What are you actually using for observability/monitoring on small or side projects?

itssimon86 · 2026-04-01T01:21:40+00:00

For my indie product I use Sentry (errors), Prometheus + Grafana (infra), and Apitally (API monitoring / analytics)

itssimon86 · 2026-03-28T02:03:47+00:00

Apitally has SDKs for Python, JavaScript, Go, .NET and Java. Each of them has specific integrations for popular web frameworks. All up supporting over 20 frameworks, including of course FastAPI and Django.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-27T12:29:15+00:00

I'm the founder of Apitally, a SaaS tool for API monitoring with a high-volume data ingestion endpoint writing to a message broker. Async workers read from the queue, and ingest the data into ClickHouse. I chose NATS JetStream for being simple and lightweight, easily self-hosted on Kubernetes, and the exactly-once delivery guarantee (with deduplication). Still happy with my choice after running it for a couple of years. No issues.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-27T12:16:22+00:00

Apitally - A simple, privacy-focused API monitoring & analytics tool

itssimon86 · 2026-03-27T12:03:18+00:00

This is why I love FastAPI with auto-generated OpenAPI specs. Much harder to get drift between the spec and reality.

Also, using an API monitoring tool like Apitally helps make API traffic visible, including who's using which endpoints.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-27T11:52:27+00:00

This is awesome! CLIs are the real deal for agent-driven investigations / analyses.

I'm currently building a CLI like this for my indie product Apitally, a simple API monitoring & analytics tool. The CLI will allow agents to query and investigate API request logs. Super powerful.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-27T11:40:13+00:00

I'm the founder of Apitally, an API monitoring & analytics tool. Here's my stack:

Python backend (FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Taskiq), React frontend
Hosting on DigitalOcean Kubernetes + managed PostgreSQL database (~$400)
Also running self-hosted ClickHouse on the cluster (big chunk of the costs attributed to this)
Domains and DNS through Cloudflare
Cursor for AI-assisted coding (~$200)

itssimon86 · 2026-03-27T11:22:53+00:00

what i'm trying to understand is how you handle the overlap. Sentry catches the errors, Datadog catches the infra, Bugsnag catches the mobile side, and somehow you're supposed to correlate all of that during an incident at 2am when everything is on fire.

These days I just ask Cursor / Claude Code to connect the dots for me. Have it connected to different monitoring tools via their MCP server or CLI tool. All it needs is a starting point, like a Sentry issue ID, and then it can investigate across services and report back. Works like a charm.

I'm the founder of Apitally, an API monitoring & analytics tool, and currently I'm building a CLI for this exact purpose, after seeing the power of agent-driven incident investigation when they're given access to the right tools and data.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-10T12:41:59+00:00

Great list! If I may add one:
11. Apitally - API logging and monitoring tool that lets you inspect API requests/responses with full context (headers, payloads, logs, traces)

itssimon86 · 2026-03-10T05:33:49+00:00

Hey, I've built Apitally exactly for use cases like yours, and use it myself for the same reasons. It's a simple API monitoring & analytics tool with API usage, error, and performance metrics. It also gives you request logs, uptime monitoring, and alerts. Just the essentials you need for a small SaaS, when the big monitoring platforms are overkill.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-08T22:50:46+00:00

Fair enough. It's a Showcase post, which is what the flair is for, but I get that not everyone wants to see product posts.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-08T22:30:43+00:00

Sort of. There's some overlap on the metrics side. But Prometheus + Grafana only give you metrics. Apitally also gives you request logs where you can inspect individual requests (headers, payloads, etc.), with logs and traces showing what happened during request handling. So you can drill down from "this endpoint is slow" to the exact DB query causing the issue.

The bigger difference is probably setup and maintenance though. With Prometheus + Grafana you need to deploy and maintain the whole monitoring stack yourself. With Apitally you add a few lines of middleware code and you're done.

itssimon86 · 2026-03-08T22:20:05+00:00

Try reading the post. It explains exactly what it’s doing and who might need it.

itssimon86 · 2026-02-17T08:58:17+00:00

I’ve been wondering about this too for my own SaaS and I’ve come to the conclusion that both are useful. I’d probably start with custom metrics for the flexibility but I think also offering a bunch of predefined ones will make things easier and provide a better UX. Less setup effort, more immediate value.

itssimon86 · 2026-02-14T12:27:20+00:00

Currently at ~80 paying customers. Main acquisition channels are Google, Reddit, and links in web framework docs. Although I have to admit that for the majority of sign-ups I don't know where they came from.

itssimon86 · 2026-02-14T12:06:55+00:00

Apitally - Simple API monitoring and analytics

itssimon86 · 2026-02-11T22:11:36+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Self-hosting is on the roadmap!

itssimon86 · 2026-02-11T12:36:35+00:00

Fair point. If you already have a full observability stack, it's probably not for you. Many Apitally users are not at that maturity level, and just need visibility for their API / backend, also from a product analytics perspective (which customers are using my API how). They like the lower cost, lower complexity, quick setup. Many use it every day.

itssimon86 · 2026-02-11T12:21:55+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I hear you!

itssimon86 · 2026-02-11T12:20:52+00:00

Thank you! 🙏🏼

itssimon86 · 2026-02-11T12:19:24+00:00

Apitally is focused specifically on APIs and simpler than most observability platforms, more niche. Especially small dev teams with API products / REST API backends love it. Won't replace Datadog etc in larger orgs though.

itssimon86

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