Building microservices with Node.js (and monitoring them the smart way)

In today’s fast-paced world of scalable application development, breaking up monolithic codebases into microservices has become the preferred architectural approach. Teams now strive for agility, modularity, and scalability, and Node.js is often the perfect match due to its performance and simplicity.

However, microservices also introduce complexity. Once your application is composed of dozens of services, issues can arise in unexpected ways. This makes monitoring an essential part of your stack. Fortunately, Node.js offers robust options, including integration with tools like ManageEngine Applications Manager.

In this post, we will explore how to build microservices with Node.js and how to monitor them effectively using enterprise-grade solutions like Applications Manager.

Why Node.js for microservices?

Node.js offers significant advantages when designing microservices:

  • Event-driven and non-blocking by nature: This makes it highly efficient for I/O-heavy workloads.

  • Lightweight and fast: It is ideal for services designed to scale independently.

  • JavaScript everywhere: Front ends, back ends, and even infrastructure can share tooling and code.

  • Vast ecosystem: The npm registry provides modules for everything from logging to authentication to testing.

Whether you are building a user service, a notification engine, or a payment API, Node.js helps teams deliver quickly and iterate rapidly.

Designing Node.js microservices

When building a system of Node.js microservices, adhere to these principles:

  • Keep it focused: Each service should have a single responsibility. This simplifies debugging, scaling, and independent evolution.

  • Use API gateways: Instead of exposing every microservice directly, route traffic through a gateway (e.g., Kong or Express Gateway). This centralizes load balancing, logging, and security.

  • Choose communication wisely: Use lightweight protocols like REST or gRPC for synchronous calls and message queues (e.g., RabbitMQ or Kafka) for asynchronous processing.

  • Deploy with containers: Use Docker to package services and orchestrate them with Kubernetes or Docker Swarm. Each container should run a single Node.js service and expose clear health checks.

Monitoring Node.js microservices

Microservices are dynamic. A slow service can impact your entire stack. That's why monitoring is essential—not just for detecting failures but for ensuring performance, availability, and user satisfaction.

Here's what to monitor in Node.js:

  • CPU and memory usage

  • Event loop lag and garbage collection

  • Request throughput and response times

  • Error rates and exceptions

  • Custom business metrics (e.g., order volume and API hits)

This is where ManageEngine Applications Manager becomes invaluable.

Node.js monitoring with Applications Manager

ManageEngine Applications Manager is a comprehensive performance monitoring solution that provides deep insights into your Node.js applications, without requiring you to integrate multiple open-source tools.

Key features for Node.js:

  • Real-time performance metrics: Monitor CPU and memory usage, event loop latency, active handles, and heap statistics in real time.

  • Process-level visibility: Applications Manager offers detailed insights into each Node.js process, helping identify memory leaks, blocked event loops, and performance bottlenecks.

  • Automatic dependency mapping: Visualize how your Node.js services interact with databases, external APIs, and other services.

Node.js Monitoring Dashboard - ManageEngine Applications Manage

  • Smart alerts: Set up automated alerts for abnormal CPU spikes, memory usage trends, or slow transactions.

  • Transaction tracing: Drill down into individual API calls and understand the time spent in each part of the stack—from web requests to database queries.

    NodeJS Application Monitoring - ManageEngine Applications Manager

  • Container and cloud support: Applications Manager integrates well with Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, and more—ideal for microservices running in the cloud.

How to get started

To start monitoring your Node.js applications in microservices environments, follow these steps given below:

  • Install the Applications Manager APM Insight agent on your Node.js host.

  • Enable Node.js monitoring in the UI and configure your ports and services.

  • Add the necessary data on the Applications Manager UI.

  • Start collecting data—view charts, set alerts, and analyze historical trends from the dashboard.

  • Correlate Node.js data with infrastructure, database, and network metrics to gain full-stack visibility.

  • Whether you are running a few microservices or dozens of them, Applications Manager helps you stay on top of your application's health with a single pane of glass.

For more details on how to monitor Node.js applications, refer to this document.  

Bringing it all together

When you're building a Node.js-based microservices architecture, visibility is everything. Services fail. APIs slow down. Memory leaks can emerge.

Using Node.js makes it easy to spin up fast, focused services. But coupling that with smart monitoring—especially with a tool like ManageEngine Applications Manager—helps you move from reactive firefighting to proactive performance management.

With this combination, you can confidently scale your system, knowing that you are not operating without essential insights. Try our 30-day, free trial today!