APM

Abbreviation with 3 meanings

APM
Stands forActions per minute
Meanings3
CategoriesTexting & Internet Slang, Transportation & Travel, Technology & Computing

APM has three meanings. The most common are Actions per minute (gaming slang) and Automated people mover (rail and transit); it can also stand for Application performance monitoring.

Meanings of APM at a glance

#APM stands forContext
1Actions per minuteTexting & Internet Slang › Gaming Slang
2Automated people moverTransportation & Travel › Rail and Transit
3Application performance monitoringTechnology & Computing › Cloud Computing

1. Actions per minute

Texting & Internet Slang · Gaming Slang Abbreviations

Number of commands, clicks and keystrokes a player issues per minute, a measure of mechanical speed in real-time strategy games and other fast-paced esports.

Example: His APM is over 300 in the late game, it's insane to watch.

StarCraft and StarCraft II made APM famous, with professional players commonly sustaining several hundred actions per minute during intense fights. Analysts note that high APM does not guarantee good decisions, since much of it can be repetitive "spam." Replays and overlays often display APM live.

2. Automated people mover

Transportation & Travel · Rail and Transit Abbreviations

Driverless, fully automated transit system, usually small trains or cars running on a guideway, that carries passengers between airport terminals, parking areas or downtown districts. Examples include airport trains in Atlanta, Denver and Dallas.

Example: The APM runs every two minutes between the main terminal and the international concourse.

Airport APMs are often inside security, linking concourses. Miami's Metromover and Detroit's People Mover serve downtown areas. A long-delayed APM at Los Angeles International Airport links terminals with rail and a rental car center. Rubber-tired and cable-driven systems are common.

3. Application performance monitoring

Technology & Computing · Cloud Computing Abbreviations

Tools that track how applications behave in production, measuring response times, error rates, throughput and traces of individual requests across services, to find slow code and failures. Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace and Elastic APM are examples.

Example: APM traces showed the checkout delay came from a single slow call to the tax service.

Also expanded as application performance management. Modern APM relies on distributed tracing, which follows one request through many microservices, and increasingly on the OpenTelemetry standard. Agents add overhead, so busy systems sample only a share of requests.

More gaming slang abbreviations

  • Alt – Alternate character
  • Any% – Any percent (speedrun category)
  • AOE – Area of effect
  • AP – Ability power
  • ATK – Attack
  • BBEG – Big bad evil guy
  • BIS – Best in slot
  • BM – Bad manners

See all 145 gaming slang abbreviations →

More rail and transit abbreviations

  • 1A – First Class AC
  • 2A – AC 2-Tier
  • 3A – AC 3-Tier
  • AVE – Alta Velocidad Española (Spanish High Speed)
  • BART – Bay Area Rapid Transit
  • BNSF – BNSF Railway
  • BR – British Rail
  • BRT – Bus rapid transit

See all 78 rail and transit abbreviations →