What's the difference between crash rate and error rate?

Crash rate measures how often your game crashes (terminates unexpectedly), usually as a crash-free rate, tracking your most severe failures. Error rate measures how often errors occur, a broader category including non-fatal errors that don't crash the game (handled exceptions, recovered failures). Crashes are a severe subset of errors, so crash rate is a focused view of the worst failures, while error rate is a wider view including non-fatal problems.

Should I track crash rate or error rate?

Track crash rate (as a crash-free rate) as your primary, headline stability metric, since crashes are the most severe failures and the worst player experience. Use error rate as a broader, complementary view that surfaces non-fatal problems, handled exceptions, recovered failures, that crash rate alone misses but that may still affect the experience or signal issues that could become crashes. They're complementary at different scopes, so both are useful.

Are all errors crashes?

No, crashes are a severe subset of errors. An error is any problem or incorrect condition, and many errors are handled or recovered from (a network request that fails and retries, a caught exception) without crashing the game. A crash is specifically a fatal failure where the game terminates, often from an unhandled error. So error rate (all errors) is broader than crash rate (fatal crashes), and an unhandled error is a common path from a general error to a crash.

Crash Rate vs Error Rate

Quick answer: Crash rate measures how often your game crashes; error rate measures how often errors occur, including non-fatal ones. Crashes are a severe subset of errors. Crash rate tracks your worst failures; error rate tracks a broader set.

Crash rate and error rate are related stability metrics that measure different scopes of failure, fatal crashes versus all errors. Knowing the distinction helps you read each correctly. Here's the comparison.

What Crash Rate Measures

Crash rate measures how often your game crashes, terminates unexpectedly, usually expressed as a crash-free rate (the percentage of sessions or players avoiding a crash). It tracks your most severe failures: the ones that end sessions. Crash rate is the headline stability metric because crashes are the worst player experience.

Bugnet tracks crash rates so you can see your crash-free figure. Crash rate is focused on fatal failures, it tells you how often the game breaks completely, which is the most important stability signal but not the whole picture of what's going wrong.

What Error Rate Measures

Error rate measures how often errors occur, a broader category that includes non-fatal errors that don't crash the game. Many errors are handled or recovered from (a failed network request that retries, a caught exception), so they don't terminate the game but still indicate something going wrong. Error rate captures this wider set of problems.

Bugnet captures errors as well as crashes, so you see the broader error picture. Error rate is more inclusive than crash rate: it surfaces problems that aren't crashes but may still affect the experience or signal underlying issues, including ones that could become crashes.

How They Relate and What to Track

Crashes are a severe subset of errors, an unhandled error often becomes a crash, so crash rate is a focused view of the worst failures, while error rate is a broader view including non-fatal problems. They're complementary: crash rate for headline stability, error rate for a fuller picture of what's going wrong.

Bugnet tracks both crashes and errors, so you can watch crash rate as your top-line stability metric and dig into error rate for the broader set. So track crash rate (crash-free rate) as your primary stability gauge, and use error rate to surface the wider category of problems, including non-fatal errors that crash rate alone would miss.

Crash rate measures fatal crashes (your worst failures); error rate measures all errors, including non-fatal ones. Crashes are a severe subset of errors. Track crash rate as your headline metric, error rate for the broader picture.