🔍 What is Rookout?

Rookout is a novel debugging and observability platform that enables developers to add breakpoints and capture data from live production environments without stopping services or modifying code. Traditional debugging approaches require stopping processes, adding instrumentation, or redeploying—all of which are impractical in production. Rookout solves this with non-breaking breakpoints that can be added on-the-fly to any running service, whether it's a monolith, microservices, or serverless functions.\n\nRookout works by using a unique bytecode manipulation technique that allows it to insert diagnostic probes into running applications without restarting or redeploying. Developers can add these probes through the Rookout IDE plugin or web interface, specifying exactly what data to capture—variable values, stack traces, execution context, or custom expressions. The captured data is streamed in real-time to the developer's debugging session, providing the same experience as debugging locally.\n\nThe platform supports all major programming languages (Java, Python, Node.js, .NET, Ruby, Go) and deployment environments including Kubernetes, AWS Lambda, Docker, and virtual machines. Rookout is particularly valuable for debugging hard-to-reproduce issues, understanding complex distributed system behavior, and gaining observability into legacy systems where adding traditional instrumentation is difficult. It integrates with existing observability tools like Datadog, Splunk, and Grafana for unified monitoring and debugging workflows.

✨ Key Features

🎯

Non-Breaking Breakpoints Add breakpoints to live production code without stopping, restarting, or modifying running services or deployments.

⚡

Real-Time Data Capture Capture variable values, stack traces, execution context, and custom expressions from live systems in real-time.

🎨

Multi-Language Support Support for Java, Python, Node.js, .NET, Ruby, and Go with minimal performance overhead on production systems.

🔧

IDE Integration Debug production code from your IDE with VS Code and JetBrains plugins that mirror local debugging workflows.

🔄

Observability Integration Export captured data to Datadog, Splunk, Grafana, and other observability platforms for unified analysis.

💰 Pricing

Free Tier

$0/mo

Limited debugging sessions per month, up to 3 users, community support.

Rookout Pro

$99/user/mo

Unlimited debugging sessions, advanced data capture, IDE integration, priority support.

Enterprise

Custom

On-premises deployment, SSO, audit logs, custom integrations, dedicated support, and SLA.

📊 Pros and Cons

Pros

Enables debugging production issues that are otherwise nearly impossible to diagnose with traditional tools
Zero code changes needed—no redeployment, no extra instrumentation, no downtime
Works across complex distributed systems and serverless architectures where traditional debugging fails

Cons

Pricing at $99/user/mo can be expensive for teams that only occasionally need production debugging
Performance overhead, while minimal, means it's not suitable for all production scenarios or high-throughput endpoints

🎯 Best For

Debugging hard-to-reproduce production issues that only manifest in specific real-world conditions Understanding complex microservice interactions and distributed transaction failures in production Gaining observability into legacy systems where adding traditional instrumentation is impractical or impossible

🔗 Similar AI Tools

Ready to try Rookout?

🌐 Visit Rookout Website