Exceptional versus Hoptoad

I used Hoptoad until the guys at Exceptional invited me into the cool gang.

I must say I haven’t looked twice at Hoptoad since Getting Exceptional.

At first I couldn’t really put a finger on why I love Exceptional so much more. It may just be a green versus blue thing but really it’s more than that.

Exceptional’s dashboard has much more useful information; a feed of recent exceptions, how many open, and a feedback box. Hoptoad just shows you how many resolved and unresolved errors, and it adds the two numbers up for you.

Exceptional’s project summary page is much more informative too. Couple this with sms notifications, hooks into Campfire, Twitter and Lighthouse and we’re onto a winner.

Installation is dead easy for both plugins:

Exceptional:

  1. Click ‘Add App’
  2. Give it a name
  3. It gives you a line to run in your shell
 echo api-key: SOMELONGANDCRAZYKEY > config/exceptional.yml &&\
 script/plugin install git://github.com/contrast/exceptional.git

Hoptoad

  1. Click ‘Add App’
  2. Give it a name
  3. It gives you a few lines to run in your shell
script/plugin install git://github.com/thoughtbot/hoptoad_notifier.git
# Put this in your config/initializers/hoptoad.rb
HoptoadNotifier.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = 'SOMELONGANDCRAZYKEY'
end

# In ApplicationController
include HoptoadNotifier::Catcher

rake hoptoad:test

Paul @ Exceptional has also responded to all my feedback personally and promptly. He seems to have a real passion for their product and he tells me iPhone integration is coming. I can’t wait!

posted 1 year ago