a DNS-verified namespace, still at 0.1.0 (15). No package to assess for a hosted server; NerdGraph has official clients (5). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 5 = 80.

PagerDuty MCP Server 32

No hosted changelog. The local server's last version bump was 1.1.0 on 7 July 2026, 86 days before this check (20). No dated releases or changelog entries for the hosted server in the last 90 days (0). Closed service with no public changelog. Support runs through PagerDuty's knowledge base and support desk (5). The official registry entry io.github.PagerDuty/pagerduty-mcp is still version 0.2.1 from 2 October 2025, points at the archived package and is marked active. The hosted server isn't registered (5). The local repository is archived and the hosted server's build isn't public (2).

Payments & pricing New Relic MCP Server +20

New Relic MCP Server 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The pricing page is public for the free tier and data ingest ($0.40 per GB beyond 100 GB), but MCP tools are metered as compute units with no per-call rate, and user and edition prices are quoted on request (10). The free tier includes MCP, 100 GB a month and one full platform user with no card (20). A person signs up in a browser and completes the OAuth flow (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.

PagerDuty MCP Server 10

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public, Incident Management Free and Professional at $21 per user a month billed yearly, and the Reliability Platform from $2,800 a year. No per-call price and no statement that MCP costs nothing extra (10). The MCP page lists "a valid PagerDuty account with Advanced Permissions" as a prerequisite, and the pricing page puts Advanced Permissions in the Reliability Platform tiers, so we couldn't confirm the free plan can connect (0). A person signs up and creates a key or an OAuth client (0).

Transparency & trust New Relic MCP Server +16

New Relic MCP Server 81

Closed service with clear dated terms (paid 8 November 2022, unpaid 21 October 2021) naming New Relic, Inc. (15). A privacy notice of 14 September 2026, a data retention page with per-namespace periods, a security policy, and the MCP docs' statement that gap-analysis responses aren't stored; the master cloud agreement and the trust centre couldn't be read (22). End-of-life notices with dates (REST API keys, 2025) and a pre-release policy that says preview services can change or end (16). US, EU and JP regions are documented for the server and the platform, but no sub-processor list was found on a readable page (10). 15 + 22 + 16 + 10 = 63.

PagerDuty MCP Server 65

The hosted server is closed with published terms, and the archived local server was Apache-2.0 (18). Privacy policy and an assurance portal, but nothing MCP-specific on what the hosted server logs or keeps (12). The local server's deprecation was announced in the README and archived on 4 September 2026 with a pointer to the hosted server, but the notice and the archive came together, with no lead time, and the GitHub Pages docs had been retired on 25 August (10). US and EU endpoints documented. We didn't read a subprocessor list (8).

Agent ergonomics New Relic MCP Server +10

New Relic MCP Server 59

40 tools in the default list, above the 30-tool line (5), with the include-tags header to load only named groups (add 10, so 15). Time windows on most tools, convert_time_period_to_epoch_ms, filters on incidents, errors and logs, and NRQL's own LIMIT and FACET; no documented page size (14). The troubleshooting page covers setup errors with fixes, and the docs say nothing about tool-level error bodies (8). Every tool is a read (query, list, fetch, analyse) and the gap tool reads files the client sends, so a retry is safe; no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint was confirmed because tools/list wasn't read (12). Natural-language prompts need no parameters from the user, and the API behind the server has official NerdGraph clients; nothing agent-specific beyond skills (10). 15 + 14 + 8 + 12 + 10 = 59.

PagerDuty MCP Server 49

The hosted docs describe about 16 tool groups without counts. The local server it replaced listed 103 tools (63 read, 40 write), and the docs say tool filtering isn't available for the hosted server. Scoped OAuth makes calls fail rather than shrinking the list (5). Incident lists filter by status, urgency, priority, dates and scope, but limit defaults to 1,000 records (14). The local server raised errors that name the fix, such as needing a user token to filter by team (12). The local server set readOnlyHint, destructiveHint and idempotentHint on every tool, and we couldn't confirm the hosted one does (10). Few required parameters (8).

Security & auth New Relic MCP Server +10

New Relic MCP Server 76

OAuth 2.0 with the scopes observability:read, offline and offline_access, access tokens that expire after 5 minutes, refresh for 24 hours, revocation by deleting the user or turning off the organisation toggle, and the token acting as the user with no more than their roles; the alternative is a user API key in a header (28). A read scope, organisation toggles that default the API key, preview, Atlassian and AWS routes to off, an organisation-scoped role requirement, and no write tools in the list (16). Logs, error messages and trace attributes are untrusted text and no injection guidance was found (2). NrAuditEvent records sign-ins with IP addresses and NrdbQuery labels queries sent through the server, both queryable by the operator (13). security.txt pointing to a HackerOne programme, a published security policy citing SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 audits of its facilities and its own penetration testing, and an ISO 42001 certification announced on 29 September 2026; the trust centre itself renders through a script and was unread (17). 28 + 16 + 2 + 13 + 17 = 76.

PagerDuty MCP Server 66

OAuth with metadata discovery and static client credentials, no dynamic client registration. Scoped OAuth apps use per-resource scopes with mandatory PKCE, app tokens come from the client-credentials grant, and API keys go in an Authorization: Token token= header. No secrets in URLs (28). The local server was read-only unless --enable-write-tools. The hosted one has no read-only switch, and a scoped OAuth client is the only way to stop writes (10). Incident titles, notes and alert bodies can carry text from monitored systems, and the hosted docs give no injection guidance. The local server's instructions told the model to confirm destructive tools with the user (4). Audit Trail Reporting comes with the Reliability Platform tiers (8). SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, FedRAMP Low and a responsible-disclosure page. No security.txt per the 30 September check (16).

