Why Adopt
You can’t fix bugs you don’t know about. Sentry captures errors in production with full context—stack traces, user info, breadcrumbs of what happened before the error. Essential for maintaining quality as a solo builder who can’t manually test every edge case.
Core Value
- Automatic capture - Errors reported without user action
- Full context - Stack traces, request data, user info
- Grouping - Similar errors consolidated intelligently
- Alerting - Notifications when new issues appear
My Usage Pattern
Sentry runs on all production applications:
- Real-time alerts for new error types
- Weekly review of error trends
- Release tracking to correlate deploys with issues
- Performance monitoring for slow endpoints
Rails Integration
Simple setup with the sentry-ruby gem:
- Automatic exception capture
- Request context included
- User identification
- Background job monitoring (Sidekiq)
The Solo Builder Case
As a one-person team, I can’t:
- Test every browser/device combination
- Anticipate all user input variations
- Monitor the app 24/7
Sentry fills these gaps by catching what I miss.
Current Status
Active on all production projects. The free tier is generous enough for early-stage SaaS, and the visibility it provides is invaluable.