Top 9 Paid/Free Tools For Tracking Application Code

Code tracking is mandatory in the development environment. But how much do you need the same tool in the product? The one who only painstakingly collects the logs will say “well, my tools do not fail me” and will be right in his own way. For the time being.

The checking logs are definitely a powerful tool. But looking only at them you will not see any errors or values of variables assigned at the time of the error occurrence.

And today, we are going to talk about the most useful and proactive tools that will help you to simplify your code view by tracking it down properly.

1. Rollbar
2. Raygun
3. Sentry
4. OverOps
5. Airbrake
6. BugSnag
7. StackHunter
8. VBATelemetry
9. Appenlight

1. Rollbar

They write on their website “Catch mistakes if you can while the users have not done it for you”. Well, let’s try. Rollbar provides a cloud service and is able to work with several programming languages through the implantation of its SDK into a controlled application.

 

On the dashboard grouping errors, shows the total number. Not super-cosmic technology, but allows you to see errors from the entire application stack. For some reason on the site, they compare themselves with New Relic. I understand that the purpose is similar, but why there is no comparison for Appdynamics or Dynatrace is a mystery.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

Not many, but not a few: JavaScript, Angular, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Django, PHP, Clojure, .NET, Android, iOS, Haskell, Drupal, Rails and others.

Capabilities

A standard set of type:

• disable or hide certain monitoring objects that you know about;
• determine the severity of each error and receive a notification if the error recurs;
• send any event to a member of the team that needs to be solved so that the dashboard remains virgin clean.

And there is an interesting feature – the issuance of ready parameters for the repetition of the transaction through curl.

Integration:

• Datadog
• Flowdock
• Github
• Help Scout
• Logentries
• Logstash
• Mailgun
• PagerDuty
• Slack
• Trello
• Webhooks

Price list

Free up to 5000 events per month, up to 100,000 events $41, up to 500,000 events $124. The full list of prices can be found on the vendor’s website.

2. Raygun

Dashboard PulseRaygun offers 2 cloud services: Real User Monitoring (aka Pulse) and Crash Reporting. Pulse monitors user sessions and identifies performance issues, each of which can be configured to alert. It has a separate dashboard, which informs about the time of loading pages from specific countries, browsers, and devices.

Crash Reporting monitors the work of the application itself and shows diagnostic reports and other related data on the dashboard.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

.NET, Android, Drupal, Go, iOS, JavaScript, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, Unity, and others.

Just in case, if you suddenly did not notice the absence in this list of Java (not to support which is generally a bad tone): to traverse Java you need to add the Raygun4Java library to the application. This will allow sending exceptions directly to the Raygun dashboard. If that, the documentation Raygun has a description of how it’s done.

Capabilities

Raygun can group multiple errors. On the dashboard, you can tag the error groups or their instances for later reporting.

In each group of errors, team members can see status updates, comments and other information, and the number of users affected by each error is shown on the dashboard.

There is a full-text search option that will help you quickly find the necessary error. Well, where without the support of webhooks and sending notifications to third-party notification systems.

Integration:

• Asana
• Assembla
• BitBucket
• Campfire
• HipChat
• Intercom
• JIRA
• PagerDuty
• Slack
• Trello
• Webhooks
• Zendesk

Price list

Raygun sells Pulse and Crash Reporting as 2 different services, for which you need to pay separately. For an unlimited version, you can buy both at once.

The price for Pulse starts from $99/month for 100,000 user sessions per month. The next tariff plan is $198/month for 200 000 sessions, and for 500 000 sessions ask for $495/month.

The price for Crash Reporting starts from $49/month for 25 000 errors and from a maximum of 5 applications. For $149/month, they are allowed to process 250,000 errors from a maximum of 20 applications, and for $499/month 3,000,000 errors from 50 applications.

Well, there is a super-duper enterprise tariff for both services, which starts at $999/month for an unlimited number of sessions and events.

3. Sentry

Sentry began as a small piece of code, which turned into a full-scale tool for monitoring errors, catching and debugging errors in the passage. You can put on your own or use the cloud version.

In the dashboard, you can see the trace of the call stack, determine the URL of each error, parameters, and information about the session.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

JavaScript, Node.js, Python, Go, PHP, Ruby, C #, Objective-C and even Swift.

Raven is a Java client for Sentry, it uses popular logging libraries to collect and convert log files. The library takes this information and sends the data to the Sentry.

Capabilities

Errors are caught in real time, each error includes information about the runtime and user data. If the user experience is a key source of data for error diagnosis, Sentry can ask users for feedback every time they encounter errors.

Integration:

• HipChat
• GitHub
• Slack
• Trello
• Heroku
• Campfire
• JIRA
• PagerDuty
• GitLab

Price list

For use on their facilities – a free man. For commercial use in the cloud, the price fluctuates around $26- $449/month for a limit of 1 million events per day. To estimate the number of events, there is a 14-day trial.

4. OverOps

OverOps helps developers understand when, where and why the code breaks. It fixes exceptions and errors, and this is the only solution (I did not see another such one) showing the state of the variable that caused it, through methods and machines. From the installation options: on-premise, hybrid (DB at home, analytics in the cloud), SaaS – there are plenty to choose from.

Using OverOps, you get an idea of the actual code that was run when an exception or error occurred. An interesting tool for searching, analyzing and fixing an error.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

OverOps supports all JVM languages: Java, Scala, Clojure, Groovy.

The Agent OverOps is installed just a few commands in the console. It works as a Java agent, so there’s no need to change the code or build, you need to attach this Java agent to your JVM.

