Observability tools weren't built for your custom business metrics
Trifle is a purpose-built time-series metrics platform. Minimal, composable, and works with your existing database.
The problem with existing tools
Every option comes with tradeoffs that developers shouldn't have to accept.
Infrastructure Overhead
Grafana + Prometheus requires a dedicated time-series database, exporters, and ongoing maintenance. All for some business counters.
Wrong Abstraction
Datadog and New Relic are built for infrastructure monitoring. Tracking "orders by country by channel" means fighting the tool.
DIY Spaghetti
Custom SQL rollup jobs, cron-based aggregators, manually maintained materialized views. They work until they don't.
Trifle's approach
Three principles that make business metrics simple.
Works with your existing database
PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, or SQLite. No new infrastructure to deploy, monitor, or pay for.
One call, many dimensions
Track count, revenue, country, channel, and any nested hierarchy in a single call. Automatic rollup across time granularities.
Library-first, platform-optional
Start with just the library in your language. Add the App when you need dashboards. Add the CLI when you need terminal access or AI agent integration.
How Trifle compares
A side-by-side look at the tools developers consider for business metrics.
| Feature | Trifle | Grafana + Prometheus | Datadog | Custom StatsD | Google Analytics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 5 minutes | Hours/Days | Minutes | Hours | Minutes |
| Custom business metrics | Built for it | Possible but complex | Possible but expensive | DIY | Limited |
| Hierarchical breakdowns | Native | Manual labels | Tags (limited nesting) | Dimensions | |
| Uses existing DB | No (needs TSDB) | No (SaaS) | No (needs backend) | No (SaaS) | |
| Self-hosted option | Yes (free) | ||||
| AI/MCP integration | Native | ||||
| Pricing model | Per-seat | Free (DIY ops) | Per-host ($$$) | Free (DIY ops) | Free (data limits) |
| Best for | Business metrics | Infrastructure | APM + Infra | Simple counters | Web analytics |
Who it's for
Trifle is built for teams that need business metrics without the ops burden.
Developers tracking custom business metrics
Revenue, orders, signups, feature usage -- metrics that live in your application code, not your infrastructure.
Teams needing dashboards without infrastructure overhead
Give your PM access to metrics without deploying Grafana, configuring datasources, and maintaining dashboards as YAML.
AI-forward teams wanting MCP integration
Let your AI coding agents query real metrics while analyzing your code. Context-aware insights, not just raw numbers.
Who it's not for
Trifle does one thing well. These use cases are better served by other tools.
Raw log aggregation
If you need full-text log search, use ELK or Datadog Logs.
APM/tracing-only
If you only need request traces and flame graphs, use Datadog APM or Jaeger.
Real-time streaming
If you need sub-second event streaming, use Kafka or Flink.
Case Study
How DropBot tracks 80M+ daily calculations
80M+
Products calculated daily
Millions
Background jobs traced
Real-time
Anomaly detection
"Being able to track source events and calculations gives us insight into how our system is operating."
DropBot uses Trifle::Stats to track product calculations across their entire pipeline. Every price comparison, every retailer fetch, and every deal calculation is recorded with hierarchical breakdowns by source, category, and retailer.
With Trifle::Traces, they monitor millions of background jobs, identifying bottlenecks and failures before they impact users. The combination gives them a complete picture of both what their system is doing and how well it is doing it.
Built by developers, for developers
Trifle is bootstrapped and independent. No VC pressure to upsell. We build what developers need, not what investors want.
Founding customers shape the roadmap. Every feature starts with a real developer need.
See it in action
Start tracking your business metrics in minutes. No credit card required.