mttrly vs Monitoring Tools

Monitoring tells you something is wrong. mttrly lets you fix it.

Grafana shows beautiful dashboards. Datadog sends smart alerts. But when the alert fires, you still need to SSH in and fix things. mttrly closes the loop.

Alert: CPU High at 99%

What happens next?

WITH MONITORING ONLY (Grafana/Datadog)

  1. 1. Alert arrives: "CPU 99% on prod-server"
  2. 2. Open laptop
  3. 3. Open Grafana dashboard
  4. 4. See graph: yes, CPU is pegged at 99%
  5. 5. Now what?
  6. 6. SSH into server
  7. 7. Run: top
  8. 8. Find culprit: node.js eating 98% CPU
  9. 9. Decide: restart or investigate?
  10. 10. Run: systemctl restart app
  11. 11. Go back to Grafana
  12. 12. Wait for graph to update
  13. 13. Verify: CPU back to normal
  14. 14. Update incident ticket
Time: 15+ minutes
Laptop: required
Context switching: high

WITH MONITORING + MTTRLY (Recommended)

  1. 1. Alert from Grafana: "CPU 99%"
  2. 2. Open mttrly in Telegram (already have)
  3. 3. You: "why is CPU high?"
  4. 4. Bro: [runs diagnostic] "node.js API process using 98% CPU Memory usage also high: 1.8GB/2GB Checking logs... Found 47 errors in last 5 min Started after deploy 2 hours ago Diagnosis: Likely infinite loop or memory leak Options: 1. Restart service (quick fix) 2. Roll back deploy (safer) 3. Show recent commit diff"
  5. 5. You: tap "Restart service"
  6. 6. Bro: "Restarted. CPU back to 12%. Monitoring..."
  7. 7. Done
Time: 2 minutes
Laptop: not needed
Context switching: zero

The difference: observation vs action

Two Different Jobs

MONITORING TOOLS excel at:

  • •Collecting metrics from everything
  • •Visualizing trends over time
  • •Correlating events across systems
  • •Historical analysis
  • •Alerting when thresholds crossed
  • •Team dashboards
  • •Capacity planning

They answer: "What's happening? What happened?"

MTTRLY excels at:

  • •Taking action on alerts
  • •Quick diagnosis from mobile
  • •Fix without laptop
  • •Common operations as button taps
  • •Reducing MTTR
  • •Emergency response

It answers: "How do I fix it? Right now?"

Best setup: Use both. Monitoring for visibility. mttrly for action.

FeaturemttrlyMonitoring Tools
Primary purposeIncident responseObservability
Take actionYes (restart, deploy)No (alert only)
Setup complexity2 minutesHours to days
CostFree tier, $39/mo Pro$50-500+/month
Mobile appTelegram (already have)Separate app needed
Mobile actionFull controlView-only

Grafana + Prometheus

Pros

  • +Powerful visualization
  • +Open source
  • +Highly customizable
  • +Great for trends and analysis
  • +Free to self-host

Cons

  • -Complex setup (days to weeks)
  • -Requires infrastructure (servers, storage)
  • -Alerting requires AlertManager setup
  • -No action capability
  • -Mobile app is view-only

Grafana shows you the dashboard. mttrly lets you act on what you see. Example workflow: 1. Grafana alert: Disk 90% full → 2. mttrly: /run disk-cleanup → 3. Done in 30 seconds. Grafana gives context. mttrly gives action.

Datadog

Pros

  • +Easy setup (agent install)
  • +Great APM (application performance monitoring)
  • +Smart alerting with ML
  • +Extensive integrations
  • +Mobile app

Cons

  • -Expensive ($15-30/host/month)
  • -Can't take actions from mobile app
  • -View-only interface
  • -Cost scales with infrastructure

Datadog detects issues with precision. mttrly resolves them with speed. Example workflow: 1. Datadog: "Memory leak detected in api service" → 2. mttrly: "restart api service" → 3. Back to normal. Together: Detection + Resolution = Low MTTR

New Relic

Pros

  • +Full observability platform
  • +AI insights (anomaly detection)
  • +Good free tier (100GB/month)
  • +Distributed tracing

Cons

  • -Complex pricing (confusing)
  • -Steep learning curve
  • -Actions require external tools
  • -Mobile app limited

New Relic tells you what's wrong with AI precision. mttrly gives you power to fix it from anywhere.

Closing the Incident Loop

The Complete Incident Response Stack

DETECT (Monitoring)

Grafana/Datadog/New Relic:

  • •Collect metrics
  • •Detect anomalies
  • •Send smart alerts
↓

DIAGNOSE (mttrly)

Quick mobile diagnosis:

  • •Check server health
  • •View relevant logs
  • •Identify root cause
  • •30-90 seconds
↓

RESOLVE (mttrly)

Take action:

  • •Restart services
  • •Run playbooks
  • •Deploy rollback
  • •1-2 minutes
↓

VERIFY (Monitoring)

Confirm resolution:

  • •Check dashboards
  • •Metrics back to normal
  • •Incident closed

Total MTTR: 3-5 minutes instead of 15-30 minutes

Monitoring tools excel at detection and observability. mttrly excels at action and resolution. Best setup: Use both. Monitoring for visibility. mttrly for action.