A crash reporter is usually a system software whose function is to identify reporting crash details and to alert when there are crashes, in production or on development / testing environments. Crash reports often include data such as stack traces, type of crash, trends and version of software. These reports help software developers- Web, SAAS, mobile apps and more, to diagnose and fix the underlying problem causing the crashes. Crash reports may contain sensitive information such as passwords, email addresses, and contact information, and so have become objects of interest for researchers in the field of computer security.[1]
Implementing crash reporting tools as part of the development cycle has become a standard, and crash reporting tools have become a commodity, many of them are offered for free, like Crashlytics.
Many giant industry players, that are part of the software development eco-system have entered the game. Companies such as Twitter, Google and others are putting a lot of efforts on encouraging software developers to use their APIs, knowing this will increase their revenues down the road (through advertisements and other mechanisms). As they realize that they must offer elegant solutions for as many as possible development issues, otherwise their competitors will take actions, they keep adding advanced features. Crash reporting tools make an important development functionality that giant companies include in their portfolio of solutions.
Many crash reporting tools are specialized in mobile app. Many of them are SDKs.