# Honeybadger vs Airbrake: Hands-On Error Tracking Comparison for 2026
Airbrake told me which of my API routes were slow before I had configured anything. Its routes table put `GET /search` at a 1.90-second 95th percentile and highlighted it in orange. Honeybadger never measured a single request, yet it was the tool that later pointed at a slow checkout query, because my app had written a warning about it to the logs.
**Both products cost roughly $20 to $30 a month for a small team**, and both catch errors and email you when something breaks. Airbrake is an error tracker with route-level performance monitoring built into the same notifier. Honeybadger is an error tracker bundled with a log and event store called Insights, plus uptime checks and status pages.
That split shapes almost every result below. **Airbrake measures how your routes perform** and shows most other details as raw JSON. **Honeybadger tells you more about each error, including who hit it and what they sent**, and relies on your own logs for performance.
I connected both to the same Node.js bookstore app, planted errors and slow endpoints whose causes I already knew, and shipped releases to see how each tool handled a bug that came back.
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The grouping results were the least comfortable part. Airbrake folded two unrelated server crashes into one row, and Honeybadger folded four different failed browser requests into one row.
With screenshots from my October 2026 tests, I compare setup, error capture, debugging, grouping, search and triage, real user monitoring, tracking releases, performance, logging, alerts and uptime, AI, and pricing.
## Honeybadger vs Airbrake: Results at a glance
These verdicts reflect my Node.js app and the configuration I used, so check them against your own stack before you rely on them.
| Area | Better in my test | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | **Honeybadger** | Free plan to start; Airbrake asks for a card before the trial |
| Error capture | Tie on the server | Both caught every planted server error, the unhandled rejection included |
| Debugging | **Honeybadger** | Labelled user fields, request body and readable breadcrumbs; Airbrake shows raw JSON |
| Error grouping | **Neither** | Airbrake merged two crashes by message; Honeybadger merged four request failures by location |
| Search and breakdowns | **Airbrake** | 27 filter keys with N of M counts and over 20 aggregations per group |
| Triage | **Honeybadger** | Assignees and Merge; Airbrake offers resolve, mute, delete and comments |
| Real user monitoring and session replay | Not compared | Neither offers RUM or replay, and Airbrake's browser notifier wasn't tested |
| Release tracking and regressions | **Honeybadger** | Its default reopened only the returning bug; Airbrake's reopened every group |
| Performance monitoring | **Airbrake** | Route percentiles and Apdex with no setup; Honeybadger has no request timing |
| Logs and events | **Honeybadger** | Insights with BadgerQL; Airbrake stores no logs |
| Uptime, status pages and alerts | Honeybadger on availability | Uptime, check-ins and status pages included, not tested |
| AI-assisted debugging | Not compared | Neither tool has in-app AI analysis I could test |
| Starting price | **Honeybadger** | Free plan, and $26 a month covers unlimited users with logs and uptime |
## How I tested Honeybadger and Airbrake
The test app is `monitoring-lab`, a small online bookstore with an Express API backed by SQLite and a Vite storefront. It also has a deliberately flaky price service and a sales report job that fails every minute.
Each tool hooks in through one small adapter file, which kept the code and the failures it produced identical for both. I planted these problems:
- **Server crashes:** two different `TypeError` crashes reading properties of undefined, one for an unknown coupon at checkout and one for a missing book.
- **Handled and upstream errors:** an out-of-stock error my code reports itself, and a 503 from the price service.
- **Background failures:** the sales report job that keeps failing, and a recommendation call whose promise rejection goes unhandled.
- **Browser errors:** a broken wishlist button and failed API requests that return different HTTP status codes.
- **Slow endpoints:** a CPU-heavy search route and a slow price lookup.
Three simulated shoppers named alice, bob and carol browsed the store, driven by a traffic script.
### The three releases
| Release | What I tested |
|---|---|
| 1.0.0 | Setup, server error capture in both tools, browser errors and source maps in Honeybadger, context, breadcrumbs, search and route performance |
| 1.1.0 | The coupon crash resolved, then shipped again unfixed, to see how each tool reports a regression |
| 1.2.0 | Honeybadger only: a faulty release with a slow checkout query and a new payment error on every fifth payment |
The 1.1.0 release is the one both tools went through, so the regression comparison rests on it.
The faulty 1.2.0 release mattered for Honeybadger because it combined a new exception with a slowdown that throws nothing. I didn't run 1.2.0 through Airbrake, so every 1.2.0 result below is Honeybadger's alone, and I don't count it for or against Airbrake.
### SDKs and test limitations
| Platform | SDKs |
|---|---|
| Honeybadger | `@honeybadger-io/js` 6.17.0 on the server and in the browser |
| Airbrake | Airbrake Node notifier 2.1.9 on the server; browser notifier not tested |
A few conditions matter when you read the results:
- **Airbrake was tested on the server only.** Wherever a section discusses browser errors, source maps or browser breadcrumbs, the result is Honeybadger's, and Airbrake's browser notifier is marked as not tested.
- **Both tools ran on trials.** Airbrake's 30-day trial required a card. Honeybadger ran on a trial account with a free plan available.
- **The traffic runs were separate.** Both tools saw the same scenarios, but their event counts come from different runs and aren't comparable one to one.
- **Server source paths were `file://` paths.** Neither tool could show server source lines for that reason, so that result says more about my local setup than about either product.
