Alerty Blog

15 Best Sentry Alternatives For Error Tracking & Monitoring

Written by Jack Dwyer | Aug 2, 2024 2:33:26 PM

anEver wondered how to keep your systems running smoothly and avoid unexpected downtime? Imagine your website crashing for hours without knowing why customers are leaving. Tools like Sentry alternatives can quickly identify performance issues, allowing you to solve problems before they impact your business. This blog offers a comprehensive guide to various tools that serve as alternatives to Sentry.

Looking for a Sentry alternative that delivers? Check out Alerty's free APM solution for valuable insights and an application performance monitoring system.

Table of Contents

What Is Sentry?

Sentry is a prime application performance monitoring (APM) tool that gives developers real-time insights into their:

  • Applications
  • Websites
  • Mobile apps

It integrates error tracking and performance monitoring into a single platform, allowing developers to quickly:

  • Identify
  • Diagnose
  • Resolve issues

User-Friendly Interface

Sentry features a user-friendly interface with various project views that streamline the troubleshooting process, making it easier to pinpoint and address problems effectively.

Support for Diverse Development Environments

Sentry supports a broad array of programming languages and frameworks and ensures compatibility with the diverse technologies used in modern application development. Its comprehensive capabilities, including:

  • Tracking errors
  • Monitoring performance
  • Offering detailed insights into both frontend and backend issues.

These features make it a versatile tool for developers looking to enhance the stability and performance of their applications.

Developers can utilize Sentry Alternatives, which offer similar functionalities and features. Some popular alternatives include:

  • New Relic
  • Datadog
  • Dynatrace

These platforms also provide essential application monitoring tools, allowing developers to identify and resolve performance issues efficiently. By exploring these alternatives, developers can find the best fit for their needs and preferences, ensuring optimal application performance.

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Key Features and Functionalities of Sentry

Error Tracking

Sentry excels at identifying and diagnosing application errors. It provides detailed reports on each error, including the context and stack trace, helping developers quickly understand and fix issues. 

Performance Monitoring

It offers in-depth performance monitoring by tracing slow-loading pages back to their root causes, such as inefficient API calls or slow database queries. Sentry also profiles code to pinpoint performance bottlenecks at a granular level, helping optimize application performance.

Frontend Performance Monitoring

Sentry’s client-side performance monitoring features give developers full-stack visibility. This includes identifying and resolving frontend issues like slow JavaScript execution or problems with resource loading, ensuring a smoother user experience.

Prioritization

The tool allows developers to prioritize issues based on their impact on users. This ensures that the most critical problems are addressed first, improving overall application stability and user satisfaction.

What Are the Limitations? Why Do Others Consider Sentry Alternatives?

While Sentry is a popular tool for error handling and logging, it has some limitations that might prompt users to explore alternative solutions. One primary limitation is Sentry's event-based approach, which heavily relies on manual instrumentation for error tracking. 

Challenges of Traditional Error Monitoring

This can result in visibility issues, especially for problems that do not lead to immediate crashes, such as stalled startups or frozen screens.

Reactive Approach and Limited Proactive Capabilities

Sentry mainly operates reactively, only identifying problems already set up for logging. As a result, it may not predict unlogged issues, particularly on mobile platforms where user experiences vary widely, and issues may not manifest as crashes or stack traces. This can significantly impact the ability to address new, unanticipated problems effectively.

Visibility Gaps and Missing Critical Information

In addition to these limitations, Sentry may need to provide more comprehensive visibility for effective monitoring. It might overlook or under-report critical issues like background crashes or network errors, which are crucial for understanding overall performance and user experience. 

This can be especially problematic if you need help generating logs, such as slow transactions or failed network calls.

Using Sentry for debugging may lead to unpredictable outcomes, often requiring repetitive logging and frequent releases to pinpoint the context of an issue. This can be time-consuming and frustrating. Exploring alternative tools could be beneficial if you seek a solution that offers:

  • More proactive monitoring
  • Improved visibility into all issue types
  • Quicker resolution times

Alerty: A Proactive Alternative to Sentry

If you seek a more proactive approach, better visibility into all issues, or a more efficient debugging process, consider exploring Alerty as an alternative to Sentry.

  • Cloud Monitoring Service: Designed for developers and early-stage startups.
  • Application Performance Monitoring: Keeps track of app performance to ensure smooth operation.
  • Database Monitoring: This tool supports databases like Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS, tracking metrics such as CPU usage and memory consumption.
  • Incident Management: Provides tools for effective incident handling.
  • Technology Support: Compatible with NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js to help developers identify and resolve issues.

