Compare Sentry, Datadog, Rollbar, Bugsnag, Honeybadger, and Airbrake to find the best error monitoring tool for your team, stack, and budget.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases. Commissions are how this site is funded.
Quick Picks: Error Monitoring Tools at a Glance
| Product | Best For | Price | Key spec | Second key spec |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sentry | Best overall for most software teams | Check Price on Amazon — Free plan; Team from $26/month | Event-based pricing | Error tracking, performance monitoring, session replay |
| Datadog Error Tracking | Teams already using broad observability | Check Price on Amazon — From $25/month for under 50,000 errors | Billed by monthly error volume | Logs, traces, infrastructure, and error correlation |
| Rollbar | Developer-first error triage and deploy tracking | Check Price on Amazon — Free plan; paid plans vary by quota | Free plan includes 5,000 occurrences/month | Real-time alerts and deploy tracking |
| Bugsnag | Mobile apps and release health | Check Price on Amazon — Free tier available; paid pricing varies | Free tier includes 7,500 events/month | Crash-free users and release health |
| Honeybadger | Small SaaS teams wanting errors plus uptime checks | Check Price on Amazon — Free developer plan; paid plans vary | Error monitoring, uptime monitoring, and cron checks | Lightweight workflow for small teams |
| Airbrake | Straightforward error and performance monitoring | Check Price on Amazon — Dev plan available; paid plans from $19/month | Error monitoring with deploy tracking | Integrations including GitHub, Jira, and Slack |
| New Relic | Organizations needing full-stack telemetry | Check Price on Amazon — Free tier; usage-based paid plans | Application performance monitoring and error tracking | Logs, infrastructure, traces, and user monitoring |
How We Chose
This guide compares established error monitoring platforms using publicly listed vendor specifications, current pricing information, documentation, reputable software comparisons, and recurring themes in expert reviews and owner feedback. It does not claim hands-on testing, laboratory measurements, or independently observed performance.
The comparison focuses on the factors that affect real buying decisions:
- How quickly a tool groups and prioritizes recurring errors.
- Whether it provides useful stack traces, breadcrumbs, releases, deploy context, and affected-user details.
- Support for web, backend, mobile, and serverless applications.
- Pricing structure, including event-based, host-based, and usage-based billing.
- Alerting, integrations, workflow automation, and team collaboration.
- Broader observability features such as logs, traces, uptime checks, session replay, and infrastructure monitoring.
Prices and included quotas can change, and several vendors use usage-based or sales-led pricing. Check the linked vendor pricing page before purchasing, particularly if your application generates high event volume or requires long data retention.
Detailed Picks
Sentry — Best Overall Error Monitoring Tool
Sentry is the strongest general-purpose choice for teams that want focused error monitoring with performance visibility and session replay in one developer-oriented platform. It supports common web, backend, mobile, and JavaScript frameworks, with rich event context designed to help developers move from an alert to a likely cause.
Sentry uses event-based pricing rather than charging per developer. Its pricing pages list a free Developer plan, while the Team plan starts at $26 per month on annual billing. Higher-volume usage is charged according to event volume, with additional controls such as spike protection, rate limits, and inbound filters.
Key specs
- Free Developer plan.
- Team plan from $26/month on annual billing.
- Event-based billing.
- Error tracking, performance monitoring, session replay, release tracking, and issue grouping.
- Supports additional event categories such as transactions, replays, and spans.
Pros
- Broad framework and platform coverage.
- Strong developer workflow for stack traces, breadcrumbs, releases, and issue ownership.
- Session replay can help explain what happened before a user-facing error.
- Event-based pricing does not increase simply because more developers need access.
- Good fit for web and mobile teams that want a dedicated error-monitoring product.
Cons
- Event volume can make costs less predictable as an application grows.
- The large feature set requires configuration to avoid noisy alerts.
- Teams seeking infrastructure, cloud, and security monitoring may need a broader observability platform.
- Retention and feature availability vary by plan.
Sentry is the best starting point for most teams that primarily need application error tracking rather than an all-in-one infrastructure suite.
