Having previously compared the top 5 Datadog alternatives and the top 5 alternatives to Honeybadger, this time we'll compare Sentry against five competing application performance monitoring (APM) tools, so that you can find the best choice for you. We'll compare Sentry to AppSignal first, then Honeybadger, Datadog, New Relic, and Scout.

We're excited to announce that AppSignal now supports Pino logs, making managing and monitoring your logging data easier than ever. By sending Pino logs directly to AppSignal, you can consolidate all your data in one place, giving you a clear overview of your app's performance for faster troubleshooting. Importantly, AppSignal now also works with Fastify 5, making it a great choice for Fastify developers looking for an APM that integrates seamlessly with their stack.

In the first part of this series, we explored how AppSignal can significantly enhance the robustness of Open edX platforms. We saw the challenges that Open edX faces as it scales and how AppSignal's features — including real-time performance monitoring and automated error tracking — provide essential tools for DevOps teams. Our walkthrough covered the initial setup and integration of AppSignal with Open edX, highlighting the immediate benefits of this powerful observability framework.

In Rails, we're more likely to use SQL databases than other frameworks. Unlike NoSQL databases, which can be scaled horizontally with relative ease, SQL databases like PostgreSQL or MySQL are much less amenable to easy scaling. As a result, our database usually becomes the primary bottleneck as our business grows. Although SQL databases are very efficient, as our growing customer base puts an increasing load on our servers, we begin scaling our instance counts, workers, etc.

We're excited to share that AppSignal has once again been recognized as one of the top performance and error monitoring tools in the 2024 Ruby on Rails Community Survey. This year, we maintained our position as the fifth most popular performance monitoring tool and climbed from seventh to fourth place in the error tracking rankings. This result means that AppSignal now stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside some much larger competitors that are backed by a combined $600 million in venture capital funding.

AppSignal is excited to announce that we've given our charts a major makeover, making them more powerful and user-friendly. We've rebuilt our charts from the ground up.

Imagine stepping into the role of a DevOps engineer at an online learning company that utilizes Open edX as its core Learning Management System (LMS). As the platform scales to accommodate more learners, a myriad of challenges begin to surface: These are just the tip of the iceberg. It's pivotal that you provide timely reports on site performance and error tracking in real time, and fix any issues before they affect a significant user base.

We're excited to introduce Check-ins, our no-fuss solution to monitoring your scheduled jobs and continuous processes. AppSignal Check-ins allow you to seamlessly monitor the scheduling, run times, and health of your scheduled jobs and processes, with a simple setup using helpers or API endpoints. In this post, we'll introduce you to the new Check-ins feature and show you how to start monitoring your app's background processes with AppSignal.

For Phoenix developers, maintaining the health of your applications is critical. AppSignal offers a powerful solution to gain deep insights into your application's performance and stability. In this introductory guide, we'll walk through the process of setting up AppSignal in your Phoenix app, instrumenting your code for detailed monitoring, handling errors effectively, and utilizing AppSignal's features to maintain and improve your application's performance.