- **Airbrake's two deploys reported the same revision.** Its fixed-errors and introduced-errors logic and its deploy diff weren't fully exercised.
- **Some features weren't tested.** I didn't check alert emails in either tool, connect any integration, or test Honeybadger's uptime monitors, check-ins, status pages or AI tooling.
- **Only Node.js and Express were tested.** Other SDKs group and report errors differently.
## Setup and onboarding
Setup is where you first pay for each tool's choices, either with a card form or with a configuration flag you can easily miss.
### Airbrake: A card before the trial starts
Airbrake asked for card details as part of creating the account, before the 30-day trial would activate:
The card fields sit in the signup flow itself, which matches the card requirement on Airbrake's pricing page.
Once I was in, the Node notifier sent errors and request timings straight away with no extra configuration. My data landed in a project called "Monitoring", while a default project called "First project" sat empty with zero errors and zero requests. That cost me a minute of confusion.
One thing to watch: opening the Deploys page triggered an "Install the Express notifier" modal that showed the project key in plain text, and the Profile page shows the API auth token in clear text too. Keep that in mind before you share your screen.
### Honeybadger: Free to start, with one easy-to-miss flag
Honeybadger has a free Developer plan, so you can start without paying. Its setup page puts your API key inside the install snippet and shows a "Waiting for data…" panel until the first error arrives.
One project took both the server and the browser, with the same key.
The one gotcha was the environment. **Honeybadger skips the `development` environment by default**, so nothing arrived from my local server until I set `reportData: true`. The setup page mentions this, but it's easy to skim past.
### Setup comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | ✔: Developer plan | ✘: none |
| Card at signup | Not needed for the free plan | ✔: required to activate the trial |
| Server and browser in one project | ✔: one project, one key | Browser not tested |
| Development environment reported | ✘: needs `reportData: true` | ✔: by default |
| Performance data after setup | ✘: not offered | ✔: arrived with no extra setup |
| Onboarding surprise | The skipped environment | Data in "Monitoring", empty "First project" |
**Verdict: Honeybadger.** A free plan is an easier start than a card form, and its one configuration trap is documented on the setup page.
## Error capture
Both tools need to catch errors you didn't anticipate, such as a rejected promise nobody awaits, as well as errors your code reports deliberately.
### Honeybadger: Every planted error, on both sides
Honeybadger's list held 85 notifications in 8 groups after the first run, with server and browser errors side by side:
Rows carry the environment, a count, a sparkline for the last hour, a resolve toggle and an assignee picker, and the list includes the recommendation timeout behind the unhandled rejection.
Browser rows read "production" and server rows "development", because my Vite build runs in production mode while the server doesn't. That detail comes back in the release section.
There was one side effect. Honeybadger's request handler passed the unhandled rejection into Express after the response had already gone, so my app's final error handler logged `ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT`. Nothing crashed, and Honeybadger still reported the rejection, but you should check how your own error-handling chain deals with it.
### Airbrake: Every planted server error, with less context on the rejection
Airbrake caught every server error I planted, and the out-of-stock error my code reports itself arrived like any crash. The unhandled rejection came through too, titled "Error: Recommendation engine timed out for user anonymous", with 10 occurrences:
Look at the backtrace: one frame, `server.js:144:9 in loadRecommendations`, and no request context.
Nothing in Airbrake marks that error as unhandled. The manual out-of-stock error and the crashes all carry severity "error" with no mechanism flag, so you can't tell a reported error from a crash at a glance.
Errors reported manually also showed no URL and a route of "UNKNOWN". The Performance page listed `/broken-promise` with 0 errors, so the rejection isn't tied back to its route either.
I didn't test Airbrake's browser notifier, so this section can't compare browser capture.
### Error capture comparison
| Test | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Server crashes | Captured | Captured |
| Handled, reported errors | Captured | Captured |
| Unhandled promise rejection | Captured | Captured, one frame |
| Handled vs unhandled marker | Not checked on the server | ✘: not shown |
| Browser errors | Captured | Not tested |
| Side effect observed | `ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT` log after the rejection | None observed |
**Verdict: A tie on the server.** Both caught every planted server error, the unhandled rejection included. Airbrake's single-frame rejection is harder to trace, and its browser capture wasn't part of my test.
## Debugging an error
An error is only useful if its page tells you where the code broke and what the user was doing. I looked at stack traces, user context, request data and breadcrumbs in both tools.
### Stack traces: neither showed server source
Honeybadger's server error summary gave a precise location and nothing more:
`server.js:150:45` sits behind a `[PROJECT_ROOT]` prefix with no code lines, and the location reads "development on MacBookPro.lan after deploy 1.0.0", which links the error to its deploy.
Airbrake's backtrace was just as bare:
The top frame is `server.js:81:45` with no function name, followed by router frames from `node_modules`, and clicking a frame does nothing.
Airbrake does explain itself, if you dig. A `sourceMapErrors` field in the raw context reads "unsupported URL scheme "file"", because Airbrake fetches source over the network and can't read `file://` paths. In a deployed app with reachable source, or with source maps uploaded, the result could differ.
### Browser source maps in Honeybadger
On the browser side, Honeybadger accepted source maps through its API with the ordinary project key. After the upload, a minified ApiError trace turned into readable source:
`src/api.js:29:28` is highlighted with lines 27 to 31 around it, so you see the `throw new ApiError(...)` without opening an editor.
