Java is one of the most popular programming languages around thanks to its open-source, user-friendly, and secure nature. While Java makes it relatively easy for programmers to develop applications, monitoring application performance is one of the biggest challenges developers face.
You cannot build robust and efficient Java applications without monitoring their performance. Java developers must have insights into how their applications behave so they can spot and fix bottlenecks to ensure optimal performance and an exceptional user experience. How can Java developers monitor the performance of their applications? With application performance monitoring (APM) tools that offer a host of features, such as real-time monitoring, resource optimization, diagnostics, troubleshooting, and more.
This guide will feature some of the top application performance monitoring tools for Java developers, including Datadog, Dynatrace, Sentry.io, Sematext, and Logtail (aka Logs by Better Stack Logs). Pick the right one for your software development team, and you can ensure that your applications reach their performance potential and your users stay satisfied.
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Datadog is a user-friendly and flexible application performance monitoring platform that promises Java developers the ability to “see inside any stack, any app, at any scale, anywhere.” How can the APM tool make such a promise? By having a comprehensive set of application performance monitoring features all in one place. Those features include:
- Advanced monitoring tools
- Integration with other programmer tools
- DevOps-friendly
- Web recording and alert automation
Datadog’s modern application performance monitoring gives Java developers full visibility into what is happening. The APM tool lets developers monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize the performance of their applications with features like end-to-end trace requests across distributed systems and auto-generated service overviews. The APM software integrates with automation and bug tracking tools, databases, cloud providers, and other programmer tools to help you see events and metrics across the complete DevOps stack, and lets you collect logs automatically from all of your apps, services, and platforms.
Datadog has an intuitive web recorder for capturing critical user journeys and will alert Java developers when performance falters in multiple locations. The APM platform also compiles user experience metrics for frontend errors, load times, etc., and has interactive dashboards that give programmers a real-time bird’s eye view of how their applications are performing.
Lastly, Datadog promotes software development team collaboration through roles, tagging, incident-specific communication streams, alerts, notifications, and more.
Datadog Pricing
Datadog’s pricing can be a bit confusing at first, but it is also very flexible. Pricing will depend on which features your development team uses and to the degree those features get used. For example, log management will run $.10 per ingested or scanned GB per month, while performance monitoring starts at $31 per host, per month.
Check out Datadog’s official pricing page to see what options are available.
Dynatrace
When it comes to application performance monitoring platforms, Dynatrace has one of the easiest-to-use dashboards around, making it ideal for software development teams with technical users of all levels. The AI-powered APM platform is used by a variety of organizations, including financial institutions, cloud service providers, telecom companies, and e-commerce platforms to measure application performance across platforms. With it, Java developers can gain rapid insight into throughput, resource consumption, response times, error rates, etc. Other features of Dynatrace include:
- AI performance analyzer
- Error highlighting and suggestions
- Dependency and transaction analyzer
- Automatic workflow generation
Dynatrace uses AI and machine learning algorithms that allow it to automatically detect, analyze, and fix performance problems as they arise. By using data from different sources that pinpoint the root cause of issues, the developer tool can provide actionable recommendations to resolve errors before they negatively impact the user experience any further.
Dynatrace is particularly powerful in identifying the root cause of application performance problems with extreme detail. The programmer tool will identify all the impacted users, the exact issue they are experiencing, and how it could impact the developer’s infrastructure, services, and applications.
Next, Dynatrace’s AI, “Davis,” will uncover the root cause after carefully analyzing all transactions and dependencies. The APM software will then offer a visual resolution path to pinpoint what portion of the environment is affected and take the Java developer through several steps to further diagnose and resolve the issue, including response time analysis, method hotspots, service details, backtrace, service flow, and PurePath, the APM platform’s distributed tracing technology with code-level detail. With the root cause fully identified, Dynatrace can automatically trigger workflows to fix the problem.
