Quick answer
Better Stack - Better Stack's free plan tracks 20 times as many errors as Sentry's: 100,000 exceptions a month against 5,000. Sentry keeps your data longer, with a 30-day lookback against Better Stack's 3 days, and gives you 5 million spans a month for tracing.
How the free tiers compare
Better Stack's free plan covers 100,000 exceptions a month, 5,000 session replays, 30 GB of metrics, 3 GB each of logs and traces kept for 3 days, and 10 monitors and heartbeats with one status page. Sentry's free Developer plan is limited to one user. It covers 5,000 errors, 5 million spans, 50 session replays, 5 GB of logs and 5 GB of application metrics, with 10 custom dashboards, one uptime monitor and a 30-day lookback.
Better Stack vs Sentry free tier, side by side
| Better StackFTV 49 | SentryFTV 56 | |
|---|---|---|
| Errors per month | 100,000 exceptions | 5,000 errors |
| Session replays per month | 5,000 | 50 |
| TracingBetter Stack meters traces by storage, Sentry by span count. | 3 GB of traces, kept for 3 days | 5 million spans |
| Logs | 3 GB, kept for 3 days | 5 GB |
| Data retention | 3 days for logs and traces | 30-day lookback |
| Uptime monitoring | 10 monitors and heartbeats, 1 status page | 1 uptime monitor |
| First paid plan price | Nano telemetry bundle - from $25/mo billed yearly, $30/mo monthly | Team - $26/mo billed annually |
After you outgrow the free tier
Better Stack's telemetry bundles start with Nano at $25 a month billed yearly. Nano includes 40 GB each of logs, traces and metrics, with 30 days of log retention. Sentry's Team plan costs $26 a month billed annually. It adds unlimited users, raises errors to 50,000 a month and allows 20 custom dashboards.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | Better Stack | Sentry |
|---|---|---|
| A small team that outgrows the free error limit | Free up to 100,000 exceptions a month | $26/mo for Team, with 50,000 errors and unlimited users |
| A team that needs more than 3 GB of logs | From $25/mo for Nano, with 40 GB of logs kept 30 days | $26/mo for Team, with 5 GB of logs and $0.50 for each extra GB |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick Better Stack when…
- Your app throws more than 5,000 errors a month.
- You want uptime monitors and a status page in the same account as error tracking.
- You want 5,000 session replays a month instead of 50.
Pick Sentry when…
- You want to look back 30 days, not 3.
- You want 5 million spans a month for tracing.
- You already use Sentry's SDKs and want to keep one vendor.
- You want 10 custom dashboards on the free plan.
Bottom line
Pick Better Stack if you need a high error ceiling and uptime checks on one free plan. Pick Sentry if you want deeper tracing and 30 days of history, and you work alone.
Read the full listings: Better Stack and Sentry. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.