Alerty features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience. Its Universal Service Monitoring covers dependencies like:

  • Stripe API
  • OpenAI
  • Vercel

Key Benefits of Alerty

  • AI-Driven Setup: Simplifies the configuration process with advanced AI, making setup easy and efficient.
  • Cost-Effective Solution: Offers an affordable alternative to competitors, delivering great value.
  • Ease of Use: Designed for quick and straightforward setup.
  • Integration with Sentry: Compatible with tools like Sentry for enhanced functionality.
  • Ideal for Small Teams: Perfect for developers and small teams seeking efficient and budget-friendly monitoring solutions.

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

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Criteria To Consider When Choosing Sentry Alternatives

Pricing and Licensing

When looking for alternative options to Sentry, it is essential to consider pricing and licensing. You should understand the pricing model of the APM tool. Some tools base pricing on the following:

  • Number of hosts
  • GB of data
  • Number of users

Make sure the costs align with your usage to fit your budget. Transparent pricing without hidden fees or overage charges is ideal. Avoid vendor lock-in with flexible licensing.

Ease of Use

Another crucial criterion to consider when choosing Sentry alternatives is ease of use. Evaluate the tool's user interface and dashboards:

  • Is the tool intuitive and easy to navigate?
  • Can you quickly access the data you need? 

Consider the onboarding process:

  • How long does it take to get up and running with the tool? 
  • Is there good documentation and support available? 

For instance, Alerty uses AI to help with the setup, meaning you will operate with minimal effort and time spent.

Monitoring Capabilities

Ensure that the alternative APM tool covers the entire application stack, including:

  • Web apps
  • Mobile apps
  • Servers
  • Databases, etc. 

Avoid gaps in visibility. Alerty lets you deploy agents for monitoring, providing a more comprehensive approach to APM. Assess the depth of metrics collected and the ability to create custom dashboards and alerts. Look for advanced features that match your needs, like:

  • Real user monitoring
  • Code-level diagnostics
  • AI-powered insights, etc.

Scalability

Another aspect to consider is scalability. Understand the data retention policies and the tool's ability to scale with your data volume. Avoid tools that limit data or charge extra for longer retention periods. Evaluate the tool's performance as your usage grows. 

Integrations

Before settling on a Sentry alternative, ensure the APM tool integrates with your existing toolchain, such as:

  • Ticketing
  • Collaboration
  • CI/CD, etc. 

Avoid creating data silos by choosing tools that easily integrate with your current setup. Look for pre-built integrations for your application frameworks, cloud platforms, etc., to simplify the setup. Many APM tools, including Alerty, offer one-click integrations, but you must verify the tools' integration capabilities before deciding.

Deployment Options

Determine whether you need an on-premises, cloud-hosted, or hybrid deployment model for your APM tool. Ensure the tool offers the flexibility you require. Assess the effort needed to deploy and maintain the solution. Managed services can reduce overhead and simplify the deployment process.

Customer Support

  • Consider the customer support provided with the alternative APM tool. 
  • Evaluate the quality of documentation, tutorials, and support resources available. 
  • Ensure you can get the help you need when necessary. 
  • Look for a vendor with a strong track record and reputation in the APM space.

15 Best Sentry Alternatives For Error Tracking & Monitoring

1. Alerty

Alerty is a cloud monitoring service for developers and early-stage startups, offering application performance monitoring, database monitoring, and incident management. 

Technology Support

  •  NextJS
  •  React
  •  Vue
  •  Node.js

Database Monitoring

  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • RDS

Key Metrics Tracked

  • CPU usage
  • Memory consumption

Alerty features quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) to optimize user experience. Its Universal Service Monitoring covers dependencies like:

  • Stripe API
  • OpenAI
  • Vercel 

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, providing a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It is designed for ease of use, allowing quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

2. Raygun

Raygun helps you monitor how well your JavaScript web applications are running. It finds errors and gathers information to help you determine what's wrong and how to fix it. Raygun lets you know about any issues with your app's performance, whether on a website or a mobile device. 

It gathers data about how users are experiencing your app, keeps track of errors and crashes, and gives you detailed information about any problems. You can use Raygun with RUM and Crash reporting for a complete, user-focused way to monitor your app.

