Should i use Application Insights or AppCenter Diagnostics for Cordova Apps

4
votes

Both Application Insights and AppCenter Diagnostics allow monitoring of Cordova Apps following these links:

https://github.com/Microsoft/cordova-plugin-ms-appinsights

https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/appcenter/sdk/getting-started/cordova

Given that the GitHub Repo is a bit outdated, i suppose AppCenter is now the suggested way to monitor Apps. However, AppCenter doesn't provide end-to-end monitoring capabilitys when using Azure Services in the Backend.

  • So, when making a decision, which monitoring system to use for our Cordova Apps, should we base the decision on the following question?

    1. Using Azure Services with AppInsights in the Backend? -> Use Application Insights for the Cordova Frontend.

    2. Having a Standalone App or no Azure Backend -> Use AppCenter Diagnostics.

  • Are there other thinks to take into account?

  • Is AppCenter Diagnostics providing any other benefit i would not get from AppInsights?

PS: I know about the possibility to send AppCenter Diagnostics data to AppInsights, however this is just a data export and lacks end-to-end capabilitys.

2
cordovaazure-application-insightsvisual-studio-app-center
(from Application Insights team) Referenced GitHub Repo is not officially supported (version 0.0.2 is another pointer towards it). Though it might just work. – ZakiMa
@ZakiMa Thank you for the feedback. So there are no plans to expand Application Insights usage scenarios to cover Apps as well? Should we stick with AppCenter's limited functionality for Apps? Just trying to give guidance to our devs for monitoring in different application types. – Markus S.
Forwarded this thread to App Insights Usage team. They should respond soon with guidance. – ZakiMa
@ZakiMa any updates on this? – Markus S.
This is probably a pretty opinion based question so i'm not sure why nobody closed it yet. I've also forwarded to the AppCenter team. but I've also added my opinion answer below. – John Gardner

2 Answers

3
votes

In general, I believe the guidance is "if it is a mobile app, use AppCenter".
you can then set up that AppCenter app to export to application insights:

https://blog.xamarin.com/appcenter-continuous-export-application-insights/

That way you get appcenter's device support/other features, AND you get application insight's tools/features/etc on that same data. This is especially useful if you already use application insights for server side telemetry.

0
votes

there is this JavaScript SDK Github official link herehttps://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-JS

this helps any JS application be-it React or Angular or Vue to log insights to AppInsights directly