Sentry and Checkly are often evaluated together by teams building out their reliability stack. Sentry (application error monitoring and performance management, founded 2012) is typically a fit for Developers, Frontend Teams, and Backend Engineers, while Checkly (api and e2e monitoring for developer teams, founded 2018) leans toward Backend Developers, DevOps Teams, and QA Engineers. Both cover 8 of the same core capabilities, so the decision usually comes down to where they diverge.
Application error monitoring and performance management
Pricing: Developer (Free - 5k errors), Team from ~$26/mo, Business from ~$80/mo
Founded: 2012
Best for: Developers, Frontend Teams, Backend Engineers
API and E2E monitoring for developer teams
Pricing: Hobby (Free), Starter $24/mo, Team $64/mo (100k API, 12k Browser runs)
Founded: 2018
Best for: Backend Developers, DevOps Teams, QA Engineers
| Feature | Sentry | Checkly |
|---|---|---|
| Synthetic Monitoring | ||
| Real User Monitoring | ||
| API & Browser Testing | ||
| Self-Healing Tests | ||
| AI-Powered | ||
| Uptime Monitoring | ||
| Alerting | ||
| Slack Integration | ||
| CI/CD Integration | ||
| Multi-Location Checks | ||
| SSL Monitoring | ||
| Status Page | ||
| Open Source | ||
| On-Premise / Self-Host | ||
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Dashboards | ||
| Incident Management |
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
Checkly covers more unique ground in this comparison, notably Synthetic Monitoring, API & Browser Testing, Multi-Location Checks, and SSL Monitoring, among others. That said, Sentry (Developer (Free - 5k errors), Team from ~$26/mo, Business from ~$80/mo) is the better choice when Real User Monitoring and On-Premise / Self-Host is a priority.
Sentry is application error monitoring and performance management, while Checkly is api and e2e monitoring for developer teams. Sentry adds Real User Monitoring and On-Premise / Self-Host on top of the shared feature set. Checkly brings Synthetic Monitoring, API & Browser Testing, and Multi-Location Checks that Sentry does not.
Sentry pricing: Developer (Free - 5k errors), Team from ~$26/mo, Business from ~$80/mo. Checkly pricing: Hobby (Free), Starter $24/mo, Team $64/mo (100k API, 12k Browser runs). Evaluate against your check volume and team size; entry pricing rarely reflects total cost at scale.
Sentry is designed with Developers, Frontend Teams, and Backend Engineers in mind, whereas Checkly targets Backend Developers, DevOps Teams, and QA Engineers. If your team matches the former profile, Sentry is usually the closer fit.
No. It does a different job. Error trackers tell you an exception fired. They can't see the failures that never throw: a checkout that silently breaks, an expired SSL certificate, a page that returns 200 and renders blank. ObserveOne monitors those user-facing journeys in production; teams run it alongside an error tracker, not instead of one.
Error trackers tell you an exception fired. They can't see the failures that never throw: a checkout that silently breaks, an expired SSL certificate, a page that returns 200 and renders blank. ObserveOne monitors those user-facing journeys in production; teams run it alongside an error tracker, not instead of one. The free tier covers enough to try it on one critical journey.
Each tool has its own alternatives page too, not just this matchup.