Elastic APM Node.js Agent is the official Node.js application performance monitoring agent from Elastic, a package that runs with a Node.js application to automatically capture errors, tracing data, and performance metrics and send them to an Elastic Observability deployment.

What it is

Elastic APM Node.js Agent is the official Node.js agent for the Elastic Observability solution, distributed as the elastic-apm-node package and licensed under BSD-2-Clause. It runs alongside an application, automatically capturing errors, tracing data, and performance metrics, and sends that APM data to an Elastic Observability deployment — either hosted in Elastic's cloud or running on premises. It lives in the Node.js and npm ecosystem, and its data lands in the Elastic Stack: APM Server receives the APM data from the agent, Elasticsearch stores it, and Kibana provides the interface used to visualise and analyse it, monitor the application, and create alerts.

The concrete problem it solves is manual instrumentation. Without an agent, a team writes its own code to catch errors, time requests, and record performance figures, then ships that data somewhere it can be queried. This package replaces that hand-rolled work: it is installed as a dependency and started from the application, after which automatic instrumentation of popular modules produces tracing and metrics without per-route instrumentation code. It also serves root-cause work, since captured traces and errors are what a team reviews to identify the cause of service issues quickly. In this registry it sits under Infrastructure & Operations, Monitoring & Observability.

Key capabilities

• Published on npm as elastic-apm-node; install with npm install --save elastic-apm-node.
• Started through require('elastic-apm-node').start({...}), and must be started before the application imports its other dependencies for automatic instrumentation of popular modules to work.
• Configured with keys including serverUrl, secretToken, and apiKey, plus serviceName and environment.
• Documents alternative start paths that avoid changing application code, and covers gotchas with transpilers and bundlers such as Babel, esbuild, and Webpack.
• Ships framework and platform guides for Express, Fastify, Koa, hapi, AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, and TypeScript.
• Supports ECMAScript modules on an experimental basis, documented separately from the standard setup.
• Feeds APM Server, which passes data to Elasticsearch for storage and Kibana for exploration.

Who uses it and how

• Node.js service teams running Express, Fastify, Koa, or hapi, who follow the per-framework "Get started" guide to wire the agent into an existing application.
• Serverless teams on AWS Lambda or Azure Functions, which have dedicated setup documentation.
• TypeScript codebases and projects built through transpilers or bundlers, which depend on the documented start-order guidance.
• Teams already operating an Elastic Stack deployment, on Elastic's cloud or on premises, who supply that deployment's serverUrl and secretToken or configured apiKey.
• Teams working on distributed tracing, error monitoring, and performance metrics, the agent's declared topics.

Getting started

Install with npm install --save elastic-apm-node, then start the agent at the very top of the main application file with require('elastic-apm-node').start({...}). An Elastic Stack deployment — APM Server, Elasticsearch, and Kibana — is a prerequisite, and the quick start guide covers creating one; the agent needs the deployment's serverUrl and a secretToken or configured apiKey.

How it compares

No similar tool and no list of paid products it replaces appears in the registry facts for this entry, so it stands alone in this registry. The facts do establish one axis of choice: APM data goes to an Elastic Observability deployment, hosted in Elastic's cloud or run on premises, so its value is tied to operating or subscribing to that stack rather than to an independent backend.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must operate the full Elastic Stack alongside the application: APM Server to receive APM data, Elasticsearch as the database storing all APM data, and Kibana as the interface. Teams that do not run Elastic Observability, or that want an agent reporting elsewhere, should look at other options, and anyone who cannot start the agent before other imports loses the automatic instrumentation. Two facts warrant caution: ECMAScript module support is described as experimental, and the repository carries 361 open issues against 594 stars, so expect a busy issue tracker.

npm install --save elastic-apm-node