ColdFusion Monitoring Tools Comparison
Choose the right monitoring solution for your CF environment
Quick Recommendation by Use Case
Best CF-Specific Tool
Why: Deep CF integration, real-time profiling, query analysis, code-level insights
Starting: $69/server/month
Best Budget Option
Why: Free, comprehensive metrics, Elastic Stack integration
Cost: Free (infrastructure costs only)
Best Enterprise APM
Why: Full-stack observability, multi-platform, powerful analytics
Starting: $99-149/month
Best for Quick Setup
Why: No installation, basic metrics, included with CF
Cost: Free (included)
Feature Comparison Matrix
| Feature | FusionReactor | SeeFusion | PMT | New Relic | DataDog | CF Built-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CF-Specific Support | Excellent | Excellent | Good | Limited | Limited | Good |
| Real-Time Monitoring | Yes (1s refresh) | Yes (5s refresh) | Yes (10s default) | Yes (configurable) | Yes (configurable) | Limited (30s) |
| Request Profiling | Code-level | Page-level | Basic | Transaction traces | Transaction traces | Basic |
| Database Query Analysis | Excellent | Excellent | Good | Good | Good | Basic |
| Memory Profiling | Heap + GC analysis | Heap monitoring | Full JVM metrics | JVM metrics | JVM metrics | Basic |
| Alerting | Advanced rules | Email alerts | Elasticsearch alerts | Multi-channel | Multi-channel | None |
| Historical Data | 30 days default | 30 days | Unlimited (configurable) | 8 days (standard) | 15 months | None (real-time only) |
| Distributed Tracing | Yes (multi-tier) | Limited | Requires APM agent | Yes | Yes | No |
| Custom Metrics | API + plugins | Limited | Metricbeat custom | Full API | Full API | No |
| Log Aggregation | Via plugin | Limited | Filebeat integration | Built-in | Built-in | No |
| Pricing Model | Per server | Per server | Free (infra costs) | Per GB/user | Per host | Free (included) |
| Starting Price/Month | $69/server | $99/server | $0 | $99 (standard) | $15/host (infra) | $0 |
| Setup Complexity | Easy (installer) | Easy (installer) | Moderate (Elastic) | Easy (agent) | Easy (agent) | None (built-in) |
| Multi-Platform Support | Java-focused | CF-only | Any (Beats) | All platforms | All platforms | CF-only |
Detailed Tool Profiles
FusionReactor
Best For: ColdFusion-specific monitoring, deep request profiling, production debugging
Strengths:
- CF Expertise: Built specifically for CFML, understands CF semantics
- Request Profiling: Code-level profiling shows exact line causing slowdown
- Database Analysis: Query execution times, slow query detection, explain plans
- Memory Profiling: Heap dumps, GC analysis, memory leak detection
- Production Debugger: Debug live requests without stopping server
- Thread Analysis: Visualize thread states, detect deadlocks
- Easy Installation: Install via CF Administrator or manual JAR
- Low Overhead: ~2-5% performance impact
Considerations:
- Per-server licensing can get expensive at scale (10+ servers)
- Limited integration with non-Java platforms
- Historical data retention requires Cloud or Enterprise license
Pricing: Standard ($69/server/mo) → Cloud ($99/mo + $25/server) → Enterprise (custom)
Setup Time: 15 minutes
Website: fusion-reactor.com
SeeFusion
Best For: CF monitoring on a budget, smaller deployments, basic profiling needs
Strengths:
- CF-Specific: Built for ColdFusion with CFML understanding
- Page Monitoring: Track page execution times, slow pages
- Query Tracking: Slow query detection and analysis
- Active Requests: See running requests in real-time
- Simple Interface: Clean, straightforward UI
- Affordable: Lower cost than FusionReactor
Considerations:
- Less detailed profiling than FusionReactor (page-level vs code-level)
- Smaller community and fewer updates
- Limited distributed tracing capabilities
- Basic alerting (email only)
Pricing: $99/server/month or $999/server/year
Setup Time: 20 minutes
Website: seefusion.com
PMT (Performance Monitoring Toolset)
Best For: Free comprehensive monitoring, Elastic Stack users, custom dashboards
Strengths:
- Free: No licensing costs (open-source Elastic Stack)
- Comprehensive Metrics: JVM, Tomcat, system, custom metrics
- Elastic Integration: Metricbeat → Elasticsearch → Kibana
- Unlimited Retention: Store historical data as long as you want
- Custom Dashboards: Full Kibana customization
- Alerting: Elasticsearch alerting framework
- Log Aggregation: Combine with Filebeat for logs
- Scalable: Elastic Stack scales to enterprise levels
Considerations:
- Requires Elastic Stack setup and management
- Infrastructure costs (Elastic Cloud or self-hosted)
- Less CF-specific than FusionReactor/SeeFusion
- No code-level profiling
- Steeper learning curve
Pricing: Free (Elastic Cloud from $95/mo or self-host)
Setup Time: 1-2 hours (includes Elastic setup)
Documentation: CFGuide PMT Guide
New Relic
Best For: Full-stack observability, multi-platform environments, enterprise analytics
Strengths:
- Full-Stack APM: Monitor CF + databases + front-end + infrastructure
- Distributed Tracing: Track requests across microservices
- Powerful Analytics: NRQL query language for deep insights
- Custom Dashboards: Build dashboards for any metric
