Every backend breaks at some point.
Sometimes it’s a failing cron job. Sometimes it’s a payment webhook that silently dies. Sometimes it’s a bug that only appears in production after midnight.
The real question is: how do you find out?
Do you wait for the first angry customer email in the morning, or do you get notified the second things go wrong?
Over the past years I’ve seen (and tried) a bunch of different ways to alert myself when something in my backend breaks. Some worked surprisingly well. Some ended up being more pain than help. Here’s a breakdown of the 5 most common approaches, with what they’re good at and where they fall short.
1. Email Alerts
When I built my very first side project, the easiest way to get notified was by email. Every time an exception happened, my code sent me a quick email with the error message.
It worked… until it didn’t.
Why it’s nice:
Email is universal. Every language, every framework, every cloud provider has an easy way to send an email.
Why it fails:
Your inbox fills up quickly. If you’re like me, important error emails end up lost between newsletters and receipts. And if your mail server has a hiccup, you might not get notified at all.
Email works for hobby projects, but for anything beyond that, it’s too fragile.
2. Logging Dashboards
Once you outgrow email, the next natural step is setting up a proper logging stack: ELK, Grafana, Datadog, or any of the modern monitoring tools.
Suddenly, you’re not just notified of one error. You see patterns. You get dashboards. You can set thresholds and alerts.
Why it’s nice:
Dashboards give context. Instead of “something broke,” you see what broke, how often, and under what conditions. Perfect for teams who need more than a ping.
Why it fails:
It’s a commitment. You have to set it up, maintain it, and (in most cases) pay for it. If you’re just one person running a side project, it’s often overkill.
3. Slack or Discord Alerts
I’ve been in teams where every deploy, signup, and error ended up in a Slack channel. It’s convenient because everyone sees the alert, and you can even attach logs or stack traces.
Why it’s nice:
Great for teams. Easy integration via webhooks. You can centralize all activity in one place.
Why it fails:
Noise. Slack and Discord are already busy enough, and unless you fine-tune the channel, your critical alerts drown between memes and chat. Also, if you don’t check Slack outside work hours, you might still miss it.
4. SMS Messages
I remember once wiring Twilio into a project just so I’d get a text when a payment failed. There’s something powerful about your phone buzzing. You don’t ignore it.
Why it’s nice:
Hard to miss. Works without WiFi. Great for rare, high-priority alerts.
Why it fails:
It costs money. And if your backend gets noisy, you’ll either go broke or start ignoring the texts. Not sustainable for high-volume apps.
5. Push Notifications
This is the middle ground I personally like the most. Push notifications on your phone feel instant and direct, without being as expensive as SMS.
Why it’s nice:
Fast. Native. You can group, filter, and tag them. And unlike Slack, you don’t risk losing them in conversation noise.
Why it fails:
It’s not trivial to set up yourself. Apple and Google both have their own push systems (APNs and FCM), and you need infrastructure to manage tokens and deliver reliably. Many devs just skip it because it’s a hassle.
Wrapping Up
If you’re building a side project, start simple. Email is fine at first or find a free push notification service.
If you’re working in a team, Slack + dashboards make more sense.
If your project is critical and users depend on it, you want something instant on your phone. SMS or push.
The important thing is this: don’t let your users be the ones who notify you first.