Sentry is a popular application monitoring platform that helps developers identify and debug issues on their website.
In this guide, we'll explore six of the best Sentry alternatives and see what use case they are best for.
1. DebugBear
DebugBear is a website performance monitoring platform that focuses on synthetic testing and real user monitoring (RUM).
Synthetic monitoring
Scheduled synthetic tests let you collect monitoring data in a controlled test environment. Run tests from over 30 global test locations and define test devices with a specific network and CPU speed.
Set up alerts to get notified of any performance regressions, and compare test results to each other to identify what change impacted your metrics.
Each test includes detailed web performance reporting, as well as custom performance recommendations.
DebugBear also checks Google Lighthouse scores for Performance, SEO, Accessibility, and Best Practices.
The request waterfall shows how different resources loading on the network impact rendering progress.
You can also track JavaScript and console errors, and real user Core Web Vitals based on Google's Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
Real user monitoring
The DebugBear real user monitoring product focuses on visitor experience and Core Web Vitals metrics.
Identify specific slow pages on your website and diagnose what's causing slow load times, layout shifts, and slow interaction handling.
The metric dashboards highlight specific requests and scripts that are causing delays.
For example, when debugging poor Interaction to Next Paint scores, you can see what scripts run during the interaction and what triggered them to run.
Other DebugBear RUM features:
- Track conversions to measure business impact
- Optimize flow to detect fixes quickly
- Report JavaScript errors
Get started with a free trial.
2. Datadog
Datadog is a comprehensive observability platform that provides monitoring for infrastructure, applications, and logs.
Set up synthetic monitoring to monitor important user flows on your website, or collect real user analytics to identify issues faced by your visitors.
DataDog also supports in-depth infrastructure telemetry collection to monitor your servers and backend code.
One of DataDog's biggest strengths is the ability to create complex custom dashboards and alerting scenarios.
DataDog is a great choice if you need an all-in-one monitoring platform.
3. Rollbar
Rollbar is a monitoring platform with a focus on error tracking. It supports a large number of frameworks and languages.
Get alerted to new errors and see how often specific errors occur.
You can get detailed insights on what led up to an error as well as reviewing the context where it happened, like browser version or window size. You can also see what specific visitors encountered an error on your website.
4. PostHog
PostHog is an open-source product analytics platform for product engineers. It includes session replay, feature flags, and error tracking capabilities.
Get detailed web analytics and build custom dashboards for reporting.
PostHog lets you track marketing analytics, Core Web Vitals, as well as custom events. You can also connect the platform to other data sources like Google or LinkedIn Ads.
5. SigNoz
SigNoz is an OpenTelemetry-based monitoring platform that lets you collect traces, logs, and custom metrics. You can self-host SigNoz or use their cloud offering.
See what's slowing down your website and collect custom metrics. SigNoz lets you build custom dashboards aggregating data for specific hosts or visitor segments.
SigNoz provides a flexible platform for developers to build on. However, it does not support specific features out of the box and your team needs to set up custom data tracking or use OpenTelemetry-based integrations to collect data.
6. Dynatrace
Dynatrace is an enterprise observability product similar to DataDog. Collect detailed infrastructure data to optimize your web application.
The product goes beyond basic monitoring and offers advanced features for security, compliance, and cloud monitoring.
Choosing the Right Sentry Alternative
When selecting an alternative to Sentry, consider these factors:
- Your primary use case: Do you need error tracking, performance monitoring, or both?
- Team size and budget: Some tools are priced for enterprises, others for startups
- Infrastructure complexity: Simple apps may not need full-stack observability
- Integration needs: Check compatibility with your existing tools
For example, DebugBear is great for in-depth end-user web performance monitoring. Rollbar is great if you primarily need an error monitoring tool. SigNoz provides a powerful platform to build on for custom reporting.
Conclusion
Sentry is a powerful monitoring tool built for developers. But it's not always the best fit for every team.
Ready to improve your web performance monitoring? Try DebugBear free for 14 days and see how detailed synthetic reports and real user monitoring data can help you optimize user experience on your website.
Monitor Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
DebugBear monitoring includes:
- In-depth Page Speed Reports
- Automated Recommendations
- Real User Analytics Data