- Multi-Channel Alerts: Slack, PagerDuty, webhooks, email
- Log Management: Centralized log aggregation and search
- Synthetic Monitoring: Proactive uptime checks
- Java Agent: Works with CF (Java application)
Considerations:
- Limited CF-specific features (generic Java monitoring)
- Pricing based on data ingestion can scale quickly
- Less detailed CFML-level insights than FusionReactor
- Requires Java agent configuration
Pricing: Standard ($99/user/mo) → Pro ($149/user/mo) → Enterprise (custom)
Setup Time: 30 minutes
Website: newrelic.com
DataDog
Best For: Cloud-native infrastructure, DevOps teams, multi-platform monitoring
Strengths:
- Infrastructure Monitoring: Servers, containers, cloud services
- APM: Java agent for ColdFusion transaction monitoring
- Log Management: Centralized logging with powerful search
- Distributed Tracing: End-to-end request tracking
- Custom Metrics: StatsD/DogStatsD integration
- Integrations: 500+ platform integrations
- Anomaly Detection: ML-powered alerts
- Dashboards: Rich visualization options
Considerations:
- Generic Java monitoring (no CF-specific features)
- Pricing per host + APM can add up
- Less detailed CFML insights
- Requires agent deployment and configuration
Pricing: Infrastructure ($15/host/mo) + APM ($31/host/mo) + Logs (from $0.10/GB)
Setup Time: 30-45 minutes
Website: datadoghq.com
ColdFusion Built-in Monitor
Best For: Quick health checks, basic monitoring, zero-budget scenarios
Strengths:
- Free: Included with ColdFusion 2025
- No Installation: Enable in CF Administrator
- Basic Metrics: Requests, memory, cache, queries
- Active Requests: See running requests
- Zero Configuration: Works out of the box
Limitations:
- No Alerting: Cannot set up alerts
- No History: Real-time only, no historical data
- Limited Profiling: Basic request info only
- No Integrations: Standalone interface
- 30s Refresh: Slower refresh than dedicated tools
- No Export: Cannot export metrics for analysis
Verdict: Good for quick health checks, but insufficient for production monitoring. Use as supplement, not primary tool.
Pricing: Free (included with CF)
Setup Time: 2 minutes (enable in admin)
Annual Cost Comparison (5 Servers)
FusionReactor
PMT (Elastic Cloud)
New Relic (2 users)
DataDog
Note: Costs vary based on data volume, retention, and usage. These are typical estimates for a 5-server deployment.
How to Choose Your Monitoring Tool
Define Your Requirements
- Budget: Free (PMT/built-in) vs paid solutions
- CF-Specific Needs: Code profiling, query analysis, CFML semantics
- Multi-Platform: Just CF or full-stack (databases, front-end, containers)
- Skill Level: Easy setup vs custom configuration
- Retention: Real-time only vs historical analysis
Match Tool to Use Case
- Deep CF Debugging: FusionReactor (code-level profiling)
- Budget-Conscious CF: PMT (free) or SeeFusion (affordable)
- Enterprise Full-Stack: New Relic or DataDog
- Quick Health Checks: CF Built-in Monitor
- Custom Dashboards: PMT (Kibana) or DataDog
Consider Hybrid Approach
Many teams use multiple tools in combination:
- PMT + FusionReactor: PMT for metrics/dashboards, FusionReactor for deep profiling
- DataDog + FusionReactor: DataDog for infrastructure, FusionReactor for CF-specific
- CF Built-in + PMT: Built-in for quick checks, PMT for analysis
Evaluate with Trial
- FusionReactor: 14-day free trial
- New Relic: Free tier available
- DataDog: 14-day free trial
- PMT: Free forever
- Test with realistic production-like workload
Essential Metrics to Monitor (Any Tool)
Request Performance
- Request count (total, per page)
- Response time (P50, P95, P99)
- Throughput (requests/second)
- Error rate (4xx, 5xx)
- Active/queued requests
JVM & Memory
- Heap usage (used/max)
- GC frequency and pause time
- Thread count and states
- Class loader metrics
- Non-heap memory (metaspace)
Database
- Query execution time
- Slow query detection
- Connection pool utilization
- Query count per endpoint
- Database errors
System Resources
- CPU utilization
- Disk I/O and space
- Network throughput
- Load average
- Open file descriptors
Common Monitoring Pitfalls to Avoid
❌ No Monitoring at All
Flying blind. You won't know about issues until users report them. At minimum, use CF built-in monitor + PMT.
❌ Alert Fatigue
Too many alerts = ignored alerts. Focus on actionable alerts with clear thresholds and escalation.
❌ Ignoring Baselines
Without baseline metrics, you can't detect degradation. Establish normal behavior first.
❌ Monitoring in Production Only
Monitor staging/QA environments too. Catch performance issues before production deployment.
❌ No Retention Strategy
Historical data is crucial for trend analysis. Define retention policy based on compliance and analysis needs.
❌ Tool Overhead Ignored
Monitoring tools consume resources. Test performance impact and optimize configuration.
Need Help Implementing Monitoring?
Convective has 20+ years of experience implementing ColdFusion monitoring solutions across FusionReactor, PMT, New Relic, and DataDog. We can design a monitoring strategy tailored to your environment, budget, and requirements.
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