7 ms·

Crashlytics Enterprise Is Now Free

30 points by johns 14y ago

PanMan 14y ago
I wonder if this is good or bad news: After the twitter acquisition, the expensive product becomes free. I rather have a free product, but as a customer I would be worried shutdown is next.
- ttol 14y ago
  Wayne from Crashlytics here. Don't worry, a shut down is not next :-)
- freerobby 14y ago
  Nah, seems like a volume play a la Urchin/Google Analytics. See point #3 here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5132089 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5132089
hamidpalo 14y ago
Boy does this look like the beginnings of an ad network.
BIackSwan 14y ago
If everything is free and unlimited... How are they gonna make money?
- printzcache 14y ago
  volume
- kenrikm 14y ago
  How does google analytics make money? they just want our data.
- danielsju6 14y ago
  SLAs? Support? Consulting? Tangental services? Same way Google Analytics does, they're getting their foot in the door with a lot of enterprises.
dmethvin 14y ago
This must be an enterprise product, because I can't tell exactly what it does from the blog post or the home page. Is it like Errorception? What languages does it support? No need to explain in a comment here, just point me to the page on their site that I can't find -- but must be there -- that explains in simple terms.
- pnachbaur 14y ago
  It's a SDK for mobile apps (Android/iOS). There doesn't seem to be a page with every product on it, but the product link at the top leads you to explanations like: http://try.crashlytics.com/reports/ http://try.crashlytics.com/reports/
mdiep 14y ago
I really liked the sound of Crashlytics. Then Twitter bought it. Now it's free. I don't trust Twitter and I don't trust free, so I'm less likely to use this. If I don't understand why something is free, I grow suspicious. I want to know how a company plans to make money before I sign up for its services.
lollymatch 14y ago
I don't understand why anyone would use this now. It was one thing when Google bought Urchin, which was already incredibly pervasive. But Crashlytics is a relatively mediocre solution that doesn't already have market dominance. I guess that probably made them cheaper to acquire, but now that we know that Twitter wants them to spy on everyone's mobile apps, why would anyone use them? There are other crash reporting solutions, and we're not already locked in. It seems like a bad tactical move for Twitter to have telegraphed why they wanted Crashlytics so clearly.
- danielsju6 14y ago
  I'm curious to know how you think Crashalytics is a mediocre solution. I run AppBlade (a tangentially competitive service which offers open-source [PLCrashReporter based] crash reporting for enterprises) I have customers that opt to use Crashalytics when closed-source isn't a show stopper and have huge respect for Wayne and the team. From what I understand they use Mach Exceptions which are the hairy/scary holy grail for exception reporting in Darwin. Mediocre is using signal handlers which the rest of us mortals do.
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    Mach exceptions aren't the "holy grail", they're private API on iOS. That is why nobody is using them. If you want Mach exception handling, it should only take a couple days (if that) for a qualified engineer to implement, of which there are quite a few available from the Mac OS X olden days. Mach exception handling was explained in _2001_ on the OmniGroup's macosx-dev mailing list: http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-dev/2000-June/014178.html http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-dev/2000-Jun... Crashlytics is big on marketing (your use of the phrase "holy grail" came straight from their press release), but they're possibly less than forthcoming when it comes to explaining the realities of their technical solutions. Due to this fact alone, I can't share your respect for Crashlytics' management.
    - danielsju6 14y ago
      Thank you for a detailed response, we're mostly an iOS shop (little OSX experience) few here will touch a private API out of fear of Apple's wrath and Boston based, so it's hard to not get caught by the marketing wake. You've demonstrated knowledge and I'm satisfied with your belief that they are a mediocre solution. Since you seem to have some knowledge in the field and an alternative opinion to engineers here, what is your preference for iOS crash reporting? We're currently reevaluating PLCrashReporter in our SDK but need things to be open-source.

30 points by johns 14y ago

I wonder if this is good or bad news: After the twitter acquisition, the expensive product becomes free. I rather have a free product, but as a customer I would be worried shutdown is next.

ttol 14y ago
Wayne from Crashlytics here. Don't worry, a shut down is not next :-)
freerobby 14y ago
Nah, seems like a volume play a la Urchin/Google Analytics. See point #3 here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5132089 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5132089

hamidpalo 14y ago

Boy does this look like the beginnings of an ad network.

BIackSwan 14y ago

If everything is free and unlimited... How are they gonna make money?

printzcache 14y ago
volume
kenrikm 14y ago
How does google analytics make money? they just want our data.
danielsju6 14y ago
SLAs? Support? Consulting? Tangental services? Same way Google Analytics does, they're getting their foot in the door with a lot of enterprises.

dmethvin 14y ago

This must be an enterprise product, because I can't tell exactly what it does from the blog post or the home page. Is it like Errorception? What languages does it support? No need to explain in a comment here, just point me to the page on their site that I can't find -- but must be there -- that explains in simple terms.

pnachbaur 14y ago
It's a SDK for mobile apps (Android/iOS). There doesn't seem to be a page with every product on it, but the product link at the top leads you to explanations like: http://try.crashlytics.com/reports/ http://try.crashlytics.com/reports/

mdiep 14y ago

I really liked the sound of Crashlytics. Then Twitter bought it. Now it's free. I don't trust Twitter and I don't trust free, so I'm less likely to use this. If I don't understand why something is free, I grow suspicious. I want to know how a company plans to make money before I sign up for its services.

lollymatch 14y ago

I don't understand why anyone would use this now. It was one thing when Google bought Urchin, which was already incredibly pervasive. But Crashlytics is a relatively mediocre solution that doesn't already have market dominance. I guess that probably made them cheaper to acquire, but now that we know that Twitter wants them to spy on everyone's mobile apps, why would anyone use them? There are other crash reporting solutions, and we're not already locked in. It seems like a bad tactical move for Twitter to have telegraphed why they wanted Crashlytics so clearly.

danielsju6 14y ago
I'm curious to know how you think Crashalytics is a mediocre solution. I run AppBlade (a tangentially competitive service which offers open-source [PLCrashReporter based] crash reporting for enterprises) I have customers that opt to use Crashalytics when closed-source isn't a show stopper and have huge respect for Wayne and the team. From what I understand they use Mach Exceptions which are the hairy/scary holy grail for exception reporting in Darwin. Mediocre is using signal handlers which the rest of us mortals do.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  Mach exceptions aren't the "holy grail", they're private API on iOS. That is why nobody is using them. If you want Mach exception handling, it should only take a couple days (if that) for a qualified engineer to implement, of which there are quite a few available from the Mac OS X olden days. Mach exception handling was explained in _2001_ on the OmniGroup's macosx-dev mailing list: http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-dev/2000-June/014178.html http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-dev/2000-Jun... Crashlytics is big on marketing (your use of the phrase "holy grail" came straight from their press release), but they're possibly less than forthcoming when it comes to explaining the realities of their technical solutions. Due to this fact alone, I can't share your respect for Crashlytics' management.
  - danielsju6 14y ago
    Thank you for a detailed response, we're mostly an iOS shop (little OSX experience) few here will touch a private API out of fear of Apple's wrath and Boston based, so it's hard to not get caught by the marketing wake. You've demonstrated knowledge and I'm satisfied with your belief that they are a mediocre solution. Since you seem to have some knowledge in the field and an alternative opinion to engineers here, what is your preference for iOS crash reporting? We're currently reevaluating PLCrashReporter in our SDK but need things to be open-source.