# Backend Error Tracking and Monitoring

> Get extra visability into a backend infrastructure with Sentry. Learn how to use our backend application monitoring to resolve errors & optimize performance.

**URL:** https://sentry.io/for/backend/

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Whether you're taming Python's processing power or controlling JavaScript's flow through Node.js, backend infrastructures are as complex as they are valuable.

**Documentation:** [https://docs.sentry.io/](https://docs.sentry.io/)

## Features

### An extra dimension of visibility.

You can't monitor what you can't see. And there's a lot you need to see in your backend infrastructure, from third-party API data to authentication middleware and data management systems. By giving you complete visibility of your systems no matter where they live, backend monitoring gives you the most complete picture of your infrastructure.

### Fix issues before they become downtime.

Your application's performance depends on how well you handle network latency. It's why monitoring how you utilize servers, networks, database instances and storage is critical toward working in a proactive — and not reactive — state.

### Translate error logs to human insights.

Humans are visual creatures. Compilers, not so much. Error monitoring captures, aggregates and deciphers your error logs in one complete view so you're able to identify key trends and implement future improvements.

## FAQ

**What is the difference between Sentry and traditional logging?**

Traditional logging provides you with a trail of events. Some of those events are errors, but many times they're simply informational. Sentry is fundamentally different because we focus on exceptions, or in other words, we capture application crashes. We discuss in more detail [here](/vs/logging/) and on our [blog](https://blog.sentry.io/lets-get-ready-to-monitor/).

**What  languages does Sentry support?**

Sentry supports every major  language, framework, and library. You can browse each of them [here](/platforms/).

**How much does Sentry cost?**

You can get started for free. Pricing depends on the number of monthly events, transactions, and attachments that you send Sentry. For more details, visit our [pricing page](/pricing/).

**How does Sentry impact the performance of my app?**

Sentry doesn't impact a web site's performance.

If you look at the configuration options for when you initialize Sentry in your code, you'll see there's nothing regarding minimizing its impact on your app's performance. This is because our team of SDK engineers already developed Sentry with this in mind.

Sentry is a listener/handler for errors that asynchronously sends out the error/event to Sentry.io. This is non-blocking. The error/event only goes out if this is an error.

Global handlers have almost no impact as well, as they are native APIs provided by the browsers.

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*Source: [sentry.io/for/backend/](https://sentry.io/for/backend/)*