Azure Application Insights vs Azure Monitor

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Azure Application Insights

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Azure Monitor

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Azure Application Insights vs Azure Monitor: What are the differences?

Introduction

Azure Application Insights and Azure Monitor are two monitoring solutions provided by Microsoft Azure to help developers and IT professionals gain insights into the performance and health of their applications and systems. While both solutions offer monitoring capabilities, there are several key differences between them.

  1. Data Collection and Scope: Azure Application Insights primarily focuses on monitoring the performance and user behavior of applications by collecting telemetry data from various components such as web servers, databases, and client devices. On the other hand, Azure Monitor provides a broader scope of monitoring by collecting metrics and logs from not only applications but also infrastructure resources, virtual machines, and operating systems.

  2. Alerting and Visualization: Azure Application Insights includes built-in capabilities for setting up alerts and visualizing application telemetry data through dashboards and charts. It provides a rich set of metrics and performance counters specific to applications. Azure Monitor, on the other hand, offers more extensive alerting and visualization options as it covers a wider scope of monitoring. It allows users to create alerts based on custom metrics, logs, and events from resources across the entire Azure environment.

  3. Integration: Azure Application Insights is tightly integrated with the Azure portal, allowing developers to view and analyze application telemetry data alongside other Azure resources and services. It also provides seamless integration with popular development tools like Visual Studio and PowerShell. On the other hand, Azure Monitor is not limited to Azure resources and services but can also integrate with on-premises resources and applications through agents and extensions.

  4. Application Insights SDK: To collect telemetry data, Azure Application Insights requires developers to instrument their applications using the Application Insights SDK. This SDK can be integrated into various programming languages and frameworks such as .NET, Java, Node.js, and more. On the other hand, Azure Monitor collects monitoring data automatically without requiring any additional SDK integration. It makes use of agents, extensions, and Azure Resource Manager templates to collect data from various resources.

  5. Pricing and Licensing: Azure Monitor is billed based on the volume of monitoring data ingested and stored, while Azure Application Insights offers different pricing options based on the number of data points collected per month. Azure Monitor has a free tier available for basic monitoring, while Application Insights pricing is separate and has its own free and paid tiers.

  6. Availability: Azure Monitor is a core monitoring service provided by Azure and is available in all Azure regions. Azure Application Insights, on the other hand, is available in most Azure regions but may not be available in all regions.

In summary, Azure Application Insights focuses on monitoring the performance and user behavior of applications, while Azure Monitor provides a broader scope of monitoring for applications, infrastructure, and operating systems. Azure Application Insights offers specific capabilities for application monitoring and provides tight integration with Azure portal and development tools. Azure Monitor offers more extensive alerting and visualization options, supports integration with on-premises resources, and has wider availability across Azure regions.

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Pros of Azure Application Insights
Pros of Azure Monitor
  • 5
    Focus in detect performance anomalies and issues
  • 3
    Integrated with Azure
  • 1
    Live Metrics
  • 1
    User flow
  • 1
    Availability tests (Heart Beat check)
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    Cons of Azure Application Insights
    Cons of Azure Monitor
    • 2
      Difficult to surface information
    • 1
      Custom instrumentation via code only
    • 1
      UI is clunky and gets in the way
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      What is Azure Application Insights?

      It is an extensible Application Performance Management service for developers and DevOps professionals. Use it to monitor your live applications. It will automatically detect performance anomalies, and includes powerful analytics tools.

      What is Azure Monitor?

      It provides sophisticated tools for collecting and analyzing telemetry that allow you to maximize the performance and availability of your cloud and on-premises resources and applications.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use Azure Application Insights?
      What companies use Azure Monitor?
      See which teams inside your own company are using Azure Application Insights or Azure Monitor.
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      What tools integrate with Azure Application Insights?
      What tools integrate with Azure Monitor?
        No integrations found

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        What are some alternatives to Azure Application Insights and Azure Monitor?
        New Relic
        The world’s best software and DevOps teams rely on New Relic to move faster, make better decisions and create best-in-class digital experiences. If you run software, you need to run New Relic. More than 50% of the Fortune 100 do too.
        Google Analytics
        Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications.
        AppDynamics
        AppDynamics develops application performance management (APM) solutions that deliver problem resolution for highly distributed applications through transaction flow monitoring and deep diagnostics.
        Dynatrace
        It is an AI-powered, full stack, automated performance management solution. It provides user experience analysis that identifies and resolves application performance issues faster than ever before.
        Splunk
        It provides the leading platform for Operational Intelligence. Customers use it to search, monitor, analyze and visualize machine data.
        See all alternatives