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Observability isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. But for teams managing large Node.js applications, getting real-time visibility into performance, memory usage, async behavior, and security can be a complex and risky endeavor, especially if it means modifying your production code.

That’s where N|Solid by NodeSource changes the game.

Imagine getting deep, real-time insights into your Node.js applications without touching a single line of your business logic. No instrumentation, no SDKs, no wrappers around your functions, just drop-in observability that works out of the box.

Welcome to real-time observability for Node.js—without code changes.

The Problem with Traditional APMs

Traditional Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tools like New Relic, Datadog, or AppDynamics typically rely on code instrumentation. That means inserting agents or wrapping APIs to track execution, measure performance, and report metrics. While effective in some scenarios, these approaches come with real trade-offs:

• Overhead and performance degradation: Injecting instrumentation can slow down your application, especially under high load.

• Limited visibility into Node.js internals: Most general-purpose APMs don’t expose runtime internals like the event loop, garbage collection, or async stalls.

• Security and privacy concerns: Agents may capture sensitive data unless meticulously configured.

• Complex setup and maintenance: Integrating SDKs into large or legacy codebases often requires significant engineering effort—and can introduce bugs.

For Node.js developers, this model is frustrating. You need precise, runtime-level insights, not generic metrics. And you shouldn’t have to rewrite your app to get them.

Introducing N|Solid: Observability Built for Node.js

N|Solid is a drop-in Node.js runtime created by NodeSource, purpose-built for observability and performance analysis. It’s fully compatible with the Node.js you already use—just enhanced with powerful diagnostic capabilities baked into the core.

The best part? No code changes required.

How It Works

N|Solid replaces the standard Node.js binary with an extended version that hooks into the runtime's internals. This gives you access to telemetry and diagnostics from inside the engine, not just from the outside.

Once deployed, N|Solid connects your application to the N|Solid Console (a real-time monitoring dashboard) or streams data to your observability platform via OpenTelemetry.

Here’s what you get—organized to make it easier to digest:

🟢 Core Insights (no code changes required)

• Real-time metrics: memory, CPU, throughput, and latency
• Event loop utilization and async activity tracking
• Security vulnerability monitoring \

🧪 Advanced Diagnostics (trigger on demand)

• CPU profiling to analyze performance bottlenecks
• Heap snapshots for deep memory inspection
• Garbage collection analytics and memory leak detection

And it all happens with zero instrumentation.

Real-Time Observability: What You Can See (and Do)

With N|Solid, observability isn't just passive monitoring, it's interactive, real-time insight. Here's what that means in practice:

AI-Powered Anomaly Detection

N|Solid uses an embedded AI Agent that continuously analyzes your app’s behavior to identify anomalies, performance regressions, or memory leaks. It can even generate natural-language reports from profiling data to help you understand what's happening and why.

Instead of seeing just a chart of memory usage, you get a plain-English explanation, like you can see in the following image:

Async Activity Tracking

Async behavior is one of Node.js’s most powerful (and most opaque)features. With N|Solid, you can track how asynchronous resources (promises, timers, I/O operations) behave and where stalls or bottlenecks occur.

This is incredibly helpful for debugging issues like:

• Long promise chains
• Async functions blocking the event loop
• Unresolved timers or callbacks causing memory leaks \

🔍 Heap and CPU Profiling in Production

Need to inspect memory usage or CPU hotspots? N|Solid lets you trigger heap snapshots and CPU profiles in real time—directly from the console or API, without restarting or modifying your app.

This makes it safe to do forensic analysis in live environments and fix issues faster.

🛡️ Vulnerability Scanning

Security is baked into the platform. N|Solid scans your dependencies for known vulnerabilities (based on CVEs and NodeSource’s internal database) and alerts you in the console when something needs attention.

No Code Changes = Less Risk, Faster Deployment

The ability to get observability without touching your application code is a major advantage for engineering teams:

• Ship faster: Developers don’t have to integrate new SDKs or libraries.
• Reduce risk: No need to redeploy with unknown instrumentation or debug side effects.
• Support legacy systems: Monitor older apps that aren’t actively developed or tested with modern tools.
• Improve DevOps collaboration: DevOps teams can deploy N|Solid as part of the infrastructure layer, enabling insights without developer intervention. \

In short, N|Solid separates observability from application logic, the way it should be.

Integrates with Your Stack

Whether you use Kubernetes, Docker, or a traditional VM setup, N|Solid fits right in. It can be deployed on:

• Cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• CI/CD pipelines
• Local development and staging servers
• Edge devices and on-premises infrastructure

And if you already use OpenTelemetry or want to centralize data in tools like Grafana, Elastic, or Prometheus, N|Solid offers direct integration—so you can stream data into your existing workflows.

Built by Node.js Experts

NodeSource has been a trusted name in the Node.js ecosystem for nearly a decade. The team has contributed to the Node.js core, run one of the longest-maintained Node.js distributions, and provided enterprise support to some of the world’s biggest companies.

N|Solid reflects that expertise: it’s not just another monitoring agent. It’s a runtime designed for Node.js, by people who helped build Node.js.

Trusted by Industry Leaders

N|Solid is trusted by engineering teams at top companies across fintech, e-commerce, healthcare, and media. Organizations using N|Solid have reported faster resolution of production issues, improved application performance under load, and increased confidence in deploying Node.js at scale. From global enterprises to agile startups, teams rely on N|Solid to gain real-time visibility without compromising stability or security.

Try N|Solid for Free

If you’re tired of chasing bugs in the dark or reacting to incidents without visibility, N|Solid gives you the tools to be proactive.

✅ No code changes ✅ No SDKs ✅ No instrumentation ✅ Just insights, in real time

You can try N|Solid for free with a cloud-hosted or on-premises setup:

👉 Start Your Free Trial of N|Solid

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Final Thoughts

Node.js is fast, lightweight, and built for modern web apps, but it needs observability that keeps up. N|Solid offers a new standard: real-time diagnostics and performance visibility, with zero friction.

So the next time your app hits a performance cliff or users report latency issues, don’t guess. Drop in N|Solid, and see exactly what’s happening, live, in production, without changing a single line of code.

Because observability should empower you, not slow you down.