Airbrake supports source maps under its project settings, but I didn't test its browser notifier or upload maps to it.
### Route error rate in Airbrake's overview
Airbrake's Overview tab adds one number Honeybadger doesn't have:
The ROUTE field reads "11.76% error rate from 85 requests to this route: POST /checkout", next to the version, environment and file.
That rate tells you how much of a route's traffic an error is breaking, which comes from Airbrake measuring every request. The overview doesn't show the user, though.
### Who hit the error
Honeybadger shows the user and the request body in labelled sections:
`user_email` and `user_id` both identify carol, Params hold her request body with book 8 and the coupon `save10`, and an "Email user" button sits beside them.
Airbrake keeps the same information in raw JSON. Here are the parameters on a handled out-of-stock error:
The book ID sits at the top, but the shopper's email is below the fold, sorted alphabetically among the notifier's `os` and `process` objects.
The user never gets a labelled field in Airbrake. You find them in the Context JSON on an occurrence, or in the Users aggregation for the whole group.
### Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs record what happened just before an error. Honeybadger's browser SDK recorded them automatically:
Each entry is labelled by type, with selectors on clicks, "Page changed" on navigation and a URL on every request.
On the server, Honeybadger kept the app's breadcrumbs with their own request:
"checkout started" and "book found" show the request got past the book lookup before it failed.
The scoping wasn't perfect. On one 1.2.0 payment error, a "Honeybadger Notice" breadcrumb from 51 seconds earlier slipped into the list.
Airbrake showed my breadcrumbs only because my adapter sent them as a parameter, and they appeared as JSON:
"checkout started" and "book found" are nested objects with timestamps, and there's no timeline, icon or level to scan.
No native breadcrumb panel appeared for my Node errors, although Airbrake's plan page lists breadcrumbs as a feature. I checked the Overview, Occurrences and Aggregations tabs. The browser notifier may behave differently, and I didn't test it.
### Connecting browser and server errors
When a browser request failed, neither tool connected it to the server error that caused it. Honeybadger at least kept both sides in one project and one list, while Airbrake's browser side wasn't part of my test.
### Debugging comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Server source lines | ✘: file, line and column only | ✘: file, line and column only |
| Reason for missing source | Not shown | `sourceMapErrors` in raw context |
| Browser source maps | ✔: API upload with project key | Not tested |
| User identification | ✔: labelled fields, Email user | Raw JSON and Users aggregation |
| Request body | ✔: labelled Params | Raw JSON parameters |
| Route error rate on the error | ✘: not shown | ✔: shown on Overview |
| Browser breadcrumbs | ✔: automatic | Not tested |
| Server breadcrumbs | ✔: list view, one stray entry | Raw JSON parameter only |
| Browser to server error link | ✘: not observed | Not tested |
**Verdict: Honeybadger.** Its labelled user fields, request body and readable breadcrumbs make each error faster to understand. Airbrake's route error rate is useful context, and most of the rest is JSON you have to read line by line.
[summary]
Neither tool showed the code behind a server crash, and neither connected a broken browser request to the server error that caused it. I ran the same scenario in Better Stack, and the coupon crash opened with the source around `server.js:150` on the page, my own bug comments included:
You read the failing line in place, and the page adds "Open in VS Code" and Git blame tabs for the next step.
The "View related" menu on the same exception jumps to that request's logs, its spans, its release, or the visitor's session replays:
Each option opens already filtered to that one request. The session timeline then puts both sides together, with 30 browser spans and 7 backend spans in one view:
That's the browser-to-server link neither Honeybadger nor my Airbrake setup gave me. One caveat: browser stacks stayed minified, because I found no documented way to upload source maps for Better Stack's beta JavaScript tag.
**[Follow every error to its trace, logs and replay](https://betterstack.com/tracing)**
[/summary]
## Error grouping
Grouping decides how many rows your error list shows. Merge too much and separate bugs hide in one row; split too much and one bug fills the list.
Each tool uses a different rule, and each rule merged something it shouldn't have in my app.
### Airbrake merged two crashes by message
Airbrake groups by a normalized message pattern. My coupon crash and my missing-book crash both read "Cannot read properties of undefined", with only the property name changing, so Airbrake turned both into the pattern "Cannot read properties of undefined (reading {})" and kept one group.
The Aggregations tab is where that becomes visible:
Message params split 13 for `title` and 10 for `discount`, and the files show `server.js:38:45` and `server.js:81:45` on two different routes.
That's two bugs in one row, so six planted server bugs became five groups. Airbrake has no split or merge control, so the row stays that way, and resolving one bug silently resolves the other.
The same rule helped elsewhere. Airbrake folded every run of my report job, from "run #3" to "#24", into one group with the pattern "Sales report run {} failed: {}". Each group's title also follows its latest occurrence, so the out-of-stock row switched book titles as new errors arrived.
### Honeybadger merged four request failures by location
Honeybadger groups by error class and the top line of the backtrace. My two `TypeError` crashes come from different lines, so they stayed separate.
Its rule tripped on the storefront instead. Every failed request throws `ApiError` from the same helper line, `src/api.js:29`:
The title shows "GET /orders/tracking", but the same group holds an order-tracking 404, a checkout 500, a book 500 and a price 502.
