Category definition

Monitoring tells you something failed.
Systems of record tell you what happened.

Monitoring tools and systems of record solve different problems. Understanding the difference explains why you need both — and what each one can't do.

The fundamental difference

Monitoring

Tells you that something happened

  • Error rate spiked at 9:23 AM
  • Webhook endpoint returning 503s
  • Latency increased 3x
  • Alert fired, someone paged

What it can't tell you: Which specific events failed, what they contained, whether they were retried, or how to replay them.

System of record

Tells you what happened

  • Event evt_123 received at 09:23:17
  • Payload: invoice.paid, $2,400, cus_ABC
  • Delivery failed: 503 at 09:23:18
  • Retried 3x, succeeded at 09:25:18

What it can't tell you: Application-level metrics, infrastructure health, or cross-service dependencies.

Monitoring vs evidence vs accountability

Aspect Monitoring tools Systems of record
Primary purpose Alert when something looks wrong Prove what actually happened
Data retention Hours to days (cost-optimized) Weeks to months (compliance-driven)
Storage model Metrics, samples, aggregates Complete payloads, immutable
Query pattern 'Show me the last hour of errors' 'Show me event evt_123 from January'
Audit value None — ephemeral by design Primary evidence for compliance
Replay capability No — no payload storage Yes — exact original payload

Why dashboards alone don't survive audits

During a SOC 2 audit or incident postmortem, auditors don't ask "what was your error rate?" They ask:

? "Can you prove this specific transaction was processed?"
? "What was the exact payload you received from the payment provider?"
? "How many delivery attempts were made, and what were the results?"
? "Can you export this evidence for our records?"

A monitoring dashboard showing "99.5% success rate" doesn't answer any of these questions. You need the actual events, stored immutably, queryable, and exportable.

Where Transyt fits in your reliability stack

Transyt isn't a replacement for monitoring. It's a different layer — one that monitoring tools can't provide.

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Provider Stripe, Twilio, AWS SNS

Sends webhooks. Retries on failure. Gives up eventually.

◆
Gateway (Transyt) System of record

Receives, stores, verifies, delivers. Proof of receipt and delivery.

□
Application Your backend

Processes business logic. Trusts gateway for delivery.

○
Monitoring Datadog, Sentry, PagerDuty

Alerts on anomalies. Tracks app-level metrics. No payload storage.

How monitoring tools complement (not replace) Transyt

Datadog / New Relic

Track application metrics, APM traces, infrastructure health. Alert when your webhook endpoint is slow or erroring.

Gap: No webhook payload storage or replay.

Sentry / Bugsnag

Capture application errors with stack traces. Alert when your webhook handler throws exceptions.

Gap: Only sees events that reach your app. Silent failures invisible.

PagerDuty / Opsgenie

Alert routing, on-call schedules, incident management. Page engineers when something is wrong.

Gap: Alerting layer only. No event storage or investigation tools.

Transyt

Store every webhook before forwarding. Log every delivery attempt. Alert on failures. Replay with one click.

Gap: Not an APM tool. Doesn't track app-level metrics or traces.

When you need a system of record

You need webhook infrastructure beyond monitoring when:

  • Auditors ask questions — SOC 2, ISO, PCI-DSS, internal compliance
  • Money moves through webhooks — Payment confirmations, refunds, disputes
  • Incidents require investigation — "What actually happened?" not "what was the error rate?"
  • Replay is critical — Failed events need to be re-processed, not lost
  • Teams need accountability — Clear ownership of webhook outcomes

If none of these apply, monitoring alone might be sufficient. If any of them apply, you need a system of record.

See where Transyt fits in your reliability stack

Systems of record for webhook infrastructure. Built for teams that get audited.

See how it works