StatsD
StatsD is a network daemon that listens for statistics, like counters and timers, sent over UDP or TCP, and aggregates them for periodic flushing to a backend service such as Graphite. It provides a simple protocol for applications to send metrics, enabling real-time monitoring and performance analysis. Originally developed by Etsy, it has become a widely adopted standard for collecting and forwarding metrics in distributed systems.
Developers should use StatsD when building applications that require real-time monitoring, especially in microservices or cloud-native architectures, to track performance metrics like request counts, response times, and error rates. It is ideal for environments where lightweight, non-blocking metric collection is needed, as it uses UDP to avoid impacting application performance. Common use cases include web applications, DevOps pipelines, and infrastructure monitoring to identify bottlenecks and ensure system reliability.