Sentry vs Raygun: Which is better for your stack?
Choosing between Sentry and Raygun isn’t just a matter of price—it’s about which tool fits your monitoring strategy. Both platforms are known for error tracking but differ in performance monitoring, pricing, and coverage for modern stacks. Below, you’ll find fact-based comparisons to help you make an informed, cost-effective decision. We break down core features, pricing structure, ecosystem, and practical trade-offs for engineering teams considering Sentry vs Raygun.
Key takeaways
- Sentry and Raygun both provide error monitoring, but Raygun differs with built-in Real User Monitoring (RUM) for frontend visibility.
- Pricing models revolve around event quotas; Sentry offers flexible reserved or on-demand pricing, while Raygun uses event bundles.
- Sentry offers extensive integrations but self-hosting is not natively supported; Raygun is cloud-hosted only.
- Both tools support major languages and frameworks, but feature depth varies—especially for performance/APM and noise management.
Quick summary table
| Feature | How Sentry handles it | How Raygun handles it | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Error Monitoring | Comprehensive error tracking & crash reporting | Error & crash reporting with customizable insights | Bugs and production issues in apps |
| RUM/Session Replay | Not publicly specified for RUM | Real User Monitoring included | Frontend performance diagnostics |
| Performance/APM | Performance monitoring, tracing features | Performance monitoring, APM | Full-stack monitoring (web + backend) |
| Noise Reduction | Alert rules and categorization | Custom filters and controls | Teams combating alert fatigue |
| Pricing Model | Event-based; reserved or on-demand quotas | Event bundles; reserved and on-demand | Usage-based scaling |
| Hosting Options | Cloud (no native self-hosted) | Cloud only | Teams preferring SaaS/cloud |
| SDKs & Integrations | Extensive; wide language & framework support | Broad but may be narrower than Sentry | Complex or multi-language stacks |
What Sentry is
Sentry is an error tracking and performance monitoring platform for software applications, covering frontend and backend stacks. Its core strengths are robust error monitoring, stack traces, and performance tracing. Sentry is primarily offered as a cloud-hosted service. It’s widely adopted by engineering and DevOps teams building web, mobile, and backend systems that need granular insight into errors and latency issues. Sentry’s popularity comes in part from its breadth of SDKs and deep language support.
What Raygun is
Raygun is a cloud-based monitoring suite combining error tracking, APM/performance data, and real user monitoring (RUM) to give end-to-end visibility into modern application health. Raygun’s platform is designed for both frontend and backend observability. Organizations choose Raygun for its ease of use, fast onboarding, and focus on actionable user-level diagnostics. Raygun is built for SaaS, web, and mobile apps that prioritize customer experience and performance insights.
Feature-by-feature comparison
Error monitoring & crash reporting
Both Sentry and Raygun deliver core error monitoring functionality. Sentry covers a wide range of SDKs, supports detailed stack traces, and connects to typical engineering alert workflows. Raygun matches error reporting breadth and focuses on customizable insights—with dashboards and classification to help debug issues without drowning in noise. Actual data pipeline structure, speed, and retention settings differ, but both tools are engineered for fast, production-grade error triage.
Performance/APM & tracing
Sentry includes performance monitoring and distributed tracing in its core offerings—helping teams correlate errors with backend latency or bottlenecks. Raygun offers an APM product, available as an add-on or bundle, to provide application performance metrics and traces similar to traditional APM tools. The transparency and coverage for advanced distributed systems tracing aren’t detailed for either product in public sources, but both offer metrics and dashboards for engineering performance.
Noise reduction & alerting
Alert noise can distract teams from real issues. Sentry combats this with customizable alert rules, event grouping, and workflow controls, allowing users to tune what gets surfaced. Raygun provides configurable filtering, dashboards, and notification settings to keep alerts actionable. User reviews on G2 suggest both tools help reduce noise but may require initial configuration to dial in the right thresholds for your team.
Session replay / RUM
Raygun brings Real User Monitoring (RUM) out of the box, letting organizations analyze individual user sessions and frontend performance. This helps product and engineering teams understand and reproduce end-user issues. Sentry does not publicly specify first-class RUM features, so if frontend customer experience data is essential, Raygun holds an advantage here.
