When it comes to understanding application performance, most teams start with Application Performance Monitoring (APM), and for good reason. APM is essential for tracking the technical health of your applications: it monitors service availability, response times, and error rates, and helps teams dig deep into backend systems to understand what’s going on.

Real user monitoring (RUM) is a core proactive technique for understanding how real users are moving through your site. The primary tool for this has been to monitor via public probes, which are agents hosted in major cloud regions and global cities (Los Angeles and Frankfurt, for example).