What is Blackfire?
Blackfire is a comprehensive web observability solution designed specifically for PHP and Python applications. It offers automated profiling and performance monitoring capabilities that deliver precise, actionable insights to help development teams optimize their code. By providing deterministic profiling down to the function or line level, Blackfire enables developers to identify performance bottlenecks early and prevent issues from reaching production environments.
The platform integrates continuous observability with performance testing workflows, allowing teams to automate testing within their CI/CD pipelines. With features like synthetic user monitoring, alerting, and detailed recommendations, Blackfire helps organizations build resilient applications while reducing debugging time and infrastructure costs. Trusted by over 1,000 engineering teams worldwide, it combines European engineering excellence with practical developer-focused tools.
Features
- Deterministic Profiling: Provides function-call-level metrics to understand exactly how code consumes time, memory, and network resources
- Continuous Monitoring: Offers live monitoring in production with automatic profiling of key transactions and alerting capabilities
- Performance Testing: Extends test suites to include performance tests with automated workflows and CI/CD integration
- Actionable Recommendations: Delivers code quality and security recommendations based on performance best practices
- Distributed Profiling: Supports profiling micro-services and sub-requests across distributed systems
Use Cases
- Identifying performance bottlenecks in PHP or Python applications before deployment
- Automating performance testing within CI/CD pipelines to prevent regressions
- Monitoring production applications in real-time with detailed code-level insights
- Optimizing resource-intensive areas of web applications for better efficiency
- Debugging complex performance issues across distributed micro-services architectures
FAQs
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What payment methods does Blackfire accept?
Payments are managed by Recurly, which accepts most credit cards and SEPA payments for European customers. Money transfers are also accepted for yearly Production subscriptions. -
Is there a free trial available?
No free trial is provided, but users can access a demo environment at https://demo.blackfire.io/ to see all available features. Alternatively, they can subscribe for one month of the Production plan. -
What is included in the Development plan?
The Development plan includes profiling capabilities, manual assertions, one user (with additional users available for €33.25/month each), and Upsun integration for €33.25/month billed yearly. -
How does Blackfire handle sensitive data like SQL parameters?
SQL parameters and URL parameters are removed before they reach Blackfire's servers to prevent any leak of confidential data, ensuring security and privacy. -
Are there any profile request limits?
For regular usage, users should not hit the generous limit of 1,000 profiles per day per user, which is designed to accommodate typical profiling needs.
