GlitchTip

At a glance

GlitchTip collects application errors into issues and alerts, using compatible Sentry SDKs to send events. It is a useful candidate if you want a smaller monitoring service you can host yourself or buy as a hosted plan. The tradeoff is choosing the features and operating responsibility you actually need, rather than assuming complete Sentry parity.

Good fit

Teams that need exception details, readable stack traces and notifications without replacing existing SDK instrumentation unnecessarily. Hosted service avoids running the backend. Self-hosting gives you control of the receiving service and retention, while leaving database maintenance, upgrades, backups and alert delivery with your team.

Consider something else when

You require a particular Sentry feature without checking compatibility, or want self-hosting to eliminate operational work. The installation guide requires PostgreSQL 14 or later and an application service, with Valkey optional. The backend repository’s compose.yml is for development; it is not the production setup linked from the installation guide.

Start here

For hosted use, create an organization, choose a plan and make a project for a staging app. Give the SDK that project’s DSN, send a deliberate test exception and verify it appears on Issues before configuring an alert. For JavaScript, check source-map upload so traces identify your code. For self-hosting, start from the installation guide’s production Compose sample and configure the domain, secrets, email and TLS.

Cost and requirements

The hosted Hobby plan lists 1,000 events monthly and thirty days of retention for free; Small lists 100,000 events and ninety days at $15 monthly, checked October 31, 2026. Repeated errors each consume events. Paid plans can opt into overage billing with a spend cap; it is off by default. Self-hosted MIT software still needs paid or existing infrastructure and operator time.

Limits to know

Past the hosted event allowance, default throttling progressively drops events and eventually blocks intake; an error storm can therefore create monitoring gaps. Hosted US and EU accounts use separate instances, and customer event data follows the processing agreement. Remove sensitive application data before sending it. This source-based assessment did not deploy a server, send a test exception or verify migration and alert reliability.

Related work

• Sentry: check the features and SDK behavior your project depends on (alternative)
• Docker: the documented self-hosting deployment path (complement)