How I monitor my blog
Tags: newrelic, monitoring, analytics
Published: 2021-04-10 15:07:06

---
title: How I monitor my blog
published: true
date: 2021-04-07 22:00:00 UTC
tags: newrelic, monitoring, analytics
canonical_url: https://www.rossanodan.me/how-i-monitor-my-blog/
---

## [<svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg>](#what)What

I use different monitoring and analytics tools to monitor my blog: [Google Analytics](https://analytics.google.com/), [Vercel Analytics](https://vercel.com/analytics) and [New Relic](https://one.eu.newrelic.com/). Maybe is too much, given that my blog doesn’t have a lot of traffic and it’s not a “critical system” to be continuously monitored and kept online (if it goes down for a couple of minutes no one will complain!). But since these services are free to use and since I use New Relic at work, I decided to use it for my blog and maybe to learn more about it.

But.. **what is New Relic**? Well, this is what I understood so far: New Relic is a **monitoring tool that provides real-time data, usage analytics and allows you to monitor your services and to set alarms** for them (imagine you want to receive a notification when one of your services goes down to be able to promptly respond to the failures). If you want a more specific definition of it, visit the [official documentation](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/using-new-relic/welcome-new-relic/get-started/introduction-new-relic/).

I don’t monitor any service for my blog - I don’t have any! - but only the front end performances. And I do so with [New Relic One](https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/new-relic-one/use-new-relic-one/get-started/introduction-new-relic-one/).

## [<svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg>](#why)Why

I do monitor my blog because I want to understand its performances and what I can do to improve it.

## [<svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg>](#how)How

My blog is built with GatsbyJS so I used the plugin [gatsby-plugin-newrelic](gatsby-plugin-newrelic). I won’t write here what I did to set up New Relic because there’s nothing their [README](https://github.com/newrelic/gatsby-plugin-newrelic/blob/main/README.md) doesn’t say. And it explains how to do it so well!

What I can add is that I monitor only my production environment. Here’s [my configuration](https://github.com/rossanodan/rossanodan/blob/master/gatsby-config.js#L163) to monitor production.

Here you can see a part of my dashboard where I see data coming through.

[![The dashboard](https://www.rossanodan.me/static/8aa5cb6929e2a0ecaa34209866b00b1b/fcda8/Dashboard-1.png "The dashboard")](https://www.rossanodan.me/static/8aa5cb6929e2a0ecaa34209866b00b1b/b7756/Dashboard-1.png)

Here you can see my blog’s **FID** , First Input Delay.

> To put it in simpler terms, the FID is the delay between when you click or tap on something like a link or a button, and the time that the browser responds to your action and starts processing it.

[![How long my blog takes to load by URL](https://www.rossanodan.me/static/2c4431ff0218e94bfc05d47ad9826544/fcda8/Dashboard-2.png "How long my blog takes to load by URL")](https://www.rossanodan.me/static/2c4431ff0218e94bfc05d47ad9826544/b7756/Dashboard-2.png)

I want to be honest: I can’t understand all of these charts yet. But that’s why I choose to monitor my blog with New Relic: I want to learn and become more familiar with it.

So don’t blame me if I’m not saying anything really interesting in this article. More interesting stuff will come, with time.

## [<svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg>](#conclusion)Conclusion

I started monitoring my blog a few days ago so, for now, there’s not so much I can say but New Relic looks good and very easy to use. It offers a lot of charts, analytics and alerts… Which I didn’t try yet!!

If you are searching for a good monitoring tool for your application, New Relic is what you need.