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Firebase Crashlytics is a free, well-supported crash reporter with AI-powered insights, but it only handles crashes — no in-app bug reporting, no session replay, and no product analytics. Shakebug is a mobile-first app quality SDK that does crash reporting plus shake-to-report bug capture, session replay, and product analytics in one tool, across iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, and web.
Worth saying up front, because a comparison page that pretends otherwise loses you. Crashlytics is free, Google supports it actively, and it now ships Gemini-powered crash insights that explain why a crash happened and what to do about it. It captures crashes out of the box, groups them by user impact, monitors release stability in realtime, and plugs into Jira, Slack, BigQuery, and Android Studio. (firebase.google.com/products/crashlytics, June 2026.)
If crash reporting is the only thing you need, Crashlytics is hard to beat on price.
Crashlytics reports crashes. It does not do the rest of mobile app quality:
No in-app bug reporting. When a tester or user hits a visual bug, a broken flow, or wrong data — anything that isn’t a crash — Crashlytics has nothing to capture it. You’re back to screenshots over Slack and “what were the repro steps again?”
No shake-to-report. No way for a user to flag a problem from inside the app with the screen, logs, and device data attached.
No session replay. You see the stack trace, not the screen. You reconstruct what the user did from breadcrumbs instead of watching it.
No product analytics. Crashlytics tells you the app crashed. It can’t tell you whether crashes are hurting retention, what your DAU/MAU looks like, or how a cohort behaved over four weeks. You run Google Analytics separately for that.
No React Native or web SDK. Crashlytics covers Android, Apple, Flutter, and Unity. If your stack is React Native, or you ship a web app alongside mobile, it doesn’t reach there.
None of these are bugs in Crashlytics. It’s a crash reporter and it’s honest about that. The question is whether crash reporting alone is your whole app-quality need, or just one part of it.
Shakebug does the crash reporting too — automatic capture, and AI grouping of duplicate stack traces into one issue with first-seen date, affected devices, OS versions and trend — then covers the parts Crashlytics leaves out.
A user shakes the device, annotates the screen, and the report arrives with a screenshot, screen recording, network and console logs, device model, OS version and app version attached — the non-crash bugs Crashlytics can’t capture, with full context instead of a Slack message.
See the sessions and events that led to a bug or crash — even for apps with no login, tracked anonymously by device. When the SDK identifies a user, their full history ties together by name or email. Crashlytics gives you the stack trace; Shakebug shows you the screen.
Shakebug also captures crashes automatically and groups them with Crash AI, and brings product analytics & retention into the same dashboard — so you can see whether a crash actually cost you users, without bolting on Google Analytics.
Crashlytics is a crash reporter; Shakebug is a broader app-quality SDK. Side by side:
| Firebase Crashlytics | Shakebug | |
|---|---|---|
| Crash reporting | Yes | Yes |
| AI crash grouping / insights | Yes (Gemini) | Yes (Crash AI) |
| In-app bug reporting | No | Yes (shake to report) |
| Session replay | No | Yes |
| Product analytics / retention | No (use GA separately) | Yes, built in |
| Platforms | Android, Apple, Flutter, Unity | iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, web |
| Price | Free | Free plan, then $75 / $125 |
Keep Crashlytics if crash reporting is genuinely all you need, you’re on a supported platform, and free is the deciding factor. It’s good and it costs nothing.
Switch to (or add) Shakebug if your team also needs to capture non-crash bugs with repro context, watch session replays, see whether quality issues affect retention, or support React Native or web. At that point you’re otherwise stitching together Crashlytics plus Google Analytics plus a separate bug tool — Shakebug is those in one SDK, with a free plan to start.
You don’t have to rip out Crashlytics to try Shakebug. Run Shakebug’s free plan alongside it for a release cycle: keep Crashlytics on crashes, use Shakebug for in-app bug reports, session replay, and analytics, and see whether you’d rather consolidate. The free plan needs no credit card.
No. Crashlytics is free, actively supported by Google, and recently added Gemini-powered AI crash insights. It is not deprecated.
Crashlytics handles crash reporting only. It does not offer in-app bug reporting, shake-to-report, session replay, or product analytics, and it has no React Native or web SDK. It supports Android, Apple, Flutter, and Unity.
Shakebug, because Crashlytics has no React Native SDK. Shakebug runs one SDK across React Native, iOS, Android, Flutter, and web, with crash reporting plus bug capture, session replay, and analytics.
Shakebug has a free Basic plan with no credit card: 3 projects, 3 members, 500 monthly active users, and 10-day retention. Paid plans are $75 and $125 per month for higher limits.
Yes. You can run Shakebug alongside Crashlytics, keeping Crashlytics for crashes and using Shakebug for in-app bug reports, session replay, and product analytics.