# Alternatives to Airbrake

Airbrake is an error and performance monitoring tool that captures exceptions with context and integrates with developer workflows.

Airbrake ranks #6 of 7 in Error monitoring, with an Alt Score of 76. It is proprietary and available on the web. 13 of 13 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/airbrake/
Category: Error monitoring

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Software teams — especially Ruby, JavaScript, Python, PHP, Java, Go, and .NET developers — who want straightforward, usage-priced error and performance monitoring without complex per-seat licensing. It suits teams that want deploy-aware error tracking bundled with basic APM, from solo/side-project developers on the free Dev tier up to larger orgs on higher-volume paid tiers.
- **What you get**: A hosted dashboard that captures real-time error alerts with backtraces, source-map-resolved stack traces, error grouping, and breadcrumb context, plus Application Performance Monitoring (Apdex scores, response times, error rates by route) across 50+ supported languages and frameworks. Plans include deploy tracking and integrations with tools like Slack, Jira, GitHub, and Zapier, billed on a usage-based model (errors/APM events per month) starting at $19/month, with a limited always-free Dev tier (7,500 errors and 50,000 APM events/month, 7-day retention).
- **How it works**: Developers install a language-specific Airbrake notifier library (e.g. airbrake-ruby, airbrake-js) that automatically captures unhandled exceptions and performance events and reports them to Airbrake's cloud service. Errors are grouped and shown in a web dashboard where teams triage issues, track which deploys introduced or fixed errors, and route notifications to tools like Slack, Jira, or GitHub.