The title also changes to the most recent failure, so the row you saw an hour ago may look different now. Honeybadger does have a Merge action, though I didn't find a way to split a group.
The location rule worked well in other cases. The out-of-stock error stayed in one group across three different book titles, and in 1.2.0 every amount on the new payment error landed in the same group:
All 7 notices share one group at `server.js:173:15`, even though each message carries a different charge amount.
I didn't run 1.2.0 through Airbrake, so I can't say how its message patterns would have handled the changing amounts.
### Error grouping comparison
| Test | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Grouping rule | Error class and top backtrace line | Normalized message pattern |
| Coupon and missing-book crashes | Kept apart | Merged into one group |
| Failed browser requests from one helper | Merged four failures | Not tested |
| Report job runs with changing numbers | One group | One group |
| Out-of-stock error across books | One group | One group |
| Payment error across amounts | One group | Not tested |
| Merge control | ✔: Merge action | ✘: not offered |
| Split control | ✘: not found | ✘: not offered |
**Verdict: Neither.** Each tool merged problems that deserved separate rows. Honeybadger's Merge action gives you slightly more control afterwards, but neither default should be trusted until you've seen how your own code throws.
[summary]
Airbrake hid two crashes in one row, and Honeybadger hid four request failures in another. I sent the same errors to Better Stack, and the title and discount crashes landed as two separate errors, 17 and 12 events each:
Six server errors and two browser errors, with no two bugs sharing a row. In fairness, browser errors my storefront caught itself weren't listed, because the beta JavaScript tag has no call for reporting a caught error.
On the faulty release, the new payment error stayed one error with 10 exceptions across every amount, and the source behind it was right on the page:
The deliberate "every 5th payment fails" comment is visible above the failing line, and the coupon crash kept a single group across all three releases.
**[Get one row per bug, with the code on the page](https://betterstack.com/error-tracking)**
[/summary]
## Searching and triaging errors
Once errors are grouped, you need to find the ones affecting a customer or a version, and then hand them to someone. The two tools invest in opposite halves of that job.
### Airbrake: 27 filter keys with counts
Clicking Airbrake's search box opens a set of filter chips:
You can filter on 27 keys, including User, Version, Route, Message param and Has comments, and add custom filters as well.
Each filter shows how many of a group's occurrences match. Here is the list filtered to one shopper:
carol accounts for "5 of 16" out-of-stock errors and "4 of 23" crashes, so you see one customer's share of each bug at a glance.
You can stack filters too. "Route: /checkout" plus "Version: 1.0.0" narrowed the list to one group, "10 of 23". Inside a group, the Aggregations tab slices occurrences more than 20 ways, by users, versions, files, routes and message params, with first and last seen times.
The filters work through chips only. Typing `route:/check` as text returned "No matching errors to display".
### Honeybadger: A query box and Insights
Honeybadger's error list takes a search query, and its default view filters with `-is:resolved -is:ignored`. I didn't test its list search beyond that.
Its deeper analysis lives in Insights, which the logs section covers. That makes Honeybadger better at questions about your logs and events, and less direct for "which customers did this error hit, and on which version".
### Triage: assignees against a single bulk action
Honeybadger gives each row an assignee picker and a resolve toggle, and the error page adds Ignore, Resolve on Deploy, Merge, Export, Share URL and "Copy for LLM". You can see that action bar on the ApiError screenshot in the grouping section.
Airbrake's triage is thinner:
With two rows checked, the only bulk action is "Resolve 2", and the Comments tab supports Markdown.
You can also mute or delete a group. I found no assignee, owner, priority, snooze or merge anywhere in Airbrake's group header, tabs or list.
### Search and triage comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Filter keys | Query box, not tested in depth | ✔: 27 chips |
| Matching occurrence counts | ✘: not observed | ✔: N of M per group |
| Per-group breakdowns | ✘: not offered | ✔: over 20 aggregations |
| Typed query syntax | ✔: e.g. `-is:resolved` | ✘: chips only |
| Assignees | ✔: in the list | ✘: not offered |
| Merge | ✔: available | ✘: not offered |
| Bulk actions | Not tested | Resolve only |
| Comments | Not tested | ✔: Markdown |
**Verdict: Airbrake for search, Honeybadger for triage.** Airbrake answers "who is affected and on which version" faster. Honeybadger's assignees and Merge matter as soon as more than one person works the list.
## Real user monitoring and session replay
Real user monitoring measures how pages load for real visitors, and session replay records what they did. Neither tool offers either one.
### Honeybadger: Browser errors without RUM
Honeybadger's browser SDK captured errors and breadcrumbs, but I found no page-load timing, Core Web Vitals or replay anywhere in its navigation. The breadcrumbs shown earlier are the closest you get to a picture of the user's session.
### Airbrake: Not part of my test
Airbrake sells two products, Error Monitoring and Performance Monitoring, and its performance data comes from server routes. Its filter list includes browser fields, but I didn't test its browser notifier, so I can't say what it records on the page.
### Real user monitoring comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Page-load timing | ✘: not offered | Not tested |
| Core Web Vitals | ✘: not offered | Not tested |
| Session replay | ✘: not offered | ✘: not sold |
| Browser breadcrumbs | ✔: automatic | Not tested |
**Verdict: Not compared.** Neither product sells RUM or session replay, and the browser side of Airbrake wasn't in my test.
