Software has changed the world we live and work in. The people behind the code are the real heroes, but they require the technology to ship better software, faster. So how do they do this? They have to work smarter, be proactive and respond to problems quickly. Let's look at the top 10 error monitoring tools on the market to help you find the best solution for you and your team.
What is an error monitoring tool?
What's the purpose of an error monitoring tool? When a user encounters a problem, crash or error in your application, the error monitoring tool gives the visibility needed to understand exactly what went wrong, where it went wrong, who was affected, how often did this happen and how you can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Some error monitoring tools can also connect the crash or error to the exact line of code that caused the problem, and even the Git commit that introduced it.
Sounds powerful, right? The best engineering teams in the world all seem to think so. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single global company in the Fortune 500 that doesn’t use error monitoring.
Why is it important to have an error monitoring tool?
The single biggest problem teams face is knowing that an error is happening and receiving a clear signal (notification). Error monitoring provides this visibility into your software and removes the guesswork from diagnosing issues in your application and provides insight into the impact that a given error is having on your users. Without this insight, your team is left in the dark, oblivious to the poor experiences that your customers are having. A disappointing digital experience is just another reason for your users to look for an alternative product or service, erasing the hard work that you did to get them there in the first place. Let's stop this from happening!
Things to consider when choosing an error reporting tool
Before getting into the list, here are a few things to consider while comparing products:
Budget - in today's world budget is top of mind for everyone. Error monitoring tools can have very different pricing structures, and not every pricing structure is viable for every business. Do you want fixed-cost pricing or on-demand pricing? Do you mind being charged by the number of users? What about being charged per server? How are overages handled?
Purpose - why are you looking for error monitoring tool in the first place? Defining the problem your team wants to solve first, before looking for a tool can be extremely powerful. This will save you money and time in the long run.
Language support and frameworks - today we have a lot of languages and frameworks that teams use, so you need to ensure that the error monitoring tool you select supports you today but also your future product roadmap. This includes frontend, backend, web and mobile support.
Scale - not all error monitoring solutions can handle billions of requests on a monthly basis. As you scale you need to ensure you have a solution that can scale with you quickly. Does the provider have a track record of large scale executions? How does each provider handle millions and even billions of errors? How good is the grouping at this scale?
Best error monitoring tools to use in 2023
Below, we rank error monitoring tools, determine what separates the best solutions in the market from the rest, and which is going to be the best fit for you and your business. Let’s dive in!
- Rollbar Try Now
- Pros: Focused on the full stack (end to end) for many languages and frameworks
- Cons: None we can think of
- Cost: Low
- Sentry / GetSentry Compare
- Pros: Good language and framework support
- Cons: Below average grouping, moving more towards APM
- Cost: Medium
- Datadog Compare
- Pros: One solution, does a bit of everything
- Cons: Less focused on error monitoring and more APM
- Cost: High
- Bugsnag Compare
- Pros: More Mobile Focused
- Cons: Less support for other languages and frameworks
- Cost: Medium
- Raygun Compare
- Pros: Good set of features and framework support
- Cons: Not great for mobile or backend
- Cost: Medium
- Airbrake Compare
- Pros: Light on features an capabilities
- Cons: Not for larger teams
- Cost: Medium
- TrackJS
- Pros: Javascript focus
- Cons: Not great for other languages
- Cost: Low
- LogRocket
- Pros: Great at logging and user interactions
- Cons: Poor error monitoring
- Cost: Medium
- CatchJS
- Pros: Web focused with Javascript errors
- Cons: Not great for other languages and frameworks
- Cost: Low
- Errorception
- Pros: Javascript focused errors
- Cons: Not great for full stack
- Cost: Low
The Results
Rollbar is the complete package for error monitoring of your application. You can also filter through the environmental reports. You can view all items, see how many times they happened, a trend of 24 hours, the last time it happened, the environment in which it happened, users affected, and the language.
Rollbar allows you to find the bugs before your actual users discover that. It makes your app robust and user effective to engage more and more users.
Track, Analyze and Manage Errors at Scale
Managing errors and exceptions in your code is challenging. It can make deploying production code an unnerving experience. Being able to track, analyze, and manage errors in real-time can help you to proceed with more confidence. Rollbar automates error monitoring and triaging, making fixing errors easier than ever. Sign Up Today!
