Manual Monitoring vs APM Tools

Developers should learn manual monitoring for scenarios where automated systems are unavailable, during initial development phases to understand system behavior, or in legacy environments with limited tooling meets developers should use apm tools when deploying applications to production to ensure reliability, troubleshoot issues quickly, and optimize performance. Here's our take.

Manual Monitoring

Nice Pick

Developers should learn manual monitoring for scenarios where automated systems are unavailable, during initial development phases to understand system behavior, or in legacy environments with limited tooling

Pros

• It's crucial for troubleshooting immediate issues, gaining hands-on insights into system performance, and as a fallback when automated monitoring fails, ensuring operational resilience and quick problem resolution
• Related to: log-analysis, system-administration

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

APM Tools

Developers should use APM tools when deploying applications to production to ensure reliability, troubleshoot issues quickly, and optimize performance

Pros

• They are particularly valuable for microservices architectures, cloud-native applications, and high-traffic systems where monitoring distributed components is critical
• Related to: observability, distributed-tracing

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Manual Monitoring is a methodology while APM Tools is a tool. We picked Manual Monitoring based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Manual Monitoring wins

Based on overall popularity. Manual Monitoring is more widely used, but APM Tools excels in its own space.