Performance

Why this category matters

A service can be reachable and still fail users when responses crawl. Performance monitoring catches slowdowns before they become outages.

Recommended learning order

1. LatencyLatency is the delay between starting a request and observing a response milestone.
2. Response timeResponse time is how long a request takes until a complete response is received.
3. TimeoutTimeout is the maximum time allowed for a request or check before it fails. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
4. Response-time thresholdResponse-time threshold is the maximum acceptable duration for a successful response. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
5. Time to first byteTime to first byte is the time until the client receives the first byte of the response.

Foundational terms

• LatencyLatency is the delay between starting a request and observing a response milestone.
• Response timeResponse time is how long a request takes until a complete response is received.
• TimeoutTimeout is the maximum time allowed for a request or check before it fails. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.
• Response-time thresholdResponse-time threshold is the maximum acceptable duration for a successful response. Teams use the term to keep checks, alerts, and reviews precise.

Advanced terms

• Time to first byteTime to first byte is the time until the client receives the first byte of the response.
• Error rateError rate is the share of requests that fail within a period.

All terms in Performance

• Error rate
• Latency
• Response time
• Time to first byte