3. The ELK Stack

Elastic APM, or Application Performance Monitoring, is a crucial component of the ELK stack. The ELK stack is a collection of three open-source products:

  • Elasticsearch
  • Logstash
  • Kibana

Elastic APM utilizes open-source libraries specifically designed for collecting performance data. The data is then sent to a server for processing.

Elastic APM and Elasticsearch: Data Collection and Storage

In addition to the data collection libraries, Elastic APM leverages the power of Elasticsearch and Kibana. Elasticsearch is a search and analytics engine that efficiently stores and indexes the collected data, making it easy to search and analyze when needed.

Kibana: Data Visualization and Analysis

Kibana is a data visualization tool. It presents the data processed by Elasticsearch in an easy-to-understand format, allowing users to visualize complex data sets and draw insights from them. Due to its powerful and flexible nature, the ELK Stack is one of the most popular choices for processing data.

4. Datadog

Datadog's Advanced Performance Monitoring (APM) is a comprehensive solution that provides full tracing capabilities. 

Capabilities

  • Monitors applications across various browsers, platforms, and databases
  • Provides detailed visibility down to specific commands and lines of code

This enables you to oversee your applications across a thoroughly:

  • Multitude of browsers
  • Platforms
  • Databases
  • Specific commands and lines of code 

It's like having a microscope that provides a detailed view of your application's functioning. It also seamlessly links data from the front-end and back-end operations. 

A Comprehensive View of Your System's Health

This holistic view ensures that you constantly monitor your services' overall health and dependencies, leaving no stone unturned. This is crucial in maintaining the seamless operation of the services that your users have come to rely on.

Your Performance Troubleshooting Ally

Datadog harnesses the power of this extensive information to assist you in troubleshooting and fixing performance issues. It's like having a dedicated detective on your team, constantly analyzing clues to improve your app's performance.

5. Better Stack

Better Stack Logs represents a pivotal component of the broader Better Stack ecosystem. This ecosystem is designed to provide a comprehensive suite of tools for managing and monitoring your digital infrastructure. 

A Unified Monitoring Solution

Alongside Better Stack Uptime, Better Stack Logs forms a sophisticated, all-encompassing monitoring solution with built-in incident management capabilities. These two platforms work harmoniously to provide detailed insights into your applications' performance and health.

Seamless Integration and Alerting

With just a single click, you can effortlessly integrate Better Uptime. Once integrated, this platform is responsible for notifying your team members about any unusual activity or anomalies within your application. This might include anything from a specific log message error to a sudden shift in usage trends.

6. AppSignal

AppSignal is a powerful, comprehensive tool designed to assist you in monitoring both your frontend and backend performance. It is a reliable solution for tracking errors and gathering crucial application metrics. This tool is equipped with customizable dashboards, allowing you to monitor various metrics, such as:

  • Load size
  • Database queries
  • Revenue

Proactive Issue Detection with AppSignal

AppSignal stands out with its system, designed to identify unusual activity. This feature is equipped with intuitive warnings that promptly alert you when any application component malfunctions. This can be invaluable in preempting potential issues before they escalate and affect your operations.

7. Flare

Flare is a tool that tracks errors in the Laravel project. It can suggest solutions and offer related documentation for common problems. The best part? When developing locally, the Ignition error page can automatically fix things with just one click. Error tracking in Laravel has never been easier.

Flexible Sharing and Collaboration

You can share your exceptions from either your local or production environment. Choose exactly what content to show when you ask for help. Need more help? Invite others to share the workload for your projects. Flare is a Laravel error tracker that remains cost-effective no matter how many collaborators or projects you add.

Enhanced Error Tracking with Ignition and Flare

Flare works with Ignition, Laravel's open-source error page. Anybody who has seen a local error will appreciate Flare's online features for monitoring production projects. Flare replicates your local debugging experience and offers a fast, customizable interface. Ignition and Flare were built by a team of developers.

8. LogRocket

LogRocket is an innovative and comprehensive tool meticulously designed to monitor your website and closely analyze how users interact with it. This state-of-the-art software is unique in the market with a distinct feature that allows you to replay user sessions—it essentially acts as a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) specifically tailored for your website.

This incredibly invaluable feature provides an unparalleled, firsthand experience of how users:

  • Navigate
  • Interact
  • Engage with your site

It allows you to observe and understand their behavior closely, enabling you to identify:

  • Potential areas of concern
  • Points of friction
  • Opportunities for improvement

Doing so can optimize your website to enhance your users' experience, boost engagement, and ultimately drive growth.

