Show HN: We got fed up with Airbrake, so we built Coalmine | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: We got fed up with Airbrake, so we built Coalmine

getcoalmine.com

8 pointsmratzloff6 comments

Hi guys! This started out as a personal side project to create our own alternative to Airbrake because that would just go silent for a week at a time. We got frustrated because we couldn't rely on it, and it was hard to search, etc.

Along the way we decided to open it up to other people who thought it sounded useful, so my friend and I started turning it from a prototype into a product earlier this summer.

I'm really interested in hearing feedback about it. How we could improve the website or the app--anything, really.

One recommendation I have is to open up the number of events/minute. You should have at least 1 plan where that number is unlimited.

Hmm... can you explain your use case a bit more? Even things that are 'unlimited' have an upper bound (e.g., data plans, etc). From Coalmine's perspective, having upper limits ensures that all users on the system are guaranteed some kind of quality by avoiding some application spiraling out of control and sending tons and tons of errors to the service.

From a developer's perspective, if I believe my application will need to be able to send unlimited amounts of error reports, I should probably revisit my design. ;)

What's the minimum version of PHP your app supports? The company I work for insists on running the horrifically outdated 5.1.6, and that's been a limiting factor with some packages we've tried to use.

Yeah, unfortunately we cut it off at 5.2. I suppose it's possible to get it to work if you install the json extension (I don't think there's anything that would actively preclude it from working), but I can't make any promises because I can't get an isolated PHP 5.1 install to build in my dev environment (believe me, I tried, but it wasn't worth it). Let us know if you give it a shot and can get it to work, though!

Thanks for the quick response. I'll try setting it up and let you know.

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