## Release tracking and regressions
Release tracking should answer two questions: did this deploy introduce a problem, and has a bug I fixed come back?
Both tools learn about releases from deploy reports you send through their APIs. The difference that mattered most was a default setting.
### Recording deploys
Honeybadger accepted deploys through its API with the project key, and its Deployments list shows each one with a Compare link:
Each row has a date, environment, user and revision, and Compare opens a GitHub diff that only works if your repository has matching tags.
Airbrake needs a deploy report from its CLI or cURL. Sending a version with each error doesn't create a deploy, and the Deploys page stayed empty until I reported one.
### Resolving every error on deploy
Both tools can resolve every open error when a deploy arrives, so anything still broken comes back as active. Airbrake switches this on for you:
"Resolve all errors in environment after a deploy" was already enabled under Deploy tracking before I changed anything.
In Honeybadger, "Resolve errors on deploy" is off until you enable it in project settings. You can also apply it to a single error with the Resolve on Deploy button.
### Resolving the coupon crash
To test regressions, I resolved the coupon crash in each tool, then shipped 1.1.0 with the bug still in place.
Honeybadger's resolve is a status toggle:
It reads "Resolved. We'll alert you if this error happens again.", and there's no option to resolve for a specific version.
Airbrake's resolve is one click:
The toast says "Error was resolved. Undo" and the button turns into "Unresolve", with no version or snooze options.
Because Airbrake had merged both crashes into one group, resolving the coupon crash also resolved the missing-book crash.
### Honeybadger: Only the returning bug reopened
With resolve on deploy still off, only the coupon crash came back after 1.1.0:
The status is Unresolved again, the latest occurrence at 10:12 follows the 10:10 resolve, and the location line says "after deploy 1.1.0".
The row in the list carried no "reopened" label, and the History tab left the return out:
"Marked as resolved", "First occurrence" and "Previous deployment 1.0.0" are listed, with nothing for the moment the bug returned. You have to work it out from timestamps.
### Airbrake: Every group came back
In Airbrake, the 1.1.0 deploy had already resolved the four other open groups, and the activity feed recorded it as "Deployed to development (resolving 4 errors)". All four happened again, so every group reopened, five in all.
The crash group showed the only sign of a regression:
"OCCURRENCES 46 (23 since last deploy)" and VERSION 1.1.0 are all you get, with no regressed label, no regression filter and no activity entry for the reopen.
Since this group mixes both crashes, only Aggregations tells you which bug came back. The 1.1.0 run added 16 `title` and 7 `discount` occurrences, so both had in fact returned.
The deploy list didn't help either:
Both v1.1.0 deploys are listed by "stanley" to development, and the Errors Fixed and Errors Introduced columns stayed empty.
The deploy's own page contradicted the activity feed:
"Fixed errors 0" and "Introduced errors 0" sit beside the note "Nothing to compare. This redeployed the same revision (v1.1.0) as the previous development deploy."
Part of that is my test. Both deploys reported the same revision, so the fixed and introduced logic and the compare link weren't fully exercised. The "resolving 4 errors" entry and "Fixed errors 0" on the same deploy still disagree.
### Honeybadger's resolve on deploy, in 1.2.0
For the faulty 1.2.0 release, I turned Honeybadger's setting on to see how it behaves. After the server deploy, all six server errors resolved, and only the two browser errors remained:
The remaining ApiError and wishlist rows both say "production", because resolve on deploy works per environment and my browser build reports a different one.
A second deploy call for production cleared those too. Once the 1.2.0 traffic ran, every old error that recurred came back next to the new payment error:
Nothing on these rows tells you which errors came back and which one is new, which is the same noise Airbrake's default produced in 1.1.0.
I didn't run 1.2.0 through Airbrake, so this part shows how Honeybadger's opt-in setting behaves, without a matching Airbrake result.
### Release tracking comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy reporting | API with project key | CLI or cURL |
| Resolve on deploy default | Off, per environment | On |
| Resolve for a version | ✘: not offered | ✘: not offered |
| Groups reopened after 1.1.0 | 1: the coupon crash | 5: every group |
| Regression label in the list | ✘: none | ✘: none |
| Reopen in history | ✘: missing | ✘: missing |
| Regression signal | Unresolved, "after deploy 1.1.0" | Count since last deploy |
| Deploy page accuracy | Compare needs repository tags | "Fixed errors 0" against "resolving 4 errors" |
**Verdict: Honeybadger.** Its default reopened only the bug I'd resolved, and its resolve on deploy is there when you want a clean slate. Airbrake's default turned one regression into five reopened groups, and neither tool labelled the return.
[summary]
Honeybadger's History tab skipped the reopen, and Airbrake marked it only with a count, after resolving four other errors behind my back. I ran the same 1.1.0 test in Better Stack, and the coupon crash's row turned to a red "Reoccurred" in the errors list:
Only the coupon crash reopened, and you can spot it from the list without opening anything.
Its activity feed recorded the whole sequence:
"Error reoccurred", "Stanley Ulili resolved the error" and "Error appeared" each carry a time. Releases came from the SDK's `release` value, so there were no deploy calls to script and no setting resolving errors on its own. It has no separate Regressed tab, but the label went everywhere the error appeared.
