Mobile app debugging sees innovation and new, high-quality free tools for mobile engineers in 2023
Building a successful mobile app is a complex process. Each line of code plays a crucial role, and sometimes, a tiny misstep can lead to a bug. These issues, no matter how small, can affect the user experience. This is where bug reporting becomes necessary.
However, not all bug-tracking tools are created equal. The right bug-tracking tool is the perfect companion for pre-launch, testing, and issue-resolution processes. This is why it’s so important to acquire the right tool for your mobile app. Mobile engineers need efficient bug tracking and high-quality, actionable data to create seamless user experiences.
In this blog post, we’ll examine the top bug-tracking tools of 2023. Let’s dive in!
What is the best way to report a mobile app bug?
There are many great options available, many of which are free or low-cost. While you could build this functionality in-house, it’s worth checking out what existing solutions there are and deciding based on your needs.
Here are a few things to consider:
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Do you want mobile app bug reporting for beta testers or users in production?
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What workflow will work best for your team?
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What features are most helpful to you and your team?
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Is it intuitive enough for non-technical users to submit bug reports?
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Does the tool provide detailed crash reporting, stack traces, or relevant diagnostics?
Check out this list of mobile app bug reporting solutions, and choose the one that works best for your needs.
Top mobile app bug reporting solutions
1. Bug Shake by Embrace
Bug Shake by Embrace is a free, intuitive bug reporting and crash reporting tool that allows users to catch all bugs in an app while also understanding the full technical details.
Pros
- Easy to use and simple to integrate. You can start using Bug Shake right after you input just a few lines of code. After this, your users and testers can start reporting bugs to the engineering team after a simple shake of their device — the SDK is lightweight and the process is low-friction.
- Free crash reporting is included: Bug Shake by Embrace automatically captures crashes as well. Whether your mobile team needs a solution for a few internal engineers or large beta testing groups, they get complete bug and crash reporting coverage at no added expense.
- Collaborative: When you use Bug Shake, you can share bug and crash reports with other members of your team. This makes it easy to collaborate with your team members and delegate work accordingly.
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Full session context to resolve issues: No manual reproduction is required because Embrace automatically captures the full trail of technical events for every session. This includes the category (a bug, crash, or user suggestion or question), the app version, the user ID, and the timing of the issue. You won’t have to rely solely on screenshots, limited recordings, or breadcrumbs to understand the root cause of an issue. Embrace is well-known in the market for this level of detail.
If you’re looking for even further context to solve an issue in your app, you can go beyond Bug Shake and start a free trial of the full-featured Embrace solution to have the most powerful data to identify, prioritize, and resolve any issue. The Embrace data includes the full technical detail for every user session, including views, taps, network calls, device state, changes, connectivity switches, and more.
Embrace’s full product includes a deep analysis of user sessions, crash reporting, network monitoring, ANR reporting, and more.
Cons
Limited ways to interact with users. If you’re looking for a tool that allows you to live chat with users or send direct updates on your product, then this tool isn’t the right match for your team.
Pricing
Bug Shake by Embrace is 100% free to use in both pre-release testing and in production for user bug and crash reporting with session timelines.
2. Bugsnag
Bugsnag’s mobile bug reporting feature is a tool that allows users to report bugs directly from within a mobile app.
Pros
- Real-time error tracking. Bugsnag allows the ability to track errors in real time for the fastest response times and a simple issue resolution process.
- Detailed diagnostics. Bugsnag offers comprehensive reports that include stack traces, device information, and even user data.
- At-a-glance analysis of stability. Bugsnag shows a stability score that measures the percentage of error-free user sessions. This is particularly useful to non-technical users to get a feel for the performance of the app.
Cons
- No shake functionality. You can report bugs, but Bugsnag doesn’t give users the option to shake their phones to report an issue. This means the reporting process could be less intuitive to the user and take more time to complete.
- Limited custom functionality. Bugsnag has limited options when it comes to customization of user flows and filtering. There is no detailed session timeline page or session replay to see details in a user timeline.
- The free product is limited and the price can add up. The free tier goes up quickly by charging monthly events and seats for error monitoring and by spans for real user monitoring.
Pricing
Bugsnag offers three different pricing plans — Lite, Standard, and Enterprise. The pricing is based on a combination of user and event count. Both the Lite and Standard tiers can be customized based on the amount of seats you need at 5, 15, 30, and 50 seats.
3. Buglife
Buglife is a bug-reporting tool that has an emphasis on visual context. Every reported bug has an auto-captured screenshot of the phone at the moment the bug was reported. One of Buglife’s key features is the ability to annotate submitted media to streamline the issue resolution process.
Pros
Annotated media. Buglife collects screenshots and recordings of bugs and allows users to annotate this media for issue resolution.
Collection of logs and other environmental data. Buglife not only collects screenshots and video recordings of reported bugs, it also collects logs, events, and environment data including the device, connection, memory, and battery percentage.
Integrations. Buglife integrates with several different project management and communication tools.
Cons
Few pricing plans. There is no free plan. There are only two tiers of pricing and both are more expensive than many other tools available on the market.
Lacks key crash reporting features. Buglife has logs and environment data for each bug reported, but it lacks other key crash analytics used to solve a bug like network calls, connectivity changes, views, taps, etc.
