The real-time event tracker I want
Earlier I announced Telesink. That post was a short tease. Today I explain the problem it addresses, why current tools do not fit, and why a dedicated solution makes sense.
The need: a real-time pulse of key product events
While building Telebugs, I wanted live visibility into important events: new signups, purchases, license activations, onboarding completions, trial starts, renewals, and similar signals.
This is not about historical reports or deep analysis. It is about knowing what is happening right now. Events flowing in confirm the product is alive and healthy. A sudden surge shows marketing is working or something viral is occurring. A new purchase delivers that immediate motivational boost. Silence in the feed can signal a problem worth investigating right away.
For a solo founder, this live pulse provides constant context: the heartbeat of the business, the thrill of real activity, and early warning of issues. Some events arrive via webhooks. Others I send directly from the app. I needed a simple place to see them as they happen.
Messaging apps as a temporary solution
Messaging apps like Telegram, Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams make sending events easy. They deliver notifications, attachments, previews, and search. Events appear instantly, and setup is fast.
Telegram
Telegram has great libraries and bot integration. I used it because I could send events in seconds.
Over time, problems emerge. It was not built for this. Personal chats, channels, bots, family, and friends all mix together. Business events blur the boundaries.
No built-in analytics exist. Counting daily purchases requires manual effort. New event types clutter the same channel or demand separate bots and keys, complicating code. The feed quickly becomes noisy.
At higher volumes, rate limits hit. One bot cannot handle heavy traffic, and accounts cap at 20 bots.
Slack
Slack offers richer formatting and higher limits. My team at Airbrake sent product events, deploys, and alerts there.
It stays chat-first. Simple webhooks are discouraged for complex apps. It is paid and can get expensive.
Discord and Microsoft Teams
Discord has limited formatting and a cluttered interface. Business events drown in other noise.
Teams has shifted away from open webhooks to proprietary connectors, adding friction.
Broader concerns with chat apps
Constant notifications distract. Mixing product signals with personal messages creates noise.
Sensitive data lives on third-party servers. Providers can change pricing or terms suddenly.
Why not full analytics platforms
PostHog, Amplitude, and Mixpanel excel at historical insights: funnels, cohorts, retention.
They are overkill for a simple live feed. Schemas, plans, and queries add friction. Real-time views feel secondary. Even open-source options demand heavy setup.
Why not webhook debugging tools
Webhook.site, RequestBin, and Hookdeck are great for temporary debugging.
They purge history fast and show raw payloads. They are not meant for ongoing monitoring.
Other alternatives explored
Mobile-focused servers like ntfy and Gotify lack a proper web timeline.
Log systems (ELK, Graylog) and observability platforms (Datadog, New Relic) target infrastructure, not product events. They bring complexity and cost.
SaaS options like LogSnag deliver clean real-time feeds but are not self-hostable, creating dependency.
Early open-source projects exist, but none offer the focused, minimal real-time dashboard without extra features or distractions.
Vision for Telesink
My vision is a focused, open-source, self-hostable app that presents a clean live feed of product events. It will not replace analytics, observability, or incident tools. It complements them by delivering the immediate "what is happening right now" view with low friction and predictable operation.
The focus is practical: easy webhook setup, readable event formatting, robust handling of reasonable scale, and sensible privacy and retention defaults.
It targets low-volume, high-signal events that a human can follow: signups, payments, trials, renewals. If events arrive multiple times per second, the dashboard becomes overwhelming. In those cases, logs, metrics, or analytics tools are better suited.
Telesink will be free to self-host. To sustain development, I plan a paid hosted SaaS version, following models like Plausible.
This is the real-time event tracker I have always wanted. I’ll share progress on Telesink here on the blog and on X at @kyrylo. Follow along if you’re interested!
P.S. The title nods to the classic Plausible Analytics post.