Axiom vs LogRocket for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Axiom Overview

Axiom is a cloud-native observability platform built around one idea: ingest everything, query it later. You send your logs, metrics, traces, and event data into Axiom, and it stores them without forcing you to pick schemas or worry about storage costs upfront. The query language (APL, similar to Kusto) is powerful once you learn it, and the dashboards are clean.

For a solo developer, Axiom solves the problem of scattered logs. Instead of SSHing into your server and tailing files, or jumping between three different services to correlate what happened, you pipe everything into Axiom and search it in one place. The free tier gives you 500 GB of ingest per month, which is absurdly generous. Most solo projects will never come close to that limit.

I started using Axiom after getting tired of managing my own ELK stack. The setup was fast. Point your application logs at the Axiom endpoint, and they show up in seconds. The built-in integrations for Vercel, Next.js, and various logging libraries make it even easier. Where Axiom really shines is when something breaks at 3 AM and you need to trace exactly what happened across your backend, your workers, and your API gateway.

LogRocket Overview

LogRocket takes a completely different approach to monitoring. Instead of collecting backend logs, it records what your users actually experience in the browser. Session replay shows you mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, console errors, network requests, and Redux/Vuex state changes. When a user reports "the page broke," you can literally watch what they did.

The value for solo developers is immediate. You stop guessing why something failed and start seeing it. I've caught bugs within minutes of deploying just by watching a couple of session replays. LogRocket also captures performance data, showing you slow page loads, long API calls, and rendering bottlenecks. The error tracking groups frontend exceptions and links them to the session where they happened.

The free tier gives you 1,000 sessions per month, which works for early-stage projects. But the jump to $99/month for the Team plan is steep for a solo developer. You also need to be mindful of privacy, since LogRocket is recording real user interactions. They provide tools to mask sensitive data, but you need to configure that properly.

When to Pick Axiom

Axiom is the right choice when your problems are on the backend. If you are running APIs, background workers, cron jobs, or anything where the complexity lives in your server infrastructure, Axiom gives you the visibility you need. It is also the better option if you are already comfortable with structured logging and want a central place to query everything.

Pick Axiom if:

• You need centralized logging across multiple services
• Your application is backend-heavy (APIs, workers, queues)
• You want to correlate events across different parts of your stack
• You are budget-conscious (the free tier is very generous)
• You are already using Vercel or Next.js (native integration)

When to Pick LogRocket

LogRocket is the right choice when your problems are on the frontend. If your users are reporting bugs you cannot reproduce, if your conversion funnel has mysterious drop-off points, or if you just want to understand how people actually use your product, LogRocket gives you answers that backend logs never will.

Pick LogRocket if:

• You are building a user-facing web application
• Frontend bugs are hard to reproduce
• You want to understand user behavior without setting up analytics
• You need to debug state management issues (Redux, Vuex, etc.)
• Visual evidence of bugs matters for your workflow

The Verdict

These tools are not really competitors. They monitor completely different layers of your application. Axiom watches your infrastructure and backend. LogRocket watches your users and frontend. If I had to pick one as a solo developer on a tight budget, I would start with Axiom. The free tier is more generous, and backend visibility tends to matter more in the early days when you are still building and deploying frequently. Once you have real users and need to understand their experience, add LogRocket.

The ideal setup for a solo developer shipping a full-stack product is both. Axiom for your server logs and traces, LogRocket for your frontend sessions and user experience. Together, they cover the full picture from infrastructure to user interaction.