Sentry vs Highlight.io for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Sentry Overview

Sentry has been the go-to error tracking platform for developers for over a decade. When your application throws an error in production, Sentry captures the complete context: stack trace with source maps, breadcrumbs showing the sequence of events before the error, user information, browser and device details, and release data showing which deployment introduced the bug.

The workflow is straightforward. Install the SDK, add your project DSN, deploy, and errors appear in your dashboard within seconds. Sentry automatically groups duplicate errors into issues, tracks frequency trends, and lets you assign issues to team members (or to yourself, as a solo developer). The alert system notifies you through Slack, email, or webhooks when new issues appear or existing ones spike.

Performance monitoring tracks transaction times, database query durations, and web vitals. Session replay reconstructs user sessions as video-like playback, showing exactly what the user experienced before hitting a bug. Release tracking correlates errors with specific deployments, so you immediately know if a new release introduced a regression.

The free tier gives you 5,000 errors, 10,000 performance units, and 50 session replays per month.

Highlight.io Overview

Highlight.io is an open-source, full-stack monitoring platform that combines session replay, error tracking, log management, and tracing in a single product. Where Sentry started with error tracking and added session replay later, Highlight.io was built with session replay as a first-class feature from the beginning.

The session replay is comprehensive. Every user session is recorded, including DOM changes, network requests, console logs, and errors. You can search for sessions by user, error, page, or custom attribute, and watch exactly what happened. Errors are captured with full stack traces and linked directly to the session where they occurred.

Log management is integrated natively. Your application logs, server logs, and infrastructure logs all flow into the same platform where your errors and sessions live. Tracing connects frontend actions to backend operations, showing the full request lifecycle across your stack.

Highlight.io is open source and can be self-hosted. The cloud version uses usage-based pricing starting with a free tier (500 sessions, 1,000 errors, and 1 million log messages per month). Paid plans start at $150/month for higher usage, which is a significant jump from the free tier.

Key Differences

Session replay philosophy. Highlight.io treats session replay as the core of the product. Every session is recorded, searchable, and linked to errors and logs. Sentry added session replay later, and while it works well, it is a complement to error tracking rather than the primary feature. If session replay is central to how you debug, Highlight.io's implementation feels more integrated.

Error tracking depth. Sentry's error tracking is more mature. The issue grouping, merge and unmerge capabilities, regression detection, and release correlation are refined by years of development. Highlight.io captures errors and links them to sessions, but the error management workflow (triaging, resolving, tracking regressions) is less polished than Sentry's.

Log management. Highlight.io includes log management as a native feature. Ship your application and infrastructure logs to Highlight and search them alongside your errors and sessions. Sentry does not do log management. If you want errors and logs in the same platform, Highlight.io offers that.

Tracing. Highlight.io includes distributed tracing that connects frontend events to backend operations. You can see a user's button click flow through your API to the database and back. Sentry has performance monitoring with transaction tracing, which serves a similar purpose but from a different angle: Sentry shows slow transactions while Highlight shows the full request lifecycle.

Pricing for solo developers. Sentry's free tier (5,000 errors/month) covers most solo projects comfortably. Highlight.io's free tier (500 sessions/month) runs out faster if your app has regular traffic. The jump to $150/month for paid Highlight.io is steep for a solo developer. Sentry's Team plan at $26/month is much more accessible.

Open source. Highlight.io is fully open source and can be self-hosted. Sentry also has a self-hosted option. Both give you the ability to run the platform on your own infrastructure if you prefer control over convenience. However, self-hosting either platform requires significant server resources and maintenance.

Ecosystem maturity. Sentry has been around since 2012 and has SDKs for every major framework and language with thorough documentation and community support. Highlight.io is newer, with growing but more limited SDK coverage and community resources.

When to Choose Sentry

• Error tracking depth and mature issue management are your priorities
• You want a generous free tier that covers solo developer error volumes
• The $26/month Team plan fits your budget better than $150/month
• Extensive SDK support and documentation matter for your framework
• You need release tracking and regression detection for deployments

When to Choose Highlight.io

• Session replay is central to how you debug and understand user behavior
• You want errors, logs, sessions, and traces in a single unified platform
• You value open-source and want to self-host your monitoring stack
• Log management alongside error tracking reduces the number of tools you need
• You are comfortable with the pricing jump from free to $150/month

The Verdict

For solo developers, Sentry is the more practical choice. The free tier is more generous for typical usage patterns, the paid tier is significantly cheaper, the error tracking is more mature, and the ecosystem support is broader. You install Sentry, it catches bugs, and you fix them. That workflow has been refined over a decade.

Highlight.io is an impressive product with a compelling vision: one platform for all observability. If you have the budget for the $150/month paid plan and value having errors, session replays, logs, and traces unified, Highlight.io delivers on that promise. The session replay integration is genuinely excellent.

My take: use Sentry's free tier for error tracking and session replay. It covers 90% of what you need for debugging production issues. If you also need log management, add a dedicated tool like Axiom or BetterStack (both have generous free tiers). The combined cost of Sentry free plus Axiom free is $0/month and covers more ground than most solo developers need. Highlight.io is worth considering when your project generates enough revenue to justify the $150/month for unified observability.