Best Blockchain Developer Tools for Testing, Debugging, and Detoxing

The early stages of blockchain development can be daunting. Smart contracts, the backbone of decentralised applications (dApps), demand meticulous coding and rigorous testing to ensure their security and efficiency. Furthermore, understanding how your dApp is performing in the real world, in terms of user adoption and token metrics, is crucial for its success.

Fortunately, there are a plethora of tools to smooth out some of the hassle for developers.

In this article, we will look into the best of them, categorized by purposes of debugging, testing, and user analysis.

Debugging Tools: Identify and Fix Smart Contract Issues With These Powerful Debuggers

Tenderly

Tenderly is a comprehensive platform that offers a powerful suite of tools for debugging, monitoring, and analyzing smart contracts and dApps. Its debugger empowers developers to step through transactions, inspect variables, and pinpoint errors with precision.

Benefits & Value:

• Step-by-step transaction tracing: Developers can trace the execution path of a transaction step-by-step, making it easier to identify the exact point where an error occurred

• Variable inspection: Inspect the values of variables at any point during transaction execution, aiding in understanding the state of the contract and identifying unexpected behavior

• Error identification and resolution: Detailed error messages and stack traces can help developers quickly diagnose and fix issues in their smart contracts

• Time and resource savings: Developers save valuable time and resources with a streamlined debugging process. They can channel it to faster development cycles and improved dApp quality.

Ethdbg

Ethdbg is an open-source command-line debugger specifically tailored for Ethereum smart contracts. Its interactive nature allows developers to delve deep into the execution of transactions on both local and remote Ethereum nodes.

Benefits & Value:

• Interactive debugging: Ethdbg provides a command-line interface where developers can set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables during transaction execution

• Detailed execution context: Ethdbg provides comprehensive information about the execution context, including the stack trace, local variables, and memory contents

• Open-source and accessible: Ethdbg's open-source nature makes it freely available and customizable, allowing developers to adapt it to their specific needs

Sol-profiler

Sol-profiler is a Solidity code profiler that empowers developers to identify gas inefficiencies and performance bottlenecks within their smart contracts.

Benefits & Value:

• Gas usage analysis: Sol-profiler provides detailed reports on gas consumption for each function and operation within a contract, highlighting areas for optimization

• Performance optimization: By identifying gas-intensive operations, developers can optimize their code to reduce transaction costs and improve overall contract efficiency

Integration with development frameworks: Sol-profiler seamlessly integrates with popular Ethereum development frameworks like Hardhat and Truffle, making it easy to incorporate into existing workflows

Manticore

Manticore is a symbolic execution engine designed for Ethereum smart contracts. It automatically explores different execution paths within a contract, aiding in the discovery of bugs and vulnerabilities.

Benefits & Value:

• Automated vulnerability detection: Manticore systematically explores various input combinations and execution paths, uncovering potential edge cases and vulnerabilities that might be missed during manual testing

• Detailed vulnerability reports: When vulnerabilities are discovered, Manticore generates detailed reports that help developers understand the root cause of the issue and implement effective fixes

• Enhanced security: By identifying vulnerabilities early in the development process, Manticore helps developers create more secure and robust smart contracts

Etherscan

Etherscan is a widely used blockchain explorer for the Ethereum network. While primarily known for its block and transaction exploration capabilities, Etherscan also offers built-in verification and debugging tools for smart contracts.

Benefits & Value:

• Contract verification: Etherscan allows developers to verify their contract source code, making it publicly accessible and increasing transparency

• Transaction debugging: Etherscan provides tools to debug transactions, including information on execution status, gas usage, and error messages

• Convenience and accessibility: Etherscan's debugging features are readily available within the platform, eliminating the need for additional tools or integrations

Introducing aelfscan

Just as Etherscan provides a window into the Ethereum blockchain, aelfscan serves as the premier block explorer and analytics platform for the aelf blockchain. Dive deep into transaction details, track block information, and monitor smart contract activity, all within the aelf ecosystem.

aelf has since embraced AI to step up what its infrastructure can offer. Its multi-chain structure and ZK Roll-up layer 2 technology enable aelf to scale efficiently and effectively, and it expands potential use cases with its cross-chain interoperability.

Whether you're a developer building dApps or a user exploring the aelf ecosystem, aelf's advanced technology provides the tools and infrastructure to navigate the blockchain world with confidence.

Public Testnets: Stress-Test Your dApps in a Safe Environment

Ethereum-only Testnets

1. Goerli

A popular and stable testnet known for its reliability and active community. It offers a realistic testing environment and provides easy access to testnet Ether through faucets.

2. Sepolia

The most recent public testnet for Ethereum is designed to closely mirror the mainnet environment. Sepolia is ideal for testing dApps under conditions that closely resemble real-world usage.

Testnets for Other Chains

1. Polygon Mumbai

Polygon is a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum that offers faster and cheaper transactions. The Mumbai testnet provides a cost-effective environment for testing dApps that require high throughput.

