Sentry Migration Deep Dive

Overview

Comprehensive guide to migrating from other error tracking tools to Sentry.

Migration Planning

Phase 1: Assessment

□ Inventory current error tracking usage
□ List all projects/services using old tool
□ Document current alert configurations
□ Export historical data (if needed)
□ Identify team members and permissions

Phase 2: Parallel Running

□ Set up Sentry projects
□ Install Sentry SDK alongside existing
□ Run both tools in parallel (2-4 weeks)
□ Compare error capture rates
□ Validate alert parity

Phase 3: Cutover

□ Disable old tool SDK
□ Remove old tool dependencies
□ Update documentation
□ Train team on Sentry
□ Cancel old tool subscription

Migration from Rollbar

SDK Replacement

// Before: Rollbar
import Rollbar from 'rollbar';
const rollbar = new Rollbar({
  accessToken: 'ROLLBAR_TOKEN',
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,
});
rollbar.error('Something went wrong', error);

// After: Sentry
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/node';
Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,
});
Sentry.captureException(error);

Feature Mapping: Rollbar → Sentry

Express Middleware Migration

// Before: Rollbar
app.use(rollbar.errorHandler());

// After: Sentry
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/node';
Sentry.init({ dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN });
app.use(Sentry.Handlers.requestHandler());
app.use(Sentry.Handlers.errorHandler());

Migration from Bugsnag

SDK Replacement

// Before: Bugsnag
import Bugsnag from '@bugsnag/js';
Bugsnag.start({ apiKey: 'BUGSNAG_KEY' });
Bugsnag.notify(error);

// After: Sentry
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/browser';
Sentry.init({ dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN });
Sentry.captureException(error);

Feature Mapping: Bugsnag → Sentry

React Integration Migration

// Before: Bugsnag React
import Bugsnag from '@bugsnag/js';
import BugsnagPluginReact from '@bugsnag/plugin-react';
Bugsnag.start({ plugins: [new BugsnagPluginReact()] });
const ErrorBoundary = Bugsnag.getPlugin('react').createErrorBoundary(React);

// After: Sentry React
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/react';
Sentry.init({ dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN });
// Use Sentry.ErrorBoundary component
<Sentry.ErrorBoundary fallback={<ErrorFallback />}>
  <App />
</Sentry.ErrorBoundary>

Migration from Raygun

SDK Replacement

// Before: Raygun
import raygun from 'raygun';
const client = new raygun.Client().init({ apiKey: 'RAYGUN_KEY' });
client.send(error);

// After: Sentry
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/node';
Sentry.init({ dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN });
Sentry.captureException(error);

Feature Mapping: Raygun → Sentry

Migration from NewRelic Errors

SDK Addition (NewRelic → Sentry)

// Keep NewRelic for APM, add Sentry for errors
import newrelic from 'newrelic';
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/node';

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  beforeSend(event) {
    // Correlate with NewRelic
    event.tags = {
      ...event.tags,
      newrelic_transaction: newrelic.getTransaction()?.name,
    };
    return event;
  },
});

// Replace: newrelic.noticeError(error)
// With: Sentry.captureException(error)

Data Migration

Export Historical Data

Most tools don't support direct export. Options:

1. Keep read-only access to old tool
2. Export via API to archive
3. Screenshot/document important issues

API Export Script

// Export issues from Rollbar (example)
async function exportRollbarItems() {
  const response = await fetch(
    'https://api.rollbar.com/api/1/items',
    {
      headers: { 'X-Rollbar-Access-Token': ROLLBAR_TOKEN },
    }
  );
  const data = await response.json();

  // Save to file for reference
  fs.writeFileSync(
    'rollbar-export.json',
    JSON.stringify(data, null, 2)
  );
}

Alert Migration

Map Alert Rules

# Old tool alert
name: "High Error Rate"
condition: error_rate > 10%
action: email oncall@company.com

# Sentry equivalent
- name: "High Error Rate"
  conditions:
    - type: event_frequency
      value: 100
      interval: 1h
  actions:
    - type: notify_email
      targetIdentifier: oncall@company.com

Recreate Integrations

□ Slack integration
□ PagerDuty integration
□ Jira integration
□ GitHub integration
□ Custom webhooks

Testing Migration

Validation Checklist

□ Test error capture in all environments
□ Verify source maps work
□ Test user context capture
□ Verify breadcrumbs
□ Test alert triggering
□ Compare error grouping
□ Validate performance data (if used)

Parallel Comparison Script

// Capture in both during migration
function captureError(error: Error, context: object) {
  // Old tool
  rollbar.error(error, context);

  // New tool
  Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
    scope.setContext('migration', context);
    Sentry.captureException(error);
  });
}

Cleanup

Remove Old Dependencies

# Node.js
npm uninstall rollbar @bugsnag/js raygun

# Python
pip uninstall rollbar bugsnag raygun4py

Remove Old Configuration

# Delete old config files
rm .rollbar.yml
rm bugsnag.config.js

# Remove environment variables
unset ROLLBAR_ACCESS_TOKEN
unset BUGSNAG_API_KEY

Resources

• Sentry Migration Guide
• SDK Documentation