**[See every bug that comes back, the moment it does](https://betterstack.com/error-tracking)**
[/summary]
## Performance monitoring
Some problems never throw an exception. A route gets slow, users wait, and an error tracker without timing data sees nothing.
### Airbrake: Route timing with no setup
Airbrake's notifier measured every route it saw, with no extra configuration:
After one traffic run, it showed 270 requests, an Apdex of 0.92 at a 0.5-second threshold, a 239.04 ms mean response time and a 10% error rate.
The routes table, sorted by the 95th percentile, put my two slow endpoints on top:
`GET /search` at 1.90 seconds and `GET /prices/:id` at 1.70 seconds are highlighted orange, exactly where I'd planted the slowness. Each route also shows its error count and rate.
The detail stops at the route, though:
"Response time (mean)" shows a dash over an empty grey bar, and the Queries tab reads "No data for the chosen time period".
There are no traces, spans or waterfalls, and the sales report job wasn't tracked as a job. Percentiles also shift with the time range: at 90 days, `/prices` showed a 900 ms median. The charts carry no deploy markers, and performance data was kept for 7 days on my trial.
I didn't run the slow-checkout release through Airbrake, so I can't say how its route table would have shown that regression.
### Honeybadger: Hints from breadcrumbs and logs
Honeybadger has no request timing. When 1.2.0 made checkout several seconds slower, two features hinted at it.
Breadcrumbs on the new payment error carry times relative to the error:
"checkout started" at 2.96 seconds before the error and "book found" at 0.55 seconds before leave a gap of about 2.4 seconds around the book lookup.
The second hint came from Insights, where my app's slow-query warnings were stored. The next section shows that query. Both hints exist only because my code writes breadcrumbs and warnings, and Honeybadger's Insights `http: true` setting gave me no request durations in this run.
Honeybadger also didn't flag the slow search and price routes that Airbrake caught in 1.0.0, since nothing in my app logged their timings.
### Performance comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Request timing | ✘: not offered | ✔: every route |
| Apdex | ✘: not offered | ✔: configurable threshold |
| Percentiles per route | ✘: not offered | ✔: p50 and p95 |
| Slow search and price routes | Not flagged | ✔: flagged orange |
| Slow checkout in 1.2.0 | Found through app logs and breadcrumbs | Not tested |
| Traces or spans | ✘: not offered | ✘: not offered |
| Breakdown inside a route | ✘: not offered | ✘: empty in my test |
| Deploy markers on charts | Not applicable | ✘: none |
**Verdict: Airbrake.** It measures every route on its own and found both slow endpoints with no setup. Honeybadger only sees slowness your app writes down.
If you need request-level traces on top of this, our [Sentry vs Airbrake test](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/sentry-vs-airbrake/) shows how a tracing tool handled the same routes.
[summary]
Airbrake knew which routes were slow without knowing why, and Honeybadger found the slow checkout only through my own log lines. I sent the same faulty release to Better Stack, and "View spans" on the payment error broke the failing checkout down step by step:
The 2.19-second request spent 1.53 seconds in `SELECT book for checkout` and 660 ms in the new "charge card" span, measured by the SDK without any warning code.
From that error, "View logs" jumps into Live tail with a filter for that single request:
The slow-query warning and the checkout failure sit together, which lets the timing and the log line back each other up on one screen. The service column stayed empty because the SDK sets no service name, a small cleanup you'd do in a real setup.
**[See the timing and the logs behind every error](https://betterstack.com/log-management)**
[/summary]
## Logs and events
A log store lets you ask questions an error list can't answer, such as how often a warning fired on a given release.
### Honeybadger: Insights and BadgerQL
Honeybadger includes Insights, which stores logs, error notices and console lines in one place:
My adapter's log events and the SDK's captured console lines both appear here, which means every log line was stored twice in my setup.
You query Insights with BadgerQL. Because my code writes a warning for each slow operation, one query grouping warnings by message and revision found the 1.2.0 problem:
44 "slow query: SELECT book for checkout" warnings and 36 "payment gateway slow to respond, retrying" warnings, all on revision 1.2.0, point at the cause.
Insights also works for business data. One query summed my custom metrics:
It returned 55 checkout orders, 1026.76 in checkout revenue and 11349.08 in report revenue from the same event stream.
The query editor auto-closes brackets and quotes as you type, which got in the way more than it helped.
### Airbrake: No log store
Airbrake has no logs product. Its plan options list only two products:
Error Monitoring and Performance Monitoring are the only lines, and the Dev, Basic and Pro packages differ in users, teams and extras such as audit logs.
I also checked the top navigation, the account dashboard and every user menu item, and found no logs, metrics, profiling or session replay. The Trends page said "Your first trends will be visible next week", so I couldn't test it.
### Logs and events comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Log storage | ✔: Insights | ✘: not offered |
| Query language | ✔: BadgerQL | Not applicable |
| Custom metrics | ✔: queried orders and revenue | ✘: not offered |
| Slow checkout from logs | ✔: 44 warnings on 1.2.0 | Not applicable |
| Duplicate log lines | Console capture doubled lines | Not applicable |
**Verdict: Honeybadger.** Insights turned my logs into answers on every plan, although the doubled console lines would skew counts until you turn one source off.
## Uptime, status pages and alerts
An error tracker tells you something threw. Uptime checks and check-ins tell you when the app, or a scheduled job, stopped responding at all.
