What monitoring and analytics does a small app actually need?
Two things: error tracking with stack traces and release attribution, and privacy-respecting web analytics. Add product analytics only once you have a specific funnel question you cannot answer.
Surveyed 10 August 2026
Monitor product and usage
Open in Tools →Nothing in the index answers this yet. Submit a tool that does.
What to look for
- 01Does error tracking tie a failure to the deploy that introduced it? That link is most of the debugging value.
- 02Does the analytics need a cookie banner? Cookieless tools avoid the consent problem entirely.
- 03Can an agent query it? Telemetry reachable over MCP turns incident triage into a conversation.
Common questions
- What is the difference between error monitoring and observability?
- Error monitoring catches and groups exceptions with their stack traces. Observability traces requests through your whole system so you can ask why something was slow, not only what threw.
- Can I avoid a cookie banner?
- Yes, if your analytics sets no cookies and stores no personal identifiers. Several self-hostable tools work this way and still give you the traffic numbers that matter.
More in Ship and operate
- Interface with your agentsTerminals, multiplexers, and runtimes for running coding agents all day.
- Add a backendCombine databases, storage, APIs, and server-side functions.
- Add authenticationImplement accounts, sessions, identity providers, and authorization.
- Accept paymentsAdd subscriptions, checkout, billing, and payment infrastructure.
- Add email and messagingSend transactional email, notifications, chat, and product messages.
- Secure and connect a domainFind domains, DNS, certificates, secrets, and application security services.