Datadog Error Tracking — Best for Full-Stack Observability
Datadog Error Tracking suits organizations that already use Datadog for logs, infrastructure monitoring, distributed tracing, application performance monitoring, or cloud services. Its main advantage is correlation: an error can be investigated alongside the related logs, traces, hosts, services, and deployment activity in the same platform.
Datadog lists Error Tracking at a flat rate of $25 per month for monthly error volumes below 50,000 errors, or $36 per month on-demand. Higher usage is billed according to error volume, with separate annual, monthly, and on-demand rates.
Key specs
- Error Tracking priced by monthly error volume.
- $25/month for volumes below 50,000 errors on the listed annual pricing model.
- $36/month on-demand for volumes below 50,000 errors.
- Integrates with logs, traces, infrastructure monitoring, and application performance monitoring.
- Designed for centralized observability across services and environments.
Pros
- Strong context when errors need to be investigated alongside logs and distributed traces.
- Good choice for microservices, cloud infrastructure, and larger engineering organizations.
- Broad integrations and dashboards.
- Reduces the need to manage separate error and infrastructure-monitoring products.
- Useful for teams that already have Datadog expertise and account infrastructure.
Cons
- Can be more expensive and complex than a focused error-monitoring product.
- The overall bill may include multiple usage-based Datadog products.
- Configuration and dashboard management can require dedicated observability knowledge.
- Less appealing for a small application that only needs exception alerts and stack traces.
Choose Datadog when error monitoring is part of a broader observability strategy. For a small team wanting only application exceptions, Sentry, Rollbar, or Honeybadger may be easier to adopt.
Rollbar — Best for Developer-Centered Triage and Deploy Tracking
Rollbar is built around real-time error reporting, intelligent grouping, stack traces, telemetry, and release context. It is particularly attractive to teams that want a direct link between production errors and deployments, versions, and ownership workflows.
Rollbar’s free plan includes 5,000 occurrences per month and 1,000 session replays per month, along with real-time alerts, issue grouping, stack traces, telemetry, and deploy and version tracking. Paid pricing depends on plan and usage; a current vendor comparison lists an Essentials example of $29 per month for 50,000 events, with replay allowances affecting the total.
Key specs
- Free plan with 5,000 occurrences/month.
- Free plan includes 1,000 session replays/month.
- Real-time alerts and intelligent grouping.
- Stack traces, telemetry, deploy tracking, and version tracking.
- Integrations for common development and collaboration workflows.
Pros
- Strong emphasis on rapid developer triage.
- Deploy and version tracking can make regressions easier to identify.
- Session replay is available within the product’s usage model.
- Useful free tier for small projects and prototypes.
- Straightforward fit for teams that prioritize error ownership and release workflows.
Cons
- Usage quotas require close attention as event volume grows.
- Paid pricing can vary significantly with occurrences and replay usage.
- Teams needing comprehensive infrastructure monitoring may need another platform.
- Aggressive grouping and alert rules still require tuning for noisy applications.
Rollbar is a good fit for development teams that ship frequently and want production errors connected closely to releases and deployment history.
Bugsnag — Best for Mobile Crash Reporting and Release Health
Bugsnag, now associated with SmartBear’s broader Insight Hub platform, is especially compelling for mobile teams and organizations that care about crash-free users, release health, and the effect of a release on real devices.
Its free tier is listed with 7,500 events per month and 1 million spans per month in current comparison data. Bugsnag’s major differentiator is not simply collecting exceptions; it helps teams assess whether a release is producing crashes for particular users, devices, operating-system versions, or application versions.
Key specs
- Free tier with 7,500 events/month in listed comparison data.
- Free tier includes 1 million spans/month.
- Mobile crash reporting for major mobile platforms.
- Crash-free user and release-health visibility.
- Paid retention and feature availability vary by plan.
Pros
- Strong fit for native mobile applications.
- Release-health views help teams evaluate whether a version is safe to expand.
- Crash reports can include device, operating-system, and app-version context.
- Useful for teams balancing error volume against affected-user impact.
- Supports error monitoring beyond simple server-side exception collection.
Cons
- Pricing may require contacting the vendor or selecting a plan based on usage.