2. Avalanche Fuji

Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain platform known for its near-instant finality. The Fuji testnet allows developers to experience Avalanche's speed and efficiency while testing their applications.

3. Solana Devnet

Solana Devnet is the primary testing ground for Solana applications. It closely replicates the Solana mainnet, providing a realistic environment to test smart contracts and dApps before deploying them to the live network.

Analytics: Track dApp's Performance and User Behavior

DappRadar

DappRadar is a leading platform for tracking and analyzing dApps across multiple blockchains. It provides comprehensive insights into user activity, transaction volumes, and token metrics, enabling developers to understand how their dApps are performing in the market.

Benefits & Value:

• Multi-chain support: DappRadar tracks dApps on various blockchains, providing a holistic view of the dApp ecosystem

• User activity tracking: Monitor key metrics such as daily active users, new users, and user retention to understand how users are interacting with your dApp

• Transaction volume analysis: Track the volume and value of transactions occurring within your dApp, providing insights into its usage and adoption.

• Token metrics: Monitor the performance of your dApp's native token or any other tokens it interacts with, including price, market capitalization, and trading volume

• Competitive analysis: Compare your dApp's performance against competitors to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement

Alchemy Monitor

Alchemy Monitor is a robust monitoring and alerting platform specifically designed for Ethereum applications. It provides real-time insights into smart contract activity, transaction status, and infrastructure health, empowering developers to proactively identify and resolve issues.

Benefits & Value:

• Real-time monitoring: Get instant updates on the status of smart contracts, transactions, and infrastructure, enabling you to respond quickly to any issues that arise

• Customisable alerts: Set up alerts based on specific events or metrics, ensuring you're notified immediately of critical events or anomalies

• Gas usage analysis: Track gas consumption for your smart contracts and transactions, identifying areas for optimization and cost reduction

• Transaction success rates: Monitor the success rates of your transactions to identify potential bottlenecks or issues affecting user experience

• User behavior insights: Gain a deeper understanding of how users are interacting with your dApp, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve user experience and engagement

Flipside Crypto

Flipside Crypto is a unique, community-driven platform that incentivizes users to contribute insights and analysis on various dApps. It fosters a collaborative environment where users can explore data, create dashboards, and share their findings, all while earning rewards.

Benefits & Value:

• Community-powered insights: Access a wealth of community-generated reports, dashboards, and analyses on a wide range of dApps

• Bounties and challenges: Participate in bounties and challenges to earn rewards for your data analysis skills and contribute to the community's understanding of the dApp landscape

• User behavior analysis: Uncover valuable insights into user behavior, adoption patterns, and engagement metrics across different dApps

• Tokenomics exploration: Dive deep into the tokenomics of various projects, understanding token flows, distribution, and market dynamics

• Collaborative learning: Engage with a vibrant community of analysts and enthusiasts, sharing knowledge and learning from each other's insights

• Data-driven decision-making: Leverage the platform's data and community-generated insights to make informed decisions about dApp investments, development, and usage

Tenderly

We've already mentioned Tenderly under the 'Debugging' section of the article. Within the Tenderly suite lies Tenderly Analytics, a powerful tool that provides in-depth insights into smart contract activity and user behavior.

It empowers developers to track key performance indicators (KPIs), identify bottlenecks, and optimize their dApps for enhanced user experience.

Benefits & Value:

• Real-time user interaction tracking: Monitor how users are interacting with your smart contracts, including transaction patterns, function calls, and event emissions

• KPI tracking: Track essential metrics like active users, transaction volume, gas usage, and error rates to understand your dApp's performance and identify areas for improvement

• Custom dashboards: Create personalized dashboards to visualize and analyze your dApp's data in a way that makes sense for your specific needs

• User experience optimization: Gain insights into user behavior to identify friction points and areas where the user experience can be improved

In Closing

Be it an aspiring or an experienced developer, the tools explored in this article, spanning debugging, testing, and analytics, would be a boon for workflows and the quality of dApps. Tasks that are painstakingly manual can be done away with, freeing up time for serving the community with desirable applications.

Depending on what is being built, complexities in blockchain development still linger, and the journey of building successful dApps is continuous. The tools presented here are not exhaustive—we would urge you to explore them and beyond because what's better than a handy blockchain tool is a combination of them.

About aelf

aelf, an AI-enhanced Layer 1 blockchain network, leverages the robust C# programming language for efficiency and scalability across its sophisticated multi-layered architecture. Founded in 2017 with its global hub in Singapore, aelf is a pioneer in the industry, leading Asia in evolving blockchain with state-of-the-art AI integration and modular Layer 2 ZK Rollup technology, ensuring an efficient, low-cost, and highly secure platform that is both developer and end-user friendly. Aligned with its progressive vision, aelf is committed to fostering innovation within its ecosystem and advancing Web3 and AI technology adoption.

For more information about aelf, please refer to our Whitepaper V2.0.

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