Dynatrace Pricing
Like other APM tools on our list, Dynatrace’s pricing can be a little complicated to figure out. The performance monitoring software does offer a free trial and has very transparent pricing. Examples of their pricing structure includes full-stack monitoring for .08 cents per hour and application security monitoring for .018 cents per hour.
Sentry.io
Sentry.io is a developer-first application performance monitoring platform. Over 90,000 organizations and almost four million customers use the programmer tool for its host of APM features, which include:
- Focuses on monitoring code versus system
- Contextual action items to fix errors
- Issue feed with built-in task management
- Analyze code from different platforms, including mobile
Sentry prides itself on being one of the first APM software solutions to focus on monitoring code versus system-level changes. Instead of giving academic context on problems, Sentry provides actionable context with details that go down to the function or line of code to fix. Unlike other developer tools that require costly setup via professional agents and services, you can get started with Sentry with only five lines of code. And within minutes, you can begin spotting performance issues or errors before they negatively impact your users.
Sentry.io gives full-stack visibility from your frontend to backend to find root causes faster and lets Java developers prioritize, assign, and fix performance problems directly from the issues feed. And if you need to optimize performance for mobile users, Sentry will help by automatically collecting device data to measure your app’s launch speed, frozen and slow frames, etc., and by spotting which lines of code are consuming excessive resources to decrease time-consuming troubleshooting.
Sentry.io Pricing
Sentry.io does have pricing tiers, but to get a full view of how much the APM platform costs, you will need to check out their pricing page and use their interactive pricing feature.
Sematext
Sematext is another Java programmer tool that serves as an application performance monitoring platform. Its end-to-end monitoring helps businesses run smoothly while ensuring customers remain satisfied. It’s features include:
- Transaction tracing
- Automated real-time alerts with detailed information
- Built-in synthetic monitoring
- Architect visualization tools
Sematext’s Transaction Tracing offers complete visibility into application performance via end-to-end request execution monitoring across multiple apps, processes, servers, tiers, and microservices. The programming tool uses a deep-dive analysis to pinpoint what specific parts are causing your application to perform poorly. It also analyzes data from actual user sessions to detect anomalies and sends developers automatic alerts in real-time to address and fix problems before they get out of hand.
The APM software’s Synthetics feature leverages synthetic monitoring and testing tools to track the availability of your APIs and website. Sematext also has an “App Map” for visualizing your complete application architecture to see its health in real-time, spot which components have communication errors, and more. Lastly, the developer tool can detect and fix issues linked to database operations and slow SQL.
Sematext Pricing
Sematext offers base level pricing tiers for each of its different types of services, plus add ons for each. Check out their pricing page for more specifics.
Logs (formerly Logtail) is APM software that has been rebranded and merged with Uptime to make up the Better Stack platform. Logs offers log management, while Uptime is an incident management tool. With Logs, Java developers supposedly get “the fastest log search on the planet.” Enabled by Clickhouse, the developer tool can search up to a billion log lines per second. Its other features include:
- Built-in collaboration tools
- Real-time log alerts
- Multiple notification methods
- Customizable alert monitors
Besides letting you query with extreme speed, Logs lets you troubleshoot and collaborate with colleagues to fix issues faster. With one click, you can see what other developers on your team are looking at, comment on data spikes that stand out, and share log fragments. Logs also offers real-time alerts regarding anomalies and irregularities that you can customize entirely based on percentage movements, defined thresholds, etc., to receive notifications through your phone, email, Slack, and more.
Logtail Pricing
Logtail offers four pricing tiers, which will change depending upon the unique needs of your software monitoring project. To get an accurate expectation of pricing, we recommend you visit Logtail’s pricing page.
Final Thoughts on the APM Software for Java Developers
While there are plenty of APM platforms for Java developers, the ones listed above should suffice. Investigate each APM tool further by visiting its website and ensuring the features and pricing meet your software development team’s needs. Choose the proper APM software, and you can increase efficiency, decrease downtime and costs, provide a better user experience, and have happier customers.
Looking for more application performance monitoring software? Check out our list of the Best Overall Application Monitoring Tools.