Monitoring vs Manual Testing

Developers should learn monitoring to build resilient, scalable systems that meet service-level objectives (SLOs) and reduce downtime meets developers should learn manual testing to gain a user-centric perspective on software quality, catch edge cases early in development, and perform exploratory testing where automation is impractical. Here's our take.

Monitoring

Nice Pick

Developers should learn monitoring to build resilient, scalable systems that meet service-level objectives (SLOs) and reduce downtime

Pros

• It is essential for production environments, DevOps workflows, and cloud-native applications to quickly identify bottlenecks, debug failures, and improve user experience
• Related to: observability, logging

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Manual Testing

Developers should learn manual testing to gain a user-centric perspective on software quality, catch edge cases early in development, and perform exploratory testing where automation is impractical

Pros

• It's particularly valuable for usability testing, ad-hoc bug hunting, and validating new features before investing in automation scripts, helping ensure software meets real-world expectations and reducing post-release issues
• Related to: test-planning, bug-reporting

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

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

The Bottom Line

Monitoring wins

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