- Teams focused only on web backends may find its mobile emphasis unnecessary.
- Feature availability differs across plans.
- The broader platform can require more setup than a lightweight exception tracker.
Bugsnag is the better choice when mobile stability, crash-free users, and release decisions matter more than general-purpose infrastructure telemetry.
Honeybadger — Best for Small SaaS Teams and Simple Operations
Honeybadger combines error monitoring with uptime monitoring and cron-job monitoring. That combination makes it attractive to small SaaS teams that want to know both when an application fails and when scheduled jobs or public endpoints stop working.
Honeybadger offers a free developer plan, while current market comparisons list paid pricing at different starting points depending on plan, billing cycle, and included usage. Because pricing information varies across comparison sources, confirm the current plan details directly with the vendor.
Key specs
- Free developer plan.
- Error monitoring, uptime checks, and cron monitoring.
- Integrations with common issue trackers and collaboration tools.
- Focus on lightweight setup and operational alerts.
- Supports common languages including Ruby, JavaScript, and Python.
Pros
- Useful bundle for small teams that need more than exception tracking.
- Uptime and scheduled-task monitoring reduce the need for separate basic tools.
- Generally simpler to operate than a full observability suite.
- Clear fit for SaaS applications and background jobs.
- Helps connect application errors with basic service reliability checks.
Cons
- Less comprehensive than Datadog or New Relic for infrastructure-heavy environments.
- Advanced analytics and large-scale observability features are more limited.
- Pricing and quotas should be checked carefully before scaling.
- Session replay and deep user-experience tooling are not its primary focus.
Honeybadger is a practical choice for a small product team that wants error alerts, uptime checks, and cron monitoring without adopting a large observability platform.
Airbrake — Best for Straightforward Error and Performance Monitoring
Airbrake focuses on accessible error and performance monitoring, with deploy tracking and integrations aimed at common development workflows. It is a suitable option for teams that want a focused tool rather than a broad platform covering every layer of infrastructure.
Current comparison data lists Airbrake’s Basic plan at $19 per month and Pro at $38 per month, with a free developer tier also available in some pricing summaries. Plans, quotas, and billing terms can change, so verify the current offer before subscribing.
Key specs
- Free developer tier listed in current comparisons.
- Basic plan listed from $19/month.
- Pro plan listed from $38/month.
- Error and performance monitoring.
- Deploy tracking and integrations with services such as GitHub, Jira, and Slack.
Pros
- Straightforward approach for teams that do not need a full observability suite.
- Deploy tracking helps compare errors with recent releases.
- Useful integration coverage for common development workflows.
- Suitable for several established programming languages.
- Easier to evaluate than highly modular enterprise platforms.
Cons
- Less expansive than Sentry, Datadog, or New Relic.
- Advanced replay, infrastructure, and distributed-tracing needs may require other products.
- Pricing and included limits vary by plan.
- Some teams may prefer a more modern all-in-one developer workflow.
Airbrake is worth considering when you want a focused, conventional error-monitoring product with deploy context and straightforward plans.
New Relic — Best for Organizations Needing Broad Telemetry
New Relic combines application performance monitoring, error tracking, logs, infrastructure monitoring, browser monitoring, and other telemetry in one platform. It is best suited to organizations that want application errors analyzed alongside system behavior and user experience.
New Relic has a free tier and usage-based paid plans. Its pricing structure can involve data ingestion, users, monitored entities, or other usage dimensions, so it requires careful estimation before purchase.
Key specs
- Free tier available.
- Usage-based paid pricing.
- Application performance monitoring and error tracking.
- Logs, infrastructure monitoring, distributed tracing, and browser monitoring.
- Designed for multi-service and enterprise observability.
Pros
- Broad visibility across applications, infrastructure, logs, and users.
- Useful for teams consolidating several monitoring products.
- Strong fit for complex services and large engineering organizations.
- Can relate application errors to wider performance and availability signals.
- Flexible platform for teams with mature observability practices.
Cons
- Pricing is harder to estimate than a simple per-project subscription.
- Broad functionality can increase setup and governance requirements.
- May be excessive for a small team that only needs exception tracking.