9. BugSnag

Bugsnag is a tool for watching and fixing problems in Javascript apps. It finds script errors by itself and works across different browsers. It groups similar errors. It also works with JavaScript frameworks like:

  • React
  • Vue
  • Angular

It even collects specific data from these frameworks' error handlers. Bugsnag lets you filter errors based on the following:

  • Browser
  • OS
  • User
  • And more

It also lets you compare different app versions, automatically collects diagnostic data, traces errors back to their source, and collects breadcrumbs. You can use Bugsnag as a service or host it yourself.

10. AppDynamics

AppDynamics Cloud is a robust alternative to Sentry, offering a more business-centric approach to application performance monitoring. Unlike Sentry, which focuses on error tracking and performance issues, AppDynamics provides real-time insights into how application performance impacts business outcomes. 

Core Features for Comprehensive Monitoring

Key features include business transaction insights that alert you to unusual behaviors threatening key business results, experience journey mapping to visualize user interactions and identify optimization opportunities, and comprehensive real-time monitoring for browser and mobile applications. 

Driving Business Value Through Performance Optimization

This holistic view helps preemptively address problems and optimize user experience and operational performance, making it a valuable tool for aligning technical performance with business goals.

11. New Relic

New Relic offers an extensive range of monitoring services designed to cater to various needs. This includes:

  • Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
  • Monitoring for Kubernetes (K8s)
  • Machine Learning Model Monitoring
  • Log Management
  • Synthetics
  • And more

A Comprehensive Performance Toolkit

Their Application Performance Monitoring service is a comprehensive tool designed to provide a holistic view of your system. It offers many features, making it a popular choice among APM monitoring tools. It enables you to visualize and comprehend your system's performance and identify areas for improvement.

Scalability and Versatility of New Relic APM

New Relic's APM provides the necessary insights to ensure optimal performance, whether a small-scale application or a large-scale enterprise system. It's not just about monitoring but about understanding and improving your system for better efficiency and reliability.

12. Dynatrace

Dynatrace provides a comprehensive monitoring solution with an APM tool for automated observability across cloud-native services. It examines:

  • Logs
  • Metrics
  • User sessions

These features enhance observability to determine what's going wrong, enhancing observability.

Accelerated Problem Solving with AI

Dynatrace API leverages AI-driven root cause analysis, quickly pinpointing underlying issues and automatically correlating errors with relevant application performance metrics. End-to-end distributed tracing capabilities monitor requests across microservices, offering insights into how errors propagate through different application parts.

Comprehensive Monitoring and SRE Support

It offers comprehensive cloud monitoring, detecting issues with third-party services, disconnected hosts, and overall platform health. Dynatrace supports site reliability engineering by optimizing user experience, enhancing application availability and performance, and proactively fixing issues with full-stack visibility.

13. Airbrake

Airbrake error monitoring and application performance monitoring tool stands out with its advanced alerting and notification system. It allows users to customize alerts based on various parameters, such as:

  • Error severity
  • Frequency
  • Specific error types

This customizable approach ensures that developers receive timely notifications for critical issues, empowering them to take timely action.

Airbrake's lightweight APM solution helps developers monitor their application's performance and availability by tracking metrics such as:

  • HTTP requests
  • Response times
  • Error rates
  • User satisfaction

It supports monitoring and reporting for over 50 programming languages, frameworks, and libraries.

Airbrake also distinguishes itself with its robust contextual information, providing developers with enriched data, including:

  • Parameters
  • Users
  • Environment variables

This comprehensive view enables developers to thoroughly analyze errors and make informed decisions to enhance application performance.

14. AppSignal

AppSignal's comprehensive suite includes:

  • Error Tracking
  • Performance Monitoring
  • Uptime Monitoring
  • Log Management

It is a tool that helps you track and improve the performance of your website or application. It keeps an eye on both frontend and backend operations, monitors your server, and tracks errors.

AppSignal is an error tracker for Ruby, Elixir, Node.js, and Python applications. It provides comprehensive error tracking capabilities that display error messages at the start of the page, showing crucial details like:

  • Hostname
  • Path
    Request ID saved for each request 

Users can pinpoint the host where errors occurred and assess hardware and network performance.

With AppSignal, you can collect important metrics from your app and receive alerts via email, Slack, or other messaging platforms to stay on top of issues. AppSignal allows users to manage issue statuses and customize notification preferences seamlessly. 

