The Real Cost of Going Blind
You’re a freelancer. Your client’s app is in production. 3 AM on Sunday, their error alerts go off. Something’s slow. Something’s broken. You SSH into the server, grep the logs, and pray.
Datadog costs $32/month per host. For your side project or your client’s $500/month SaaS, that’s not happening.
So you live in the dark. Logs on one server, metrics on another, no way to see the request journey. When something breaks, you debug by educated guesses.
There’s a better way.
What Indie Hackers Actually Need
You don’t need everything Datadog has. You need three things:
- Distributed request tracing — See what happened during that slow request across your app, database, and services
- Variable inspection — When an error happens, capture the state: what was in memory, what were the function arguments
- Cost that doesn’t scale faster than revenue
Datadog charges by volume. The more you grow, the more you pay. It’s a great product if you’re a Fortune 500 company burning through data. For indie hackers? It’s friction.
You need something that:
- Starts free when you’re bootstrapping
- Scales affordably as you grow ($29-99/month is reasonable)
- Actually solves the problem (request visibility + error context)
- Integrates with frameworks you’re using (Laravel, Express, Django, Python, Go, etc.)
How Tracekit is Different
We built Tracekit for you — the developer who ships fast, needs visibility, and can’t justify a $500/month APM bill.
Here’s how:
You Get Distributed Tracing
Every request gets traced across your entire stack. Database queries, API calls, background jobs — you see it all in one request timeline.
GET /orders/2024 → 450ms total ├─ Database (SELECT orders) → 120ms ├─ Cache lookup (Redis) → 12ms ├─ API call (payment-service) → 310ms └─ Serialize response → 8ms
When that request is slow, you drill in and see exactly where the time went.
You Get Production Breakpoints
Your code crashed. You got an error. Normally, you’re stuck with:
error: Call to undefined function calculate_tax() Stack trace: at app/Services/InvoiceService.php:87 at app/Controllers/OrderController.php:45
That’s it. You’re guessing what happened.
With Tracekit, you get the full request context:
- What variables were in scope when it crashed
- What was in the database record it was processing
- What the user input was
- What previous steps in the request pipeline already happened
It’s like hitting a production breakpoint without stopping your app.
You Get Sane Pricing
- Free: 200k traces/month. Completely free, no credit card. Build something real.
- Starter: $29/month. For side projects and early-stage startups.
- Growth: $99/month. For SaaS getting real traction.
- Pro: $299/month. For multi-product companies or high-scale single products.
You pay for volume you actually use, with predictable tiers. No surprise bills.
How to Get Started (5 Minutes)
Step 1: Sign Up for Free
Head to https://app.tracekit.dev/register?ref=ragnarpost. No credit card required.
Step 2: Install the SDK for Your Framework
Choose your stack:
Node.js / Express:
npm install @tracekit/node-apm
const tracekit = require('@tracekit/node-apm');
tracekit.init({
apiKey: process.env.TRACEKIT_KEY,
serviceName: 'my-api'
});
PHP / Laravel:
composer require tracekit/php-apm
// In config/app.php Tracekit\ApmServiceProvider::class,
Python / Django:
pip install tracekit-apm
import tracekit_apm tracekit_apm.init(api_key='...', service_name='my_app')
Go:
go get github.com/Tracekit-Dev/go-sdk
import "github.com/Tracekit-Dev/go-sdk/tracekit"
tracekit.Init(tracekit.Config{
APIKey: os.Getenv("TRACEKIT_KEY"),
ServiceName: "my-service",
})
Step 3: Deploy & Watch
Push your changes. Requests start flowing into Tracekit automatically. You see:
- Request latency breakdown
- Database query performance
- External API call timings
- Errors with full context
That’s it. No configuration. No sampling. No mystery.
Real Example: Why This Matters
You’re building an e-commerce MVP for a client. Somewhere around 2 AM, their checkout endpoint slows down to 5+ seconds. Customers are bouncing.
Without proper observability:
- Client reports slowness
- You check your servers – CPU and memory look fine
- You check database logs – query looks normal
- You check application logs – nothing obvious
- You SSH in, run slow query logs
- Eventually you find a missing index on `orders.user_id`
- You add the index, redeploy, hope you fixed it
- Total time to resolution: 45 minutes
With Tracekit:
- Client reports slowness
- You open Tracekit dashboard – see the slow request immediately
- Click into the request trace – see it’s 2 seconds in a database query
- Trace shows: `SELECT * FROM orders WHERE user_id = ?` without an index
- Add index, redeploy
- Total time to resolution: 5 minutes
The difference between looking competent and looking unprepared.
Who This Is For
- Freelancers and agencies managing client apps
- Indie hackers with side projects in production
- Early-stage startups bootstrapping and paranoid about ops
- Teams who’ve outgrown basic logging but can’t afford Datadog
- Anyone who wants to ship fast and debug confidently
Who it’s not for: Fortune 500 companies with massive data pipelines who need 10,000 integrations. You’ll probably still use Datadog for that.
Try It Free
No credit card. No annoying onboarding. Real production visibility in 5 minutes.
Next: Distributed Tracing for Your Team
Once you’ve got visibility, the next problem: your team can’t see what’s happening either. You’re a bottleneck.
(Spoiler: Tracekit solves this too. We’ll write about it next.)
Questions?
- Docs: https://app.tracekit.dev/docs
- Need help? DM @terria_ai on Twitter or email: [email protected]
Subscribe for more: Next week, we’re covering “How to Debug a Distributed System Without Losing Your Mind.”