- Data-ingestion costs require active management.
New Relic makes the most sense when error monitoring is one part of a wider application-performance and infrastructure-monitoring program.
What to Look For
Error grouping and prioritization
A useful platform should group repeated occurrences of the same underlying problem rather than generating a separate alert for every event. Look for stack traces, fingerprints, breadcrumbs, affected releases, and controls for ignoring known or low-value errors.
Context around each failure
The best error report is more than an exception name. Check whether the product captures request details, user impact, device and operating-system information, application version, environment, logs, traces, and relevant navigation or session context.
Release and deployment visibility
Deploy tracking helps distinguish a long-standing defect from a regression introduced by a recent release. Mobile teams should also look for crash-free users, crash-free sessions, version comparisons, and release-health views.
Alerting and workflow integrations
Review notification channels, escalation rules, issue assignment, deduplication, and integrations with systems such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, GitHub, PagerDuty, and other incident-management tools. A tool that detects errors but does not route them to the right owner will create alert fatigue.
Pricing model and data limits
Error-monitoring vendors commonly bill by events, occurrences, errors, hosts, seats, data ingestion, or monitored services. Compare the limits that matter to your application: monthly event volume, replay usage, retention, attachments, traces, and the number of projects or environments.
Platform and framework coverage
Confirm support for your languages, frameworks, mobile platforms, serverless runtime, source maps, symbolication, and deployment pipeline. A product can look powerful in general comparisons but still be a poor fit if it cannot produce readable stack traces for your specific application.
FAQ
Q: What is the best error monitoring tool in 2026?
A: Sentry is the strongest general-purpose choice for most web and mobile development teams because it combines error tracking, performance monitoring, releases, and session replay with an event-based pricing model. Datadog or New Relic may be better when full-stack observability is the priority.
Q: Is Sentry better than Datadog for error monitoring?
A: Sentry is usually the more focused developer tool for application errors, releases, and session context. Datadog is better when errors must be investigated alongside infrastructure, logs, distributed traces, and cloud services. The better choice depends on whether you need dedicated error monitoring or a broader observability platform.
Q: Which error monitoring tool is best for mobile apps?
A: Bugsnag is particularly well suited to mobile applications because it emphasizes crash reporting, crash-free users, release health, device context, and application-version analysis. Sentry is also a strong alternative for teams wanting mobile errors alongside web and backend monitoring.
Q: Are error monitoring tools free?
A: Many offer free tiers, but the included event volume, projects, retention, replay usage, and team features differ. Sentry, Rollbar, Bugsnag, Honeybadger, Airbrake, and New Relic all have free or free-tier options listed in current pricing or comparison information. Free plans are often sufficient for development or small applications but may not cover production-scale volume.
Q: How much does error monitoring cost?
A: Pricing ranges from free tiers to usage-based enterprise contracts. Examples include Sentry’s Team plan from $26 per month on annual billing, Datadog Error Tracking from $25 per month for listed volumes below 50,000 errors, Airbrake plans listed from $19 per month, and Rollbar examples based on event and replay quotas. Actual costs depend on volume, retention, features, and billing terms.
Q: What is the difference between error tracking and observability?
A: Error tracking focuses on exceptions, crashes, stack traces, affected users, and issue resolution. Observability is broader: it can include errors plus logs, metrics, traces, infrastructure, deployments, uptime, and user experience. Sentry and Rollbar are focused error-monitoring choices, while Datadog and New Relic cover a wider observability scope.
Q: Do error monitoring tools affect application performance?
A: Monitoring SDKs add some application overhead because they collect and transmit diagnostic data. The effect depends on the SDK, sampling, payload size, replay settings, network conditions, and configuration. Review each vendor’s SDK documentation, sampling controls, privacy features, and data-filtering options before enabling high-volume features.
Q: Should a small startup use a full observability platform?
A: Not necessarily. A small team may get better value from a focused product such as Sentry, Rollbar, Honeybadger, or Airbrake. Datadog or New Relic becomes more compelling when the team needs centralized logs, infrastructure metrics, distributed tracing, incident workflows, and visibility across many services.