### Honeybadger: Included, not tested
Honeybadger's plans include uptime monitors and a status page, even on the free Developer plan, and it adds check-ins for scheduled jobs. A check-in would have caught my failing sales report job from the outside.
I didn't test uptime, check-ins, status pages or Honeybadger's alert channels, so I can't rate how well they work.
### Airbrake: Per-user email and integration toggles
Airbrake offers no uptime checks, check-ins or status pages. Its alerting is mostly per-user email:
Each project row has toggles for errors, comments, high volume and production only, plus digest options, with "Inbox saver" on by default.
There's no rule builder for thresholds, time windows or performance alerts. Slack posting is an on and off webhook with a "production" environment filter.
On the integrations page you'll find GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, Slack and Teams, JIRA, Pivotal Tracker, Trello, and webhooks. The Jira form can open issues automatically and reopen them on recurrence:
"Reopen resolved or closed JIRA issue when a resolved error reoccurs" is checked by default, which would surface regressions in your tracker even though Airbrake's own list doesn't label them.
I didn't save or connect any integration, and I found no PagerDuty or Opsgenie in the list.
### Uptime and alerts comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Uptime monitoring | Included, not tested | ✘: not offered |
| Scheduled job check-ins | Included, not tested | ✘: not offered |
| Status pages | Included, not tested | ✘: not offered |
| Email alerts | Not tested | Per-user toggles, not tested |
| Alert rules and thresholds | Not tested | ✘: toggles only |
| Chat and issue tracker integrations | Not tested | Slack, Teams, Jira and more, not connected |
| PagerDuty or Opsgenie | Not tested | ✘: not listed |
**Verdict: Honeybadger on availability.** It includes uptime, check-ins and a status page in the same subscription, though I'd test them before relying on them.
## AI-assisted debugging
Neither product ships in-app AI analysis that I could run, so this section covers what exists, without a head-to-head result.
### Honeybadger: Hand the error to your own assistant
Honeybadger's "Copy for LLM" button puts an error on your clipboard for any assistant. It also offers an MCP server that lets compatible assistants look up errors and run BadgerQL themselves. I didn't test either one.
### Airbrake: No AI feature found
I didn't find an AI feature in Airbrake's navigation or plan options.
### AI comparison
| Capability | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| In-app AI analysis | ✘: not offered | ✘: none found |
| Copy error for an assistant | Copy for LLM, not tested | ✘: none found |
| MCP server | Available, not tested | ✘: none found |
| Root cause accuracy | Not tested | Not applicable |
**Verdict: Not compared.** I tested neither AI path, so I can't judge answer quality. Honeybadger at least gives your assistant two ways in.
[summary]
Airbrake has no AI, and Honeybadger copies errors for an assistant you bring yourself. I asked Better Stack's AI SRE what changed in the faulty release, with no access to my repository, and it lined up both versions' errors, traces and logs on its own:
Checkout's median went from about 2 ms to about 3.7 seconds, and the book query from 0.13 ms to 2.6 seconds, and because the other statements held at about 0.1 ms, it eliminated the database as the cause.
It then separated the second problem and named the cause:
The new "charge card" span failed 10 of 48 calls, all on 1.2.0, and the answer linked those failures to the new payment error before recommending a rollback. The whole investigation finished in about four minutes, at a shown cost of $0.49. It called the payment failure a timeout set too short, where the code fails every fifth payment on purpose, a detail it couldn't see without the repository. Because I didn't test either tool's AI path, this shows what AI SRE found here, without proving it beats them.
**[Let AI SRE investigate your next slow release](https://betterstack.com/ai-sre)**
[/summary]
## Pricing
I checked both pricing pages on October 26, 2026 for these numbers and added what my Airbrake trial account showed. Plans and quotas shift often, so confirm them on the vendor's site before you pay.
Airbrake prices a plan as a package plus an error tier, while Honeybadger sells one plan that bundles errors, Insights and uptime.
### Free plans and trials
| Feature | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent free plan | ✔: Developer | ✘: none |
| Free plan users | 1 | Not applicable |
| Free plan errors | 5,000 a month | Not applicable |
| Free plan extras | 1 uptime monitor, 1 status page, Insights at 50 MB a day | Not applicable |
| Free plan error retention | 15 days | Not applicable |
| Trial | 30 days on paid plans | 30 days |
| Card needed | Not stated for the free plan | ✔: required at signup |
Airbrake's trial page showed the quotas plainly:
"Days remaining in free trial: 30", 25K errors at 0% used, 50K performance events at 1%, and a 30-day error retention period are all on one page.
### Entry-level paid plans
| Feature | Honeybadger Team | Airbrake Dev | Airbrake Basic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $26 | $19 with the first error tier | $38 with the first error tier |
| Annual price | $286 a year | About 10% less | About 10% less |
| Users | Unlimited | 1 | Unlimited, 3 teams |
| Included errors | 50,000 a month | 25,000 | 25,000 |
| Error retention | 90 days | 30 days | 30 days |
| Performance monitoring | ✘: not offered | Included in my trial | Included in my trial |
| Logs | Insights at 100 MB a day | ✘: not offered | ✘: not offered |
| Uptime monitors | 5, checked every 2 minutes | ✘: not offered | ✘: not offered |
### What costs extra
| Item | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Extra errors | Price not listed | $6.50 per 10,000 |
| Higher plan | Business at $80 a month, 180-day retention, 1-minute uptime checks | Pro package at $57 a month before the error tier |
| More log capacity | Logging and Performance add-on, price not listed | Not applicable |
| Audit logs | Not checked | Pro only |
| Performance retention | Not applicable | 7 days in my trial, 30 days on today's calculator |
Audit logs sit behind Airbrake's Pro package:
The page asks you to upgrade before it shows anything, and Pro also adds Spike Forgiveness.
