

Show HN: Errordite, a new approach to exception management - thackerhacker
https://www.errordite.com

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hugorodgerbrown
(disclaimer: I know the founders; and I wrote the python / django client
libraries)

When we started YunoJuno we hooked up Sentry, as we are a django app, and it's
the default option for error management (oh, and it had an Heroku add-on
available). It's a great product, but I got frustrated early on with how it
was aggregating errors - and ended up in a public StackOverflow confessional
during which I unpicked the source and tried to work out what was going on
([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13331973/how-does-
sentry-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13331973/how-does-sentry-
aggregate-errors)).

I started using Errordite when it became available (I had to write the python
client first!) and ran both in parallel for a couple of months. Both do a
great job of helping manage exceptions, but the killer for us (and the reason
we dropped Sentry recently) is that Errordite allowed us to determine the
rules around grouping exceptions ourselves.

I won't say any more for fear of sounding like a plant, but in answer to those
who have posted 'what's the difference' - it's (IMO) the ability to set custom
rules around how errors are handled.

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acron0
I like the concept but I don't like your pricing model. For what it is, even
$19 a month feels like a lot. I would love to add this to the couple of web
apps I run but at that cost it'd run parallel to the cost of my AWS overhead.

Semi-seriously, you should add a PAYG model that costs by the error, thus
incentivising me to make my code less error-prone!

~~~
stephanos2k
> For what it is, even $19 a month feels like a lot.

Please read [http://wadefoster.net/post/49775946303/startups-you-
should-v...](http://wadefoster.net/post/49775946303/startups-you-should-value-
software-more) :)

EDIT: What I am trying to say is that the comment is underestimating the value
of something like an error tracker, vastly - especially when managing several
web apps.

~~~
StavrosK
That response can be generalized to "you should always give people whatever
they ask". What if he already _is_ valuing the app a lot, but the app just
isn't worth the price compared to other apps, or he just doesn't find it that
useful?

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jelder
What your onboarding flow needs is "How this is different from X." Adding this
to my app may be easy, but switching has cost (lost data, time spent, etc).

X includes at least: Honeybadger (what I use presently), AirBrake (just
switched from this), NewRelic (also does what you do, and everybody uses it),
BugSense, Errormator, Sentry, and I'm sure there are others in this field (for
some reason).

~~~
jtheory
See also ErrPlane (ycomb winter 2013)

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fxtentacle
looking at your homepage, i don't get what makes this different from
airbrake.io, which i've been using for years.

I'd really love to have a well-rounded error management service (and airbrake
isn't perfect), so I'm generally interested. But if you want to win me over as
a customer, you might need to clarify on your homepage what's new in your
approach.

Best wishes :)

~~~
thackerhacker
Thanks for the feedback. Out of interest, did you read the about page or watch
the video? Is it expecting too much for casual visitors to do that (genuine
question)?

~~~
philodespotos
Yes (genuine answer).

I have been passively searching for a new error monitoring service, so I
clicked this link from my phone while on a train to work. I'm not going to
find headphones, wait on a video to load, and then hope it's high enough
quality on my phone to be a useful look at what you're offering. And the About
page is hidden beneath a 'Docs' menu, which is actually right next to two
links that take me to a sign-in form, so it never even occurred to me to look
for it. I thought 'How It Works' was all you had besides the video.

So I added it to my "hey maybe come back and look at this some day" list of
TODOs. That's a very big list. I rarely actually go back and look.

Had it been two screenshots of a decent UI and a quick blurb about your
(likely very useful!) grouping/filtering functionality, I'd have been much
more likely to make sure I went back to view the video.

That said, I'm now watching the video, and this looks pretty nice. Good luck!

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thackerhacker
OP here. In case people are wondering what the new approach is, Errordite
allows you to look at your list of errors and by highlighting properties of
the error define the rules by which errors are grouped into issues. See the
video for a demo.

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, I don't understand how this is different from BugSense or Sentry? Don't
they already group errors together too?

~~~
thackerhacker
Yup but only automatially. Our matching default to automatic but you can
redefine the matching rules.

Examples:

1\. your exception messages contain the id of the entity you're dealing with
"FooBar 1234 has broken". You only want to match then on the FooBar has broken
bit, not the 1234.

2\. for whatever reason, some IP address keeps sending you dodgy requests that
break your server. You can filter all errors requests from this IP address so
you don't get swamped with these errors.

3\. The same bug deep down in your code is causing different errors higher up.
You can choose to match on the part of your stack trace that is the common
cause and get all these errors attached to the same issue.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, I see, thanks. I guess I just haven't had trouble with this in all my
years working on web development, it's always the same error (the error
doesn't vary on ids), if an IP address keeps sending me things that break my
server, I fix my server, and if the same bug is causing different errors, I'll
fix it quickly.

I guess #3 is the only example that might apply to me, but I have literally
never had this happen, so I don't know. Then again, I don't even use Sentry, I
get the issues emailed to me and I fix them on the spot (they're usually
1-line fixes, typos, or something like that).

~~~
thackerhacker
Yep - if you're totally organised and completely on top of your app, then
there may be little need for a service like this (although I'd say there's
still value in the graphs, the multiple alerting channels and all the other
good stuff).

We developed Errordite as a result of working on large(ish) eCommerce websites
where the wide variety of errors produced made it impossible to understand
exactly the different things that could be going wrong - and I think for this
kind of thing, where you are not going to always be on top of your errors,
Errordite is invaluable.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation. I imagine that if you're using someone
else's codebase, you'd be in a much worse position to fix bugs immediately, I
hadn't considered that.

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ktsang
This product looks great - should help avoid frustrating situations when
sifting through massive error logs looking for THAT pesky bug.

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mdillon
this is amazing, just what i've been looking for

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vkothiyal
looks good, best wishes

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charlottelevene
This looks great

