News

Node.js Monitoring/Debugging Tool Now Free for Open Source Projects

• By David Ramel
• April 21, 2017

RisingStack Inc. is making its Trace tool for monitoring and debugging Node.js-based applications free to use with open source projects.

"We launched Trace a year ago with the intention of helping developers looking for a Node.js specific APM which is easy to use and helps with the most difficult aspects of building Node projects," said Gergely Nemeth in a blog post yesterday.

RisingStack, a Hungary-based specialist ins Node.js consulting, training, development and support, previously offered Trace for all projects as a for-pay product with various pricing models ranging from $29 to $265 per month. Those plans are still in effect, but if the company deems them worthy, open source projects can now use Trace free of charge.

To find out if the company judges a project worthy of the free offering, developers must fill out a form that asks about an open source project's Web site (if any), GitHub link and how the open source community benefits from the project. The company is reserving the right to approve or reject all applications.

Trace, according to its Web site, helps developers:

• Understand how an app works by revealing the interactions inside the app, such as connections with databases and third-party APIs. This is done with a live visualization of a project at the service level.
• Keep apps secure in production by providing crucial information on an app's npm dependencies to identify vulnerable npm packages, sending alerts about potential attack vectors.
• Identify errors in code, some of which may be more critical than others. It shows why and how often errors occur and identifies the ones needing an urgent fix.
• Monitor Web site and API availability by collecting and visualizing Apdex (a measure of response time based against a set threshold) metrics.
• Glean performance insights by finding memory leaks, performance issues and bad deployments.
• Receive real-time alerts in order to prevent downtimes, aided by integration with Slack, Pagerduty and Opsgenie.

Nemeth, noting that RisingStack uses open source technology every day and maintains some open source projects, commented on why the company is providing the Trace tool for free. "We know from experience that developing an open source project is hard work, which requires a lot of knowledge and persistence," he said. "Trace will save a lot of time for those who use Node for their open source projects."

The company also announced a new line of business in yesterday's blog post: commercial Node.js support aimed at enterprises.