Observability & Monitoring

The BEAM has introspection built into its DNA. Observer shows running processes, memory, and message queues in a GUI. Phoenix LiveDashboard provides a web-based monitoring panel. Telemetry standardizes metrics across the ecosystem. Logger provides structured logging. OpenTelemetry adds distributed tracing. You can inspect and debug production systems without external APM agents.

Telemetry

library

Need application metrics?

Dynamic event dispatching library for metrics and instrumentation across the ecosystem

Replaces: StatsD custom instrumentation

Logger

built-in

Need application logging?

Built-in structured logging with configurable backends, levels, and metadata

Replaces: Winston Log4j Python logging

Phoenix LiveDashboard

library

Need application monitoring?

Real-time web dashboard for Phoenix apps — metrics, request logging, OS monitoring, and ETS inspection

Replaces: New Relic Datadog Grafana

OpenTelemetry

library

Need distributed tracing?

Distributed tracing and metrics collection compatible with the OpenTelemetry standard

Replaces: Jaeger Zipkin Datadog APM

Recon

library

Need to debug production issues?

Erlang diagnostic tools for production — process info, memory analysis, and tracing

Replaces: pprof strace custom debugging

Observer

built-in

Need to inspect running processes?

Built-in GUI tool for inspecting running BEAM processes, memory, and system information

Replaces: Process managers htop

View all tools

Companion Project

Postgres Is Enough

Simplify your database layer too. A curated directory of PostgreSQL extensions and tools that replace Redis, Elasticsearch, Kafka, and more.