Performance monitoring enables early detection of bottlenecks, memory leaks, and degraded responsiveness in Node.js applications before they impact users. As the creator of CoreUI, a widely used open-source UI library, I’ve implemented performance monitoring in production Node.js services throughout my 11 years of backend development. The most effective approach is using Node.js built-in performance hooks and process metrics to track key indicators. This method provides real-time visibility into application health without external dependencies and minimal performance overhead.