Quick answer: Both are native crash dump tools: they collect minidumps from C++, Unreal and Unity games, symbolicate them and group them, on desktop, mobile and consoles. BugSplat is the budget pick, with a real free plan and paid tiers from $37 a month billed annually for 10 users. Backtrace (Sauce Labs) is the heavier platform for very high volumes and deep querying, priced at $600 to $1,200 per user per year. Neither collects player-written bug reports, so many teams pair one with a tool such as Bugnet.
If your game is C++ under the hood, sooner or later you need a minidump pipeline: something that catches the hard crash, ships the dump home, matches it to your symbols and tells you which line died. Backtrace and BugSplat are the two names that come up most for games. They solve the same core problem and differ mostly in scale and price. Here is the comparison, with prices from each pricing page at the time of writing (October 2026).
Backtrace vs BugSplat at a glance
| Backtrace | BugSplat | |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Sauce Labs | BugSplat |
| Free tier | Developer: 1 developer, 25,000 errors a month, 1-month retention | Free: 3 users, 15,000 crashes a month, 1-month retention |
| Entry paid plan | Standard: $600, $900 or $1,200 per user per year depending on platforms | Team: $37 a month billed annually, 10 users, 25,000 crashes a month |
| Next tier | Professional: unlimited errors, custom retention, on-premise option (sales) | Business: $208 a month billed annually, 20 users, 50,000 crashes a month |
| Volume on paid plans | Up to 1 million errors a month on Standard | 25,000 to 50,000 a month, custom on Enterprise |
| Engines | Unreal (including its crash reporter), Unity, native C/C++ | Unreal (including its crash reporter), Unity, native C/C++ |
| Consoles | PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch | Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch |
What they have in common
Both tools do the core minidump job well: receive crash dumps from a crash handler (including Unreal's Crash Report Client), symbolicate them against the symbol files you upload for each build, group identical crashes and show you a callstack. Both cover Windows, macOS, Linux, mobile and the major consoles. If you are an Unreal or C++ team, either will show you hard crashes that an in-engine error hook can miss.
Where Backtrace wins
- Scale. Standard covers up to a million errors a month, and Professional has no error cap.
- Querying. It is built for slicing very large crash datasets by any attribute.
- Deployment. Professional can run on-premise or in the cloud, which some publishers require.
Where BugSplat wins
- Price for small teams. Team is $37 a month billed annually for 10 users. On Backtrace's mobile-and-PC tier, 10 users would be $9,000 a year.
- A free plan for a small team. Three users and 15,000 crashes a month, versus Backtrace's single-developer free tier.
- Simplicity. It is a focused crash reporter, which is exactly what many indie teams want.
What each costs in practice
| Team | Backtrace Standard (mobile + PC) | BugSplat |
|---|---|---|
| 3 people | $2,700 a year | Free plan (15,000 crashes a month) |
| 10 people | $9,000 a year | Team: $444 a year |
| 20 people | $18,000 a year | Business: $2,496 a year |
Annual list prices; volumes differ between the plans, so check your expected crash count against each tier.
What neither tool covers
Crash dump tools see hard crashes. They do not see the bugs players have to tell you about: a quest that will not complete, a collision gap, a UI that soft-locks. Neither offers a player-facing bug report form, a public known-issues page, Steam review monitoring or a tracker your designers and QA work from.
That is the job Bugnet does. Its SDKs (Unity, Unreal, Godot, GameMaker, Construct 3, Pygame and web) capture errors from inside the engine with the last log lines, a screenshot and the player's hardware, give players an in-game report form, and put both in one tracker with Steam reviews and public pages. It does not process minidumps or ship console SDKs, which is why teams with native console crashes often keep BugSplat or Backtrace alongside it.
Read the deeper comparisons in Backtrace alternative for indie studios and BugSplat alternative for indie games, or try Bugnet free next to whichever dump tool you choose.
Frequently asked questions
Is BugSplat cheaper than Backtrace?
For most small and mid-size teams, yes. BugSplat's Team plan is $37 a month billed annually for 10 users, while Backtrace's Standard plan costs $600 to $1,200 per user per year depending on the platforms you need.
Do Backtrace and BugSplat support Unreal Engine?
Yes. Both accept crash reports from Unreal Engine, including through its built-in Crash Report Client, and both support Unity and native C and C++ applications.
Do Backtrace and BugSplat support consoles?
Yes. Both list PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch support alongside desktop and mobile platforms.
Which is better for a large studio?
Backtrace is built for very high crash volumes, deep querying and on-premise deployment on its Professional plan. BugSplat covers large volumes on its Enterprise plan with custom limits.
Do I still need a bug tracker with a crash dump tool?
Usually yes. Crash dump tools collect hard crashes; they do not collect player-written bug reports or manage the fix workflow. Many teams pair one with a tracker like Bugnet that also captures engine errors and player reports.
Pick the dump tool your budget can sustain for the life of the game, then make sure the bugs that do not crash have somewhere to go too.