Quality Tracking / Crash Reporting for desktop applications review for Microsoft Visual C, .NET, Java, and Mac OS X applications. Three reporting tools are covered - Microsoft Error Reporting, Google Breakpad, and BugSplat Software. See full post at http://www.joeyplunkett.com/crash_reporting_options/

1. Quality Tracking/Crash Reporting for Desktop
Applications
www.joeyplunkett.com/crash_reporting_options/

2. Crash Reporting Solutions
• Window Error Reporting (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/hardware/dn641144.aspx)
• Google Breakpad (https://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/)
• BugSplat Software (http://www.bugsplatsoftware.com/)

3. Windows Error Reporting (WER)
• Default crash reporter used for Windows applications
• Pricing: Free
• Pros:
• Integrates well with Windows applications - all reports accessible through
Windows Dev Center.
• Been around for years, the dialogue box is well known and the service is
trusted.
• There is no upfront cost for using this solution.
• Cons:
• No cross-platform capability - Windows Error Reporting only works with native
Windows applications.
• Need to manually debug each minidump against a local Symbol Server to get
the full set of information from the minidump file.
• Because of Microsoft's privacy policy it is impossible to identify the customer
reporting the crash.
• No way to customize crash dialogue box - customers will probably wonder why
Microsoft is concerned with the crashes from a different company.
• Requires significant software development resources to setup and maintain.

4. Google Breakpad - Crshrpt
• Default crash reporter used by Google and Mozilla applications
• Pricing: Free
• Pros:
• Open-source and cross-platform crash reporting
• Can create minidump files that are transferred by a user's email back to the
software publisher
• There is no upfront cost for using this solution.
• Cons:
• Only half a crash reporting system because it lacks the reporting ability -
there is no automated processing of crash reports that your company
receives.
• Customers must elect to send the crash report with their own email.
• No historic crash reporting features that show stability trends over time.
• Requires significant software development resources to setup and maintain.

5. BugSplat Software
• Crash reporting solution used by League of Legends, Sketchup, Relic Entertainment,
etc..
• Pricing: Yearly cost based on crash volume (Pricing) with first 1000 crashes free.
• Pros:
• Cross-platform capability - support for C++, .NET, Java, Mac OS X.
• A call stack, function names, line numbers, modules loaded and value are
generated for each crash.
• Crash reports are automatically processed and available online.
• Historic data available to show stability over time.
• Requires a minimal amount of development resources to setup and maintain.
• Integrates with bug tracking programs.
• Fully supported and maintained crash reporting solution. Support always available
at support@bugsplatsoftware.com
• Cons:
• Upfront cost required to use service.
• Small company without name recognition of Microsoft or Google.