Pricing & data limits (events, retention, seats)
Sentry pricing is based on ingested event categories. Customers choose reserved volume tiers or pay-as-you-go, with options for both annual and monthly plans. Quotas address how many errors or transactions per month your account can handle. Details and tiers are described in Sentry’s pricing and quota docs but specific seat counts, retention, or data nuances are not always specified.
Raygun’s pricing uses bundled event volumes (e.g., 100k, 200k, 1M events per month), with reserved and on-demand event purchases. Comparing exact per-event costs or retention without contacting sales can be challenging due to bundle-based models. RUM and APM add-ons are tiered within their own event quotas. Seat and retention policies are not always detailed, so prospective buyers should inquire based on projected event volume.
SDKs & integrations (languages, frameworks, ecosystem)
Sentry maintains one of the broadest SDK libraries in the space, supporting major frontend and backend frameworks, mobile (iOS, Android), and serverless platforms. Its ecosystem includes integrations with popular workflow, CI/CD, and chat platforms.
Raygun also supports key languages and frameworks (JavaScript, .NET, Java, PHP, and more), but its ecosystem is generally seen as narrower compared to Sentry’s open-source and contributor-driven approach. Both cover the main web and backend use cases but verify integration fit for niche stacks if relevant.
Setup, hosting & maintenance (self-hosted vs cloud, SSO, RBAC)
Sentry is offered primarily in a cloud/SaaS model; native self-hosted deployment isn’t available (though open-source community forks or older versions may exist, these are not officially supported). SSO and role-based access control (RBAC) features are typical for enterprise cloud plans. Raygun is exclusively cloud-hosted and also includes SSO and RBAC for managing team access. Both products are designed for simple onboarding and minimal infrastructure overhead.
Security & compliance (PII handling, SOC2, GDPR)
Both Sentry and Raygun highlight a commitment to security and compliance but do not publicly specify all program or certification details. Expect SOC2/GDPR posture from each—though for confirmed PII handling, certifications, and detailed audit trails, contact vendors directly, especially for regulated industries or sensitive data. Each vendor encourages best practices for reporting sensitive data or filtering PII at the SDK level.
When to choose Sentry vs when to choose Raygun
Use Sentry if you need:
- Deep error and stack trace analysis across multiple backend/frontend stacks
- Large ecosystem, language, and workflow integrations
- Flexibility in event quota selection with pay-as-you-go or reserved options
Choose Raygun if you want:
- Real User Monitoring for frontend visibility
- Full-stack insights from error, performance, and real user data in one SaaS suite
- Simple bundle-based pricing for predictable usage
Both serve SaaS companies and engineering teams at scale; stack preferences and team workflow often determine the fit. For more on SaaS stack decision-making, see More SaaS comparisons.
Migration notes & pitfalls
Migrating from Sentry to Raygun (or vice versa) will generally involve reconfiguring SDKs in your codebase and mapping alert workflows to the new system. Data model differences (grouping, event retention, RUM) may affect historical insights. Neither supports automatic, full historical event migration, so plan accordingly for parallel runs or phased cutovers. Check integration support and user/team permissions before committing to a switch.
Conclusion
Sentry and Raygun both excel at error monitoring but serve different organizational needs. Sentry is preferred for broad stack integrations and advanced error diagnostics; Raygun edges ahead when real user data and bundled RUM/APM matter. Consider event budget, supported frameworks, and whether frontend experience monitoring is a priority. For more about us, visit About SaaSvsSaaS.
FAQs
Sentry vs Raygun: which is cheaper at 500k events/month?
Pricing varies by event type and add-ons. Sentry charges by ingested category (error, transaction, session), with reserved and on-demand options. Raygun uses event bundles (reserved plus on-demand). Exact quotes depend on required products and regions—contact providers for updated pricing at your scale.
Which tool handles noisy errors better?
Both Sentry and Raygun provide configurable alert rules and noise reduction tools. User feedback suggests both can limit alert fatigue if properly set up, but tuning is required to fit team preferences.
Who has stronger RUM/APM capabilities?
Raygun offers built-in Real User Monitoring as a core feature, giving it an advantage for teams seeking detailed frontend experience data. Both offer performance/APM tools, but Raygun’s RUM is a differentiator.