15. Rollbar

Rollbar assists developers in identifying and resolving errors before they affect users and provides timely notifications about new issues to users before customers begin reporting them. Rollbar provides:

  • Crash reporting
  • Error tracking
  • Logging
  • Error monitoring

Rollbar streamlines error monitoring by grouping similar issues and minimizing noise. You can customize the system to your needs by creating custom rules or accepting Rollbar's suggestions. Rollbar empowers faster deployments with fewer errors, boosting deployment frequency by up to 9 times for companies.

The platform collects errors from nearly any major platform, language, or framework, providing real-time visibility into detailed exception messages and stack traces. Developers can trace errors directly to:

  • A specific line of code
  • source code commit
  • Release 

Choosing the Right Sentry Alternatives for Your Organization

Error Tracking and Monitoring

Whether you are looking for essential error tracking or comprehensive application monitoring, your choice should align with your needs. 

  • Tools like Raygun may be adequate if you prioritize error tracking.
  • Comprehensive performance monitoring tools like Alerty or Datadog offer full visibility into your application performance.

User Interface and Ease of Use

Opt for a tool that is easy to use and quick to set up. Alerty, for instance, leverages AI to ensure a fast and straightforward setup process, saving you time and effort.

Features Offered

Evaluate the features offered by each alternative tool and compare them with Sentry. These features may include:

  • Error tracking
  • Real-time monitoring capabilities
  • Alerting mechanisms
  • Other tools and platform integrations

Pricing Details

Before making a decision, pay close attention to the pricing details for each tool. Some tools, such as Datadog, have complex billing structures, while others, like Alerty, offer more straightforward pricing schemes and even free plans. 

Beware of Hidden Costs: Compare Pricing Carefully

Be sure to compare pricing to avoid any unexpected charges or fees. Recently, it was revealed that Datadog charged a cryptocurrency company $65 million USD. Some of the tools charge incredibly high, so check and compare pricing before you commit. 

Alerting Mechanisms

Ensure that the tool you choose provides effective alerting solutions that promptly notify developers of critical issues. Timely alerts help teams respond promptly to problems, reducing downtime and minimizing any potential negative impact on your application or service.

Alerty as a Sentry Alternative

Alerty stands out as a compelling Sentry alternative that offers essential monitoring capabilities without the hefty price tag. Currently available for free, Alerty provides a comprehensive view of application performance and system health, helping teams manage their infrastructure effectively while controlling costs.

Alerty Advantages for Startups

  • Affordability
  • Ease of Use
  • Quick Setup Process

Presents an attractive option for startups to optimize their monitoring strategy without compromising on essential features.

Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users with Alerty's Free APM Solution

If you're a developer or part of a small team looking for an efficient and cost-effective alternative to Sentry, Alerty might be the solution you've been searching for. Alerty is a cloud monitoring service that caters to developers and early-stage startups. It offers a range of monitoring capabilities to help you identify and fix issues before they impact your users. From application performance monitoring to database monitoring and incident management, Alerty has covered you.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) with Alerty

Alerty's APM capabilities are tailor-made for technologies like NextJS, React, Vue, and Node.js, making it a versatile option for various projects. With Alerty, you can keep a close eye on metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption, helping you pinpoint performance bottlenecks and optimize your applications for a smoother user experience. Real User Monitoring (RUM) is also part of the package, giving you deep insights into how users interact with your applications.

Database Monitoring Made Easy

Regarding database monitoring, Alerty supports popular databases such as Supabase, PostgreSQL, and RDS. By tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption for your databases, Alerty helps you stay on top of potential performance issues. With Alerty, you can quickly catch database-related issues and take proactive steps to ensure smooth operations.

Quick Incident Management and Universal Service Monitoring

Alerty's incident management capabilities are designed to help you respond to issues quickly and effectively. By leveraging AI to simplify setup and monitoring, Alerty offers a cost-effective alternative to other monitoring solutions on the market. In addition to monitoring your applications and databases, Alerty can also monitor third-party dependencies like the Stripe API, OpenAI, and Vercel, providing a comprehensive view of your entire service ecosystem.

Seamless Integration and Ease of Use

One of Alerty's standout features is its ease of use. With quick setup and seamless integration with tools like Sentry, Alerty is designed to fit your existing workflow without any hassles. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just getting started, Alerty's user-friendly interface and intuitive design make monitoring a breeze.

Get Started with Alerty Today

If you're seeking a Sentry alternative with efficient monitoring at an affordable price, Alerty is the solution you've been looking for. Try Alerty's free APM solution today and experience seamless user experience and smooth-running applications.

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