Zero infrastructure. Zero setup friction.
SigNoz is a powerful open-source observability platform. APILens is a zero-setup npm package for Node.js teams who want monitoring without the infrastructure overhead.
Get your API key — freeTL;DR
SigNoz is a full observability stack you self-host. It's great if you need OpenTelemetry-native pipelines across multiple languages and have the DevOps bandwidth to run ClickHouse. APILens is a 60-second drop-in for Node.js APIs — no infrastructure, no agents, one line of code. If you're a Node.js developer who just wants to see what your API is doing, APILens is faster to value.
| Feature | APILens | SigNoz |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 60 seconds | 30-60 min |
| Lines of code | 1 | 10-20 |
| Dependencies | 0 | 5+ (OTel SDK) |
| Infrastructure | None | Docker+ClickHouse |
| Auto DB profiling | — | |
| Distributed tracing | ||
| Error tracking | ||
| N+1 detection | — | |
| Real-time dashboard | ||
| Self-hostable | — | |
| Price | Free to start | Free (self-host) |
Choose APILens if…
- You're a Node.js/Express developer who wants observability in 60 seconds
- You don't want to manage Docker, ClickHouse, or any self-hosted infrastructure
- You need zero runtime dependencies (serverless, strict bundle budgets)
- You want automatic DB profiling without OpenTelemetry instrumentation
- You're a startup or indie developer who needs a SaaS dashboard, not DevOps work
Choose SigNoz if…
- You need full control over your observability data (data residency, compliance)
- You already use OpenTelemetry across a polyglot microservices fleet
- You have a DevOps team comfortable managing ClickHouse and Docker
- You need to ingest logs/traces from non-Node.js services (Go, Python, Java)
- Your organization prohibits sending request data to third-party SaaS platforms
Setup: 60 seconds vs 60 minutes
SigNoz requires deploying ClickHouse, the SigNoz collector, query service, and frontend — typically via Docker Compose. You then need to instrument your app with the OpenTelemetry SDK, configure exporters, and manage the self-hosted stack ongoing. APILens is npm install auto-api-observe and one line of middleware. No infrastructure. No agents. Monitoring starts immediately.
Dependencies: 0 vs 5+
OpenTelemetry instrumentation for Node.js requires @opentelemetry/sdk-node, @opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node, and exporter packages. APILens has zero runtime dependencies — it uses only Node.js built-ins. This matters for serverless deployments, cold start times, and security audit surface.
DB Profiling: automatic vs manual
APILens automatically patches pg, mysql2, mongoose, Prisma, Knex, Sequelize, ioredis, better-sqlite3, and node-redis. Every query gets timed and associated with the request that triggered it, with N+1 detection built in. SigNoz relies on OpenTelemetry auto-instrumentation, which varies by library and requires additional packages per DB client.
Ready to try the 60-second option?
Free to start. No credit card. No infrastructure to manage.
$ npm install auto-api-observeapp.use(observe({ apiKey: 'sk_...' }))