Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was your app. We'd like to give you a whistle-stop tour of our core features in just five minutes to help you get the most out of AppSignal and your app.

Guide contents

This guide covers the following AppSignal features:

• Namespaces allow you to group your metrics into logical categories.
• Tagging allows you to add additional information to your metric data.
• Time Detective lets you explore historic app performance data.
• Performance Monitoring gives you insights into slow requests and queries.
• Custom Metrics give you the flexibility to track any key data point alongside metric data.
• Uptime Monitoring tracks your app's availability with alerts and status pages.
• Host Metrics give the insights needed for host optimization.
• Anomaly Detection notifies you when your app behaves unexpectedly.
• Logging provides access to deep log-level insights into your app's performance.
• Check-ins help ensure that background processes run reliably.

Namespaces

Use namespaces to put your metrics into logical groupings for streamlined monitoring.

AppSignal namespaces can categorize your app into logical partitions, like backend, API, and frontend. Namespace metrics are grouped, making them easy to monitor. Notifications can be configured per namespace, and namespaces can also be muted.

For example, you could create an admin namespace for your app's back office. You could then mute that namespace to avoid getting alert fatigue from non-mission critical issues. You can also use namespaces to quickly filter data in AppSignal.

Read our learning center article on namespaces.

Tagging

Add contextual insights to your app's monitoring data using tags.

AppSignal's tagging feature lets you add more context to your monitoring data. We'd recommend tagging unique user identifiers (UUIDs) like user IDs to help you quickly identify which users encounter errors.

For example, you could speed up debugging by adding a unique user identifier tag (UUID) to requests to help you quickly infer which users are experiencing issues within your app.

Read AppSignal's tagging and sample data documentation.

Time Detective

Access a snapshot of your app's monitoring data at any point in time.

Time Detective helps you make quick, data-driven decisions by giving you 360º insights into your app's errors, performance, alerts, host metrics, and logs at any specific time. You can launch Time Detective anywhere in AppSignal using the ⌘/Ctrl + / shortcut to instantly dive deeper into your app's performance.

For example, you can use Time Detective to go straight to relevant log lines or performance insights from an error.

Performance Monitoring

Find and fix slow code before it becomes a bottleneck.

AppSignal's performance monitoring helps identify which parts of your app are performing suboptimally and what impact they're having overall, helping you tackle performance blind spots before they become bottlenecks.

For example, you can use AppSignal's performance monitoring to sort slow API requests based on their performance impact, allowing you to triage and treat the issues that cause your end users the most pain.

Read more on AppSignal's Performance Monitoring page.

Custom Metrics

Keep track of all of your key metrics in one place.

Custom metrics give instant insights into the information you need and eliminate the need to sift through log lines or complicated reporting tools. With custom metrics, you can supplement your app's critical monitoring data by tracking meaningful metrics like active user counts to identify and resolve potential issues quickly.

For example, you can use Custom Metrics to track core business information, like order counts. This can help you understand, in real-time, how your app's usage impacts performance (and vice versa), eliminating the need for third-party reporting tools.

Read AppSignal's Custom Metrics documentation.

Uptime Monitoring

Be alerted the instant your app goes down.

AppSignal's Uptime Monitoring pings your app from four global locations and ensures you're the first to know when and where it's down. Uptime Monitoring includes a free public status page for your clients to know when and where your service is experiencing problems.

For example, you can set alerts for uptime outages, helping you identify and isolate issues.

Read AppSignal's Uptime Monitoring documentation.

Host Metrics

Keep your app's hardware as healthy as its code.

AppSignal's Host Monitoring helps you monitor your hardware's core metrics, such as CPU and load average. It also gives you a complete overview of your stack, for the insights you need to scale efficiently.

For example, host metrics can help determine whether issues stem from your app's software or hardware. You can determine whether a slow request is being caused by underperformant code or insufficient CPU. Host metrics also help you to ensure your app has the necessary hardware to scale efficiently and sustainably.

Read AppSignal's Host Metrics documentation.

Anomaly Detection

Receive alerts for abnormal behavior.

Anomaly Detection can be configured to notify you when any metric meets a specific trigger, such as if your error rate goes above 2% for more than five minutes. This helps you stay agile and alert and fix problems before they cause downtime.

For example, you could create an alert for when your app's error rate exceeds 5% for more than five minutes. If alerted, you can take swift action, like rolling back a deployment before it can impact end users.

Read AppSignal's Anomaly Detection documentation.

Logging

Gain log-level insights into errors and performance problems.

Logging adds a layer of observability to your app. You can live trail, query, and filter logs to see exactly what happened during an error or performance issue without spending time SSHing into your server.

For example, if your app is experiencing an unusual error, you can delve straight into your logs to quickly inspect your app's behavior and trace issues to their root cause without wasting any time.

Read AppSignal's Logging documentation.

Check-ins

Gain insights into background process performance.

Check-ins in AppSignal help you monitor the performance of background processes, like cron jobs. AppSignal can notify you when a process doesn't execute or runs off schedule, ensuring there are no blind spots in your stack.

For example, you can use Check-ins to monitor critical background processes, like an hourly invoicing job, and receive alerts if the process does not execute or takes longer to execute than expected, helping you eliminate critical blind spots in your app.

Read Check-ins documentation.

What Next?

To learn more about how to monitor your app effectively with AppSignal, we recommend:

• Checking out our Learning Center for more tips, tricks and explainers.
• Reading the AppSignal blog for detailed information about monitoring applications.
• Visiting AppSignal's documentation for technical implementation instructions.

You can also reach out to us at any time if you need support or have questions about monitoring your app with AppSignal.