Error tracking shows which application errors were captured; uptime monitoring checks whether an endpoint responds; synthetic monitoring runs scheduled tests of selected functions and user journeys. They answer different questions: “What errors occurred?”, “Is the service reachable?”, and “Does this specific flow work?” For a fuller picture, teams often use them together.
What does error tracking detect?
Error tracking captures errors emitted by an instrumented application and organizes them so a team can investigate and triage them. Depending on the product and its instrumentation, the captured context may come from server, browser, mobile, or serverless code.
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It is useful when an exception or other captured error occurs and engineers need to inspect the problem. It is not a general proof that every part of an application works: an error must be emitted and captured, and a successful page load does not establish that every workflow is healthy. New Relic describes its error-tracking capabilities in its Errors Inbox documentation.
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Basic uptime monitoring makes scheduled requests to an endpoint and evaluates conditions such as its status, response time, or expected content. It can reveal outages, slow responses, or availability problems at the endpoints being checked.
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- WiFi Smart, Real-time App Notification: No gateways or complex wiring required; The caregiver call button connects to WiFi in a few steps, when press the panic button, you will receive an real time app notification on your phone, no matter where you are
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- Multiple People Sharing: Share with more family members through the sharing function in the App; After pressing the caregiver pagers for the elderly, the person you shared with can also receive alarm MSG, allowing multiple family members to participate
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Its scope is narrow by design. A server can return a healthy response even when a user-facing feature is broken. New Relic puts the distinction plainly: “It detects outages, not broken functionality, so treat it as your first signal rather than proof the app works.” That makes an endpoint ping a useful first signal, not a test of the whole application.
What does synthetic monitoring detect?
Synthetic monitoring runs scheduled requests or scripted API and browser journeys to test chosen behavior. A check might verify an endpoint response, inspect an API payload, confirm that an element appears on a rendered page, or exercise multiple steps such as signing in or completing checkout.
New Relic documents monitors that run from selected public or private locations, including checks for internal applications. Each monitor performs a real request or user journey at a fixed interval and reports the result. Scheduled checks can therefore test a low-traffic region or a critical flow even when few or no real users are visiting. The vendor’s synthetic-monitoring introduction and use-case guide describe these approaches.
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A synthetic test only verifies the paths and assertions it has been configured to exercise. It creates test traffic; it does not record what actual users did. Browser journeys can also be more resource-intensive than simple pings, so they are best reserved for flows important enough to justify the setup and upkeep.
How the three approaches differ
| Approach | What it observes | What it can reveal | Important limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Error tracking | Errors emitted by instrumented applications and captured by the service | Captured error occurrences and groups for investigation; context depends on product and instrumentation | It depends on instrumentation and captured errors; it does not prove every workflow works. |
| Basic uptime monitoring | Scheduled requests to an endpoint, often evaluated against status, response-time, or content conditions | Outages, slow responses, and broad availability across monitored endpoints | A healthy response can coexist with a broken user journey. |
| Synthetic monitoring | Scheduled test requests or scripted API and browser journeys | Endpoint availability and selected content, API behavior, page rendering, or multi-step flows | It covers only configured checks and is not a record of real-user activity. |
Why a passing uptime check can miss a broken checkout
Suppose a homepage returns a healthy status code while its JavaScript bundle fails to load. A basic ping may still pass. A browser synthetic that expects a working cart or checkout confirmation may fail because it tests the selected user-facing behavior rather than only the endpoint response.
That synthetic failure tells the team that the configured path did not meet its assertions. Error tracking may help engineers investigate an underlying exception if the application emits it and the service captures it; the synthetic failure does not guarantee that an error event exists. The distinction follows from the documented capabilities of synthetic checks and error tracking.
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- Allows caregiver freedom to monitor movement remotely
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- 1 Caregiver Pager (Batteries Sold Separately) 1 Motion Sensor (Batteries Sold Separately)
- Allows caregiver freedom to monitor movement remotely
How synthetic monitoring differs from real-user monitoring
Synthetic checks run on a schedule from selected locations, whether or not users are active. Real-user monitoring observes actual traffic and how real visitors experience the application. The two signals complement one another: a synthetic test can exercise a chosen path proactively, while real-user data reflects actual sessions and conditions. New Relic describes the scheduled nature of synthetic checks in its synthetic-monitoring use cases.
Which checks should you use?
- For broad endpoint coverage: use basic pings to catch reachability or response-time problems across many endpoints.
- For important user flows: add API assertions or browser journeys for behaviors such as login, search, or checkout that a ping cannot verify.
- For investigating application exceptions: instrument the application for error tracking so captured errors can be grouped and triaged.
- For understanding actual visitor experience: use real-user monitoring alongside scheduled tests; the traffic sources answer different questions.
Choose the check depth according to risk and operating effort. A simple ping can cover many endpoints cheaply in setup terms; scripted browser checks need more authoring and maintenance, and their runtime can consume more resources. Account for monitor frequency, test accounts and credentials, test locations, failure confirmation, and alert routing. Private locations may be relevant for internal services, while public locations can test externally reachable behavior.
When comparing monitoring products, look beyond the label. Check which signal types they collect, whether tests support status and latency checks or deeper API and browser assertions, what public and private locations are available, and what context results provide for triage. Also verify how each product handles failures and recovery; behavior varies by vendor and configuration.
Can these approaches be combined?
Yes. Endpoint checks provide breadth, synthetic tests verify selected functionality, and error tracking supports investigation when application errors are captured. Together they provide different views of service health rather than three interchangeable ways to measure the same thing.
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