Distributed Logging vs Application Performance Monitoring

Developers should implement distributed logging when building or maintaining systems with multiple independent services, such as microservices or serverless applications, to gain visibility into cross-service interactions and failures meets developers should learn and use apm to proactively detect and resolve performance issues before they impact users, especially in microservices or cloud-native architectures where complexity can obscure root causes. Here's our take.

Distributed Logging

Nice Pick

Developers should implement distributed logging when building or maintaining systems with multiple independent services, such as microservices or serverless applications, to gain visibility into cross-service interactions and failures

Pros

• It is crucial for debugging complex issues that span multiple components, monitoring system health in real-time, and ensuring compliance with audit requirements
• Related to: elastic-stack, fluentd

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Application Performance Monitoring

Developers should learn and use APM to proactively detect and resolve performance issues before they impact users, especially in microservices or cloud-native architectures where complexity can obscure root causes

Pros

• It is critical for maintaining service-level agreements (SLAs), optimizing resource usage, and improving user satisfaction in production environments
• Related to: observability, distributed-tracing

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Distributed Logging is a concept while Application Performance Monitoring is a tool. We picked Distributed Logging based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Distributed Logging wins

Based on overall popularity. Distributed Logging is more widely used, but Application Performance Monitoring excels in its own space.