Capabilities

For those who prefer to view logs every time an error occurs, the tool inserts a direct link to the dashboard in OverOps with this particular error. Directly from the log, after passing through the link, you can see the source code with the trace of the call stack and the values of the variables that caused the error. In conjunction with Splunk or ELK, it will be convenient to use it – see the minute videos on YouTube.

From the dashboard, you can configure alerts based on the error rate, filter errors by application, code location, time, etc.

Integration:

• JIRA
• Slack
• HipChat
• PagerDuty
• Graphite
• Grafana
• Nagios
• Zabbix
• New Relic
• AppDynamics
• DataDog

Price list

The free version is only in the form of trial. Prices on the site they are not posted, if anyone needs – contact, I can find out the price.

5. Airbrake

Airbrake is a tool for collecting and tracking exceptions and errors in an application. Each error includes the environment in which it occurred, when it was first detected, the type of error and other details. It is built into the application as an SDK. The service works from the cloud.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, .NET, Python, Django, Node.js, iOS, Swift, Android, Go, Angular, Flask and others.

Capabilities

Airbrake shows the stack trace and the metadata of each error groups them by type, users, and environment variables.

There is a dashboard that shows when the first time each error occurred to understand whether this error occurred after the release roll or before it. Errors can be attached to team members so that later it is clear who is responsible for their correction.

Integration:

• Assembla
• Bitbucket
• Campfire
• Flowdock
• GitHub
• GitLab
• HipChat
• JIRA
• Lighthouse
• Pivotal Tracker
• Slack
• Trello
• Webhooks
• Zapier

Price list

Give a 30-day trial, but ask in return for the data card. IMHO, for the test will do.

The tool is charged by the number of events. The lowest tariff plan costs $55/month and includes 10,000 errors per month in 5 applications. For 300,000 errors per month and an unlimited number of applications will ask for $129/month, and finally, 1 million errors per month and an unlimited number of applications cost $299/month.

6. Bugsnag

Bugsnag tracks errors and exceptions within the application and tries to determine the root cause and evaluate the impact on the user. Artificial intelligence in action.

The toolbar provides an overview of all errors with the ability to filter unresolved. It groups errors that have a similar origin in the code and helps to visualize and compare various error trends over time with graphs.

 

 

 

It is built into the application as an SDK, it works as a service from the cloud. Bugsnag to the Java application can be added using Gradle, Maven or manually. It is also possible to add an SDK using Spring and Spring boot.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

Android, Go, iOS, .NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, Unity.

Capabilities

On dashboards, you can hide errors until they match the conditions you specify or turn off the sound when errors occur if they are not important. Each error contains data on the number of affected users and how many times this occurred.

The error status menu provides additional information: shows the progress of errors, the activity feed shows the progress of changes in each error over time.

Price list

A free plan supports up to 7500 errors per month for one user. The tariff plan for the team starts at $29/month and reaches $59/month for 150,000 errors per day for 5 team members. To find out the conditions for an unlimited corporate tariff plan, you need to contact them.

7. StackHunter

Stackhunter can extract data from Log4J and Logback. Each error includes stack tracing, HTTP request, JVM properties, JMX attributes, and when and where it happened for the first time. StackHunter watches for non-trapped exceptions, as well as with errors logged in Log4J and Logback. Installed on your server.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

This is a tool specifically designed to intercept Java exceptions. It supports JDK 6 or higher and requires Servlet 2.5 or higher. The installation is simple: you need to deploy it to the stackhunter.war on the web server.

Capabilities

StackHunter tracks exceptions by connecting to Log4J and Logback. The tool offers one web interface in which you can view all exceptions.

On the dashboard, you can see all application exceptions, filter out unique exceptions, or see which ones have affected users or their sessions. Similar exceptions are grouped together.

Price list

There is a 30-day trial period. Prices ask to request from them directly. If you need help with prices – please contact.

8. VBAtelemetry

Although this is not a productive application, for purely personal tasks in the area of debugging macros in the MS Excel package, one could not help but mention this useful thing. Works in conjunction with Azure Insights. Helps to catch errors in the execution of macros and monitor their performance. VBAtelemetry can be used for free because both Azure itself and Azure have corresponding free tariff plans. To work requires the installation of a small agent.

 

 

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

Strangely enough, but only VBA.

Capabilities

The capabilities of the tool can be listed in three ways:
TrackPageView. Control over the forms and tables that the user opens.
TrackEvent. A function that specifies which events to send to Azure Insights.
TrackError. Function for sending code execution errors to Insights.
TrackMetric. Function for monitoring performance. Measures the execution time of the code.

Integration:

• Azure Insights

Price list

You can use it for free, but a pop-up window will pop up. You can pay $39 for the key and forget about it. If you buy from 20 keys, they give a discount of 50%. The number of keys required depends on how many instances of Azure Application Insights you use. If one – need only one key.

9. Appenlight

Open-source and free. The tool tracks executable code. To work requires the introduction of lightweight SDK. The application server itself is supplied as an OVA image.

What programming languages and platforms are supported?

Python, JavaScript, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, and others. Java is not supported.

Capabilities

The tool tracks errors in the application, collects stacks, groups errors, shows slow calls, identifies affected users. A multi-user mode is supported, errors can be assigned to specific users.

Integration:

Bitbucket
Github
Jira
Slack
HipChat
Campfire
Flowdock
Webhooks

Price list

• Completely free.

Each tool has its pros and cons. Fortunately, vendors give trial and nothing prevents to try this or that tool. Tell us what you use to catch bugs: paid/free, your/industrial.