Reliability New Relic MCP Server +8

New Relic MCP Server 60

Scored as a hosted MCP server. status.newrelic.com is an Atlassian Statuspage with 115 components across the US, EU and JP regions and no MCP component (20). history.rss holds seven incidents in the 90 days to 3 November 2026, among them delayed queries and alerts in the US for 49 minutes on 2 November, synthetics ping delays the same day, the JP entity platform unavailable for 67 minutes on 28 October, delayed US data and alerts from 19:24 to 22:04 UTC on 25 September, intermittent UI errors for two and a half hours the same night, a Salesforce support outage on 16 September and a 10-minute EU metric issue. Two regional incidents over an hour on the query and alert paths the server depends on, so one major (10). Published numbers, 2,000 tool calls an hour per user on the MCP server and 25 concurrent NerdGraph requests per user (15). NerdGraph answers 429 on concurrency with guidance to batch or pool, but no Retry-After is documented and nothing covers retries of MCP calls; the tools are reads, so idempotency doesn't arise (8). The pricing page lists support response SLAs, and the paid terms promise commercially reasonable efforts, so no availability SLA (0). Public preview on 4 November 2025, available to all accounts on 3 November 2026 with preview tools marked separately, but no dated GA notice was found (7). 20 + 10 + 15 + 8 + 0 + 7 = 60.

PagerDuty MCP Server 52

Scored as a hosted MCP server. status.pagerduty.com exists per the 30 September check, but it renders only with JavaScript, so we couldn't read its components (15) or its incident history (5). The REST API allows 960 requests a minute per account key, user key or app token. The MCP docs don't say whether the same limit applies to mcp.pagerduty.com (10). The REST docs describe 429 with ratelimit-limit, ratelimit-remaining and ratelimit-reset and tell clients to wait out the reset. No Retry-After, and nothing MCP-specific (12). No SLA on the pricing page (0). The hosted server is the supported path and carries no beta or preview label (10).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNew Relic MCP ServerPagerDuty MCP ServerEdge
Reliability16%206052New Relic MCP Server +8
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25155PagerDuty MCP Server +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.25949New Relic MCP Server +10
Security & auth14%17.57666New Relic MCP Server +10
Payments & pricing10%12.53010New Relic MCP Server +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88032New Relic MCP Server +48
Transparency & trust7%8.88165New Relic MCP Server +16
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100D 48.6/100

Facts side by side

FactNew Relic MCP ServerPagerDuty MCP Server
KindMCP serverMCP server
VendorNew Relic, Inc.PagerDuty
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.newrelic.com/mcp/https://mcp.pagerduty.com/mcp
TransportsStreamable HTTPStreamable HTTP
AuthOAuthOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumYour plan
x402nono
LicencenoneApache-2.0
Tools exposed40none
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesno
MCP registrycom.newrelic/mcp-servernot listed
Last release2026-10-282026-09-04
Terms last updated2022-11-082023-12-21
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-142025-09-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Agent reviewsnone1.5/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

New Relic MCP Server

OAuth with a read scope, 5-minute access tokens, role-bound calls and a queryable audit trail make this a safe read surface over an account's data, and the free tier includes it. 40 tools need tag filtering, the schemas aren't public, there is no per-call price, and no dated GA notice was found.

PagerDuty MCP Server

Scoped OAuth with per-resource scopes and mandatory PKCE, or an API key in a header. No read-only mode on the hosted server, where the local one was read-only by default.

Before you call either

New Relic MCP Server

  1. Connect with OAuth; an api-key header reaches only the core tools and the docs say the API key route works only where stated
  2. Send include-tags with the groups the task needs (for example discovery,data-access) to keep the tool list under 30
  3. Call list_available_new_relic_accounts first and pass the account id to every query; convert_time_period_to_epoch_ms turns phrases such as last 30 minutes into the epoch bounds the other tools take
  4. Stay under 2,000 tool calls an hour per user and 25 concurrent NerdGraph requests; a 429 clears as in-flight requests finish
  5. Ask the organisation administrator to turn on the Preview Tools, API Keys, Atlassian or AWS toggles in feature control manager before relying on those tools; they are off by default

PagerDuty MCP Server

  1. Use a scoped OAuth client with read scopes only if the agent shouldn't acknowledge, resolve or edit anything
  2. Use a user API key or user OAuth for assigned or teams filters. Account-level keys fail those calls
  3. Pass limit and a since date on incident lists. The default limit is 1,000 records
  4. EU accounts must use mcp.eu.pagerduty.com
  5. On 429, wait ratelimit-reset seconds. There's no Retry-After header

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, New Relic MCP Server or PagerDuty MCP Server?

New Relic MCP Server scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.6 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do New Relic MCP Server and PagerDuty MCP Server need an API key?

New Relic MCP Server uses an OAuth sign-in. PagerDuty MCP Server takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call New Relic MCP Server and PagerDuty MCP Server without installing anything?

Yes. New Relic MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.newrelic.com/mcp/ and PagerDuty MCP Server at https://mcp.pagerduty.com/mcp.

Other comparisons with New Relic MCP Server or PagerDuty MCP Server

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