Best monitoring tools
Application monitoring, uptime checks, error tracking, and observability platforms.
Monitoring tools help engineering teams understand what's happening in their systems — from infrastructure metrics and application performance to error tracking and user experience. Good monitoring means catching issues before users report them and understanding root causes quickly when things go wrong.
The market ranges from focused tools (Sentry for errors, Uptime Robot for availability) to full observability platforms (Datadog, New Relic) that combine metrics, traces, and logs. Open-source alternatives like Grafana and Prometheus offer powerful self-hosted options.
When evaluating monitoring tools, pay close attention to pricing models. Many charge based on data volume, which can lead to surprise bills as your application grows. Consider what you actually need to monitor, start with the essentials, and expand as needed.
All monitoring tools
Cloud-scale monitoring and observability platform for infrastructure, applications, and logs.
Application monitoring platform focused on error tracking, performance monitoring, and session replay.
Uptime monitoring, log management, and incident management platform with a clean, modern interface.
Open-source observability platform for metrics visualization, dashboards, and alerting from any data source.
Full-stack observability platform with APM, infrastructure, logs, and browser monitoring.
Simple uptime monitoring service that checks your websites every 5 minutes and alerts you when they go down.
Log management and observability platform with unlimited data ingestion and powerful queries.
Incident management platform with Slack-native workflows and post-incident learning.
Open-source full-stack monitoring with session replay, errors, and logs.
Popular monitoring comparisons
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Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between monitoring and observability?
How do I avoid surprise monitoring bills?
Do I need Datadog or is something simpler enough?
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New monitoring tools, price changes, and honest takes — weekly.