Best Alternatives to Sentry for Error Tracking Under $100/Month

Sentry earned its reputation as the default error tracker for web and mobile teams — and then its pricing model reminded everyone why defaults aren't always the things actually worth buying. Per-event billing with monthly quotas means a sudden spike in traffic can quietly double your bill1. And if you try to escape to self-hosted Sentry, you're signing up to operate PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, ClickHouse, Relay, and Snuba across nine or more containers with a 16 GB RAM baseline3. That's not a side project; that's a platform team.

This roundup covers five alternatives that stay under $100/month while addressing the two pain points that drive teams away from Sentry: unpredictable per-event costs and operational heaviness. Some are open-source drop-ins that accept the same Sentry SDKs (just change the DSN)3. Others use project-based or flat-rate pricing so you never get a surprise invoice. One even throws in session replay. We've ranked them by where each shines best.

1. Highlight.io — Best Overall Budget Pick

If your team is frontend-heavy and you've ever wished Sentry showed you what the user actually saw before the error fired, Highlight.io is the answer. It combines session replay with error monitoring in a single open-source platform, so you get the crash report and the visual context in one place.

The free tier covers small projects, and the paid plan at $50/month keeps you well under budget while adding team features and higher event volumes2. For teams that spend half their debugging time trying to reproduce a user-reported bug, the replay capability alone justifies the switch.

Why it's our top pick: It's the only tool here that natively pairs error tracking with session replay at this price point, and the open-source option means you can self-host if cloud pricing ever becomes a concern.

2. Bugsnag — Best for Mobile Crash Reporting

Bugsnag has long been the gold standard for mobile crash reporting, and its stability scoring system gives you a single number that tells you whether your app is actually getting more or less stable over time. That matters on mobile, where a bad release can tank your App Store rating overnight.

The free tier gets you started, and the Small Team plan at $99/month sits right at our budget ceiling with full crash reporting, release tracking, and stability scores2. If your stack is iOS and Android rather than web backends, Bugsnag's mobile-first feature set outpaces what general-purpose error trackers offer.

Why it ranks here: Unmatched mobile crash diagnostics and stability scoring. The trade-off is that at $99/month you're at the top of our budget, and Bugsnag's web/backend story is less differentiated than competitors like Highlight.io.

3. Monoscope — Best for API-First Observability

Monoscope takes an API-first approach to observability, bundling error tracking into a broader platform that includes request monitoring and performance metrics. At $29/month with 20 million events included, it's one of the most generous event allowances in this lineup — and the fact that it's open source means you can audit the internals or self-host if needed.

For teams whose infrastructure is primarily API services rather than browser frontends, Monoscope's request-centric model maps more naturally to your architecture than a tool built around page loads and user sessions.

Why it ranks here: The event volume-to-price ratio is exceptional, and the open-source license removes vendor lock-in concerns. The trade-off is that Monoscope is newer and less battle-tested than incumbents like Bugsnag, so community resources and integrations are still growing.

4. New Relic — Best Free Tier for Full-Stack Error Tracking

New Relic's free tier includes 100 GB of ingest per month plus its Errors Inbox feature, which surfaces and groups errors across your full stack — frontends, backends, and infrastructure5. For small teams that want error tracking and broader observability (APM, infrastructure metrics, logs) without juggling multiple tools, New Relic's all-in-one approach is compelling.

Beyond the free tier, New Relic uses pay-as-you-go pricing based on data ingest, which is more predictable than Sentry's per-event model but still requires monitoring your usage to avoid overages.

Why it ranks here: The 100 GB free tier is the most generous entry point in this roundup. The caveat is that New Relic is a full observability platform, not a focused error tracker — so the experience is heavier and more complex than a purpose-built tool like Highlight.io or Bugsnag.

5. Atatus — Best All-in-One APM + Error Tracking

Atatus bundles application performance monitoring, real user monitoring, log management, and error tracking into a single platform starting at $49/month2. For budget-conscious teams that would otherwise stitch together separate tools for each function, Atatus offers a consolidated alternative that stays under $100.

The error tracking capabilities cover the essentials — exception capture, grouping, and alerting — while the RUM component adds frontend performance visibility that pure error trackers lack.

Why it ranks here: At $49/month you get APM, RUM, logs, and error tracking in one bill. The trade-off is that each individual capability is less deep than a best-in-class single-purpose tool, so teams with specialized needs may find themselves wanting more in one area.

How They Compare

A few patterns worth noting. The self-hostable options — Highlight.io and Monoscope — give you an exit ramp if cloud pricing ever creeps up, and both are open source so you're not locked into a proprietary stack. Bugsnag is the clear choice if mobile is your primary platform. New Relic's free tier is unbeatable for teams that want error tracking as part of a broader observability setup. And Atatus bundles the most functionality per dollar, though at the cost of depth in any single area.

Why Teams Leave Sentry

The motivations for switching fall into three buckets:

Unpredictable per-event costs. Sentry bills per usage category with monthly quotas1, which means a traffic spike or a regression that fires thousands of errors can produce a surprisingly large invoice. Project-based or flat-rate alternatives like Monoscope ($29/mo, 20M events) and Honeybadger ($26/mo Team plan with 50K errors and unlimited projects)4 eliminate that uncertainty.

Operational heaviness of self-hosted Sentry. Running your own Sentry instance requires PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, ClickHouse, Relay, and Snuba across nine-plus containers with a 16 GB RAM baseline3. Alternatives like Bugsink run as a single container handling 1.5M events/day on a €5 VPS3, and GlitchTip needs only PostgreSQL, Redis, and Celery3. Both accept Sentry SDKs natively — you switch by changing the DSN string3.

SDK lock-in. Several alternatives — notably GlitchTip and Bugsink — are Sentry-SDK-compatible, meaning you don't need to rip out your existing instrumentation to migrate13. That dramatically lowers the switching cost and lets you test an alternative alongside Sentry before fully committing.

Our Verdict

For most teams under $100/month, Highlight.io is the strongest starting point: open source, session replay, and a pricing model that won't surprise you. If mobile is your world, Bugsnag remains the category leader. And if you want maximum event volume per dollar with an open-source safety net, Monoscope delivers exceptional value at $29/month.

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