The performance retention mismatch is worth asking Airbrake about before you buy.
### Comparing the actual cost
For one developer, the two are close: Honeybadger is free, and Airbrake's Dev package costs $19 a month for errors and route performance.
The gap opens with a team. Honeybadger's $26 Team plan covers unlimited users with errors, Insights logs, five uptime monitors and a status page. Airbrake's cheapest plan for unlimited users is Basic at $38 a month, covering errors and route performance.
Each one leaves a gap you'd fill elsewhere. With Honeybadger you'd still need request timing or tracing. With Airbrake you'd need a separate log store and an uptime checker on top of the $38.
If you'd rather cover traces, logs and on-call from one vendor, read [our look at Honeybadger against an all-in-one platform](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/better-stack-vs-honeybadger/).
**Verdict: Honeybadger.** It's free to start and includes more per dollar for a team, unless route performance is the one thing you need.
## Full feature comparison
This table combines everything I observed across both tests.
| Feature | Honeybadger | Airbrake |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | ✔: 1 user | ✘: card required for trial |
| Development environment reported | ✘: needs `reportData` | ✔: by default |
| Server and browser in one project | ✔: one key | Browser not tested |
| Unhandled promise rejection | ✔: captured | ✔: captured, one frame |
| Handled vs unhandled marker | Not checked | ✘: not shown |
| Grouping rule | Class and top backtrace line | Message pattern |
| Over-grouping in my test | Four request failures merged | Two crashes merged |
| Merge groups | ✔: available | ✘: not offered |
| Server source lines | ✘: file and line only | ✘: file and line only |
| Browser source maps | ✔: API with project key | Not tested |
| User fields | ✔: labelled, Email user | ✘: inside raw JSON |
| Breadcrumbs | ✔: readable list | ✘: raw JSON parameter |
| Route error rate on an error | ✘: not shown | ✔: shown |
| Filters with N of M counts | ✘: not observed | ✔: 27 keys |
| Per-group aggregations | ✘: not offered | ✔: over 20 |
| Assignees | ✔: in the list | ✘: not offered |
| Resolve on deploy | Off by default, per environment | On by default |
| Regression shown | ✘: no label or history entry | ✘: count since last deploy |
| Route performance | ✘: not offered | ✔: p50, p95 and Apdex |
| Traces | ✘: not offered | ✘: not offered |
| RUM and session replay | ✘: not offered | ✘: not sold |
| Logs and event queries | ✔: Insights with BadgerQL | ✘: not offered |
| Uptime, check-ins, status page | ✔: included, untested | ✘: not offered |
| PagerDuty | Not tested | ✘: not listed |
| AI | Copy for LLM and MCP server, untested | ✘: none found |
## Which should you choose?
The choice comes down to whether you'd rather have numbers about every route or more context about every error.
### Choose Honeybadger if you want errors, logs and uptime in one bill
Honeybadger fits a small team that wants one subscription for error tracking, logs, uptime checks and a public status page. It's free to start, and $26 a month covers everyone on the team.
Its error pages were easier to read in my test, with labelled user fields, the request body and real breadcrumb lists. Assignees and Merge suit a list more than one person works, and its regression default reopened only the bug that came back.
The trade-offs are performance and history. Honeybadger measures no requests, so it only notices slowness your app logs, and its History tab didn't record the reopen. Its location-based grouping also merged four different browser failures into one row.
To see it next to a tool that does measure requests, read our [Sentry vs Honeybadger comparison](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/sentry-vs-honeybadger/).
### Choose Airbrake if route performance matters most
Airbrake fits when you want to know which routes are slow and who an error affects, without configuring anything. Its percentiles, Apdex score and route error rates arrived with the error notifier, and its 27 filters and 20-plus aggregations answer "which users, which version" quickly.
The trade-offs show up during triage. Error details are mostly raw JSON, there are no assignees or merge controls, and its message-based grouping put two different crashes in one row. Turn off resolve on deploy if you want regressions to stand out, because its default reopened every group after my second release. You'll also need a card to start the trial.
How Airbrake's grouping and error pages compare with other tools is covered in [our BugSnag vs Airbrake review](https://betterstack.com/community/comparisons/bugsnag-vs-airbrake/).
## Final thoughts
These two tools spend your $20 to $30 a month on opposite things. Airbrake buys you measurement, with numbers on every route, and leaves the error itself close to raw data. Honeybadger buys you context and breadth, with readable error pages, a log store and uptime checks, and leaves performance to whatever your code writes down.
So think about how your last incident started. If a page got slow before anything failed, Airbrake's routes table is where you'd have seen it first. If the app went quiet or a job stopped running, Honeybadger's uptime checks and check-ins cover the part Airbrake doesn't sell.
Whichever you pick, test its grouping on your own errors first, because **both tools hid a bug inside another bug's row** before I'd shipped a second release.