Pricing
There are two pricing tiers of Buglife — Premium for $458 a month and Enterprise (custom pricing).
4. Bugsee
Bugsee is another bug-reporting tool that heavily emphasizes the visual aspect of its bug reporting. Bugsee collects the bug report itself, videos of user actions, network traffic, and console logs.
Pros
- Easy to set up. Bugsee doesn’t require much to set up. It’s an easy integration that only requires the installation of a lightweight SDK.
- High-quality video recordings. Bugsee takes video recordings of the user in any live app. They boast a continuously recorded high-resolution 10 frames-per-second video of the app usage.
- Easy to use for technical and non-technical users. The interface of Bugsee is easy to use and understand for both technical and non-technical users.
Cons
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Limited video recordings. Although one of Bugsee’s leading features is its video recordings, the video recordings are only 60 seconds max.
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Limited data retention. Bugsee only retains three days of data at the Lite tier and one month of data at the Pro tier. If there are over 50 unique devices used then you need a custom pricing plan.
Pricing
Bugsee has three pricing tiers — a Lite tier, a Pro tier at $99, and a Custom tier with custom pricing.
5. Gleap
Gleap is another bug-reporting tool with a heavy emphasis on its visual offering. What makes Gleap unique is that it also supports live chat with users so that their questions can be answered in real-time. It also has an AI bot, Kai, that can automatically answer support questions on behalf of your team.
Pros
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Intuitive interface. Many users report that they like Gleap’s UI and have an easy time using the app to report bugs and communicate.
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Live chat. Gleap is unique because it has a live chat feature. The feature is designed to allow a mobile team to answer the questions of testers in real-time.
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Feature request board. Gleap is big on user feedback via its feature request board. This channel is for users to submit feature requests and upvote the ones they like most.
Cons
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Limited event tracking. There is only a finite number of events you can track across all pricing plans.
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Inefficient pricing options. Many find Gleap’s pricing plans to be inefficient. For example, the base plan only supports one team member.
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A lack of technical detail. Unlike other tools in this round-up, Gleap doesn’t have a crash reporting feature, so you’ll need to rely on videos and screenshots to solve bugs using this tool and supplement with another tool for technical detail.
Pricing
Gleap has three pricing tiers. The Hobby tier is $23 a month, the Team tier is $119 a month, and the Enterprise tier has custom pricing. They offer a startup discount (50% off the first year that you use Gleap) across all three tiers.
6. Instabug
Instabug offers a mobile app bug-reporting feature that allows testers and users to report bugs in both development and production.
Pros
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Easy to use. Many enjoy using Instabug bug reporting because you can report a bug and send feedback by shaking your device. You can also attach screenshots, screen recordings, and even voice notes for any issue.
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Logging and metadata. Instabug captures console logs and metadata for each bug submitted.
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In-app chats. You can send updates to users who reported an issue via in-app chats. This can be useful for getting more information from users when needed or quickly communicating that bugs have been resolved.
Cons
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Pricing constraints. Many of the pricing plans are expensive and edge out small teams because of this. Instabug also lacks an ongoing free tier.
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Lack of granularity and depth. Many of the bug reports lack the granularity and depth that users are looking for and it makes it difficult to solve bugs efficiently.
Pricing
There are four tiers of Instabug. The Basic tier for $249 a month, the Pro tier at $499 a month, the Ultimate tier at $749 a month, and the Enterprise tier with custom pricing.
7. Shake
Shake is a bug and crash reporting tool for mobile apps. Shake aims to give teams the most information possible so that they won’t have to ask the user for supplemental information.
Pros
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Easy integration. The Shake integration can be added to your app within a matter of minutes. It’s also lightweight and won’t negatively impact your user’s in-app experience.
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Auto-captured data. Shake sends data metrics to each bug and crash report including console logs, history of taps, requests, and notifications.
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Screenshots and videos. Shake automatically adds a screenshot and video to each bug report and allows users to submit supplemental media if necessary.
Cons
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Limitations for teams. Shake’s Free tier limits you to three seats and the Premium tier limits you to 4. This means there are limited cost-effective options for teams with more than just a few people.
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Limited activity history. If you’re bug reporting at the Free tier, then there is a limit of the activity history you can view for an app.
Pricing
Shake offers three pricing tiers. The Free tier is targeted toward indie developers but limits the team on seats, integrations, and apps in the dashboard.
The Premium tier is $160 a month and limits the user to 4 seats and 4 apps in the dashboard.
The Organization tier, for larger agencies and companies, is $340 a month.
Fix bugs and enhance mobile experiences
There is a diverse landscape of bug reporting tools, but finding the best bug reporting tool is dependent on your mobile team’s needs. Choosing the right tool makes your mobile team streamlined and efficient and your users delighted.
While one size doesn’t fit all in the world of mobile bug reporting, a few things remain true for all teams — you need a tool that’s easy to use, cost-efficient, and effective. Make sure you keep these tenets in mind and thoroughly assess team and project needs before choosing a tool.
Interested in learning more about Bug Shake? You can learn more about the tool and try it today.
- Lauren Bennett, Embrace, Technical Content Writer
Also published here.