SE

Sentry

★★★★★5/5
free tier available

The industry standard for error tracking across every language and framework.

2026 verdict

Non-negotiable for every project that ships to real users

Best for: Every project that has real users — error monitoring is table stakes for any production application

Not for: Nothing. There is no good reason not to use Sentry in production.

Overview

Sentry is the first tool that goes into every new project. When something breaks in production, you want to know immediately, have the full context, and be able to reproduce it. Sentry provides all three.

The error grouping algorithm is Sentry's core technical achievement. Instead of alerting you every time a single error fires — which on a high-traffic app would generate thousands of notifications — Sentry groups errors by root cause, deduplicates across users, and alerts you once. You see "NullPointerException in checkout flow: 243 occurrences, 18 users" rather than 243 individual alerts.

Stack trace enrichment is equally important. Sentry resolves source maps automatically, pointing to your original TypeScript source at the exact line that threw the error — not the minified bundle. It shows local variables at the time of the error, the triggering HTTP request, the user's browser and OS, and the series of breadcrumbs that preceded the crash.

Session Replay captures a video-like recording of everything the user did before the error, without capturing keystrokes or sensitive data. This is frequently the thing that finally lets you reproduce a bug that was previously intermittent.

Performance monitoring tracks route durations, database queries, external API calls, and Core Web Vitals. Slow database queries and N+1 problems surface automatically without additional instrumentation.

The free tier — 5,000 errors and 10,000 performance transactions per month — is enough for most side projects and early-stage startups.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • +Error grouping and deduplication are best-in-class
  • +Source map resolution points to exact original source lines
  • +Session Replay shows what the user did before the crash
  • +Supports every major language and framework
  • +Performance monitoring and Core Web Vitals included

Cons

  • −Can generate alert noise without proper tuning and filtering
  • −Free tier is limited — 5k errors/month is exceeded quickly
  • −Full observability requires additional tooling beyond Sentry

Pricing in 2026

Developer

Free

  • ·5k errors/month
  • ·10k performance events
  • ·Session Replay (50 sessions)
  • ·1 member

Team

$26/month

  • ·50k errors/month
  • ·100k performance events
  • ·Session Replay included
  • ·Unlimited members

Business

$80/month

  • ·Custom event volume
  • ·Advanced filters
  • ·Priority support
  • ·SLA

Free up to 5k errors/month. Team at $26/month. Business at $80/month.

View current pricing at Sentry →

Used by

GitHubCloudflareStripeDropbox

Tips for using Sentry in production

01

Set up issue alerts with proper grouping rules on day one — unconfigured Sentry generates too much noise

02

The `captureException` call with extra context is far more useful than unadorned error catching

03

Use Sentry's performance monitoring to identify N+1 database queries early in development

Compare Sentry against alternatives

Alternatives to Sentry

Last updated 2026-01-15 · Data sourced from official documentation and independent benchmarks