## Profile

- **License**: Proprietary (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Pricing model**: Usage-based (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Starts at**: $19/month (verified 2026-07-17)
- **Platforms**: Web
- **Status**: acquired (verified 2026-07-17)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Sentry](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/sentry.md) | 96 | FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0 | Web |
| 2 | [BugSnag](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/bugsnag.md) | 86 | Proprietary | ? |
| 3 | [GlitchTip](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/glitchtip.md) | 83 | MIT License | Web |
| 4 | [Honeybadger](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/honeybadger.md) | 79 | Proprietary | Web |
| 5 | [Rollbar](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/rollbar.md) | 79 | Proprietary — platform; SDKs are open source (MIT) | Web |
| 6 | [Raygun](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/raygun.md) | 66 | Proprietary | Web |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| Error monitoring checklist | Airbrake | Sentry | BugSnag | GlitchTip | Honeybadger | Rollbar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Freemium | Freemium | OSS + paid hosting | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starts at | $19/month | $26/mo (Team plan, annual billing) | Free | $15/month | $26/month | $48/mo (Essentials plan example; usage-based pricing) |
| License | Proprietary | FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0 | Proprietary | MIT License | Proprietary | Proprietary — platform; SDKs are open source (MIT) |
| Platforms | Web | Web | ? | Web | Web | Web |
| Open source | No | Partial | No | Yes | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | No |
| Error grouping / deduplication | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Source maps / stack traces | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Release tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Session replay | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Performance / APM | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | No |
| Alerting integrations (Slack/PagerDuty) | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Issue-tracker integration (Jira/GitHub) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| SDK language coverage | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| User / breadcrumb context | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data retention (free) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier event limit | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for Airbrake. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: Proprietary — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: The Airbrake platform (hosted dashboard/service) is closed-source commercial SaaS. Its client notifier libraries (e.g. airbrake-ruby, airbrake-js) are separately released as OSS under the MIT license;
  - Quote: “Airbrake - A LogicMonitor Company - © 2024 - All Rights Reserved”
- **Pricing model**: Usage-based — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Flexible Usage-Based Pricing”
- **Starts at**: $19/month — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Monthly pricing plans start at $19/month for 25,000 errors.”
- **Platforms**: Web — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Airbrake is a hosted web dashboard (SaaS); language SDK notifiers instrument apps but the product surface itself is Web.
  - Quote: “Account & Billing section of your Airbrake Dashboard”
- **Status**: acquired — <https://www.airbrake.io/about-us> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Airbrake continues to operate as a distinct, actively maintained product/brand (own pricing, docs, and site, copyright footer dated 2024-2026) under LogicMonitor ownership.
  - Quote: “In 2021 LogicMonitor, the unified observability platform, acquired Airbrake.”
- **Open source**: No — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Airbrake is a paid commercial SaaS product, not released under an open-source license. (Its client notifier libraries are separately MIT-licensed OSS; see license note.)
  - Quote: “Starting a new account requires a valid email and credit card. Cancel risk free any time during your free trial.”
- **Self-hostable**: No — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/overview/introduction/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Airbrake is described throughout its docs and pricing as a hosted service billed via account/credit-card; no self-hosted or on-premise deployment option is advertised.
  - Quote: “As an Error Monitoring and Application Performance Monitoring service, Airbrake provides continuous monitoring of your entire application stack with real-time alerts.”
- **Error grouping / deduplication**: Yes — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/features/error-grouping/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Airbrake groups errors by looking at a few specific parameters like the error message and the file where the error occurred.”
- **Source maps / stack traces**: Yes — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/features/public-sourcemaps/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Public source maps are a core feature available on all paid plans along with private source maps.”
- **Release tracking**: Yes — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/features/deploy-tracking/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Deploy Tracking with Airbrake gives insight into the relationship between your deploys and your errors.”
- **Session replay**: No — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/overview/packages_and_plans/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: This is Airbrake's complete official Features list (docs sidebar, repeated across docs pages); session replay does not appear anywhere in Airbrake's docs sitemap or feature list.
  - Quote: “Aggregations App versions Backtrace links Breadcrumbs CLI Capture for IT/DevOps Use Code insights Custom source map URLs Daily and weekly digest emails Deleting and muting errors Deploy tracking Deplo”
- **Performance / APM**: Yes — <https://airbrake.io/performance-monitoring> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Airbrake Performance Monitoring gives developers the insight they NEED to understand how code is performing in production and measure its impact on users.”
- **Alerting integrations (Slack/PagerDuty)**: Partial — <https://airbrake.io/integrations> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: Native Slack integration is confirmed (docs.airbrake.io/docs/integrations/slack/: 'With Airbrake's Slack integration, you can: Automatically receive a Slack notification with error details...'). Pager
  - Quote: “Integrate with your favorite apps Bitbucket ... GitHub ... Gitlab ... Jira ... LogRocket ... Okta ... OneLogin ... PivotalTracker ... Slack ... Trello ... Webhooks ... Zapier”
- **Issue-tracker integration (Jira/GitHub)**: Yes — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/integrations/jira/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: GitHub issue-tracker integration is also natively supported; see https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/integrations/github/ , verbatim: 'With Airbrake's GitHub integration, you can: Automatically create GitHu
  - Quote: “With Airbrake's JIRA integration, you can: Automatically create JIRA issue with error details for every new type of an error”
- **SDK language coverage**: Yes — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/overview/error_monitoring/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “With support for over 50 languages, frameworks, and libraries, Airbrake notifiers install in minutes, are agentless and serverless, and have negligible impact on your code or application performance.”
- **User / breadcrumb context**: Yes — <https://docs.airbrake.io/docs/features/breadcrumbs/> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Quote: “Breadcrumbs are a snapshot of events that lead up to a specific error occurrence. ... This feature is available on all current plans.”
- **Data retention (free)**: Yes — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: 7.5k",b:"7",c:"",d:"$0"}" — Free/Dev tier retains data 7 days (vs 30-365 on paid tiers) — short but present.
  - Quote: “arr1=[{a:”
- **Free tier event limit**: Yes — <https://www.airbrake.io/pricing> (verified 2026-07-17)
  - Note: 7.5k",b:"7",c:"",d:"$0"}],arr2=[{a:"50k",b:"7",c:"",d:"$0"}" — A perpetual $0 Dev/free tier exists with a stated quota: 7,500 errors/month (Error Monitoring) and 50,000 events/month (Performance Monitoring), both at 7-day retention. Corroborated by FAQ text on sa
  - Quote: “arr1=[{a:”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/