11 Top React Native Debugging Tools

Summary

Table of Contents

Introduction To Debugging

Debugging refers to finding and fixing errors or bugs within the source code of any software application. It involves using debugging tools and methods to overcome the inevitable bugs as your application grows. The debug tools run your application in a controlled environment and check every line of code step by step to analyze and fix issues. Let us now jump ahead to the top React Native debugging tools you can use to debug your business application and ensure performance

11 Top React Native Debugging Tools

With over a decade of experience in RN application development, we have consolidated a list of the best React Native debugging tools to help you make your React Native applications error-free and optimized, ensuring performance-centric code.

The Developer Menu

It is not one of the React Native debug tools but an inbuilt feature within your React Native development environment that allows you to access various debugging options for your JS code. It is a quick way to launch React Native debugging tools without additional installations. Though it offers a quick entry point for debugging, it relies on Chrome DevTools for the actual debugging functionalities

The Developer Menu provides functions such as:

• Reload: To quickly reload the app and apply the code changes made during the development without restarting the entire app.
• Show Inspector: It displays a popup; you can tap on any UI section to get information about that section. It also has some other performance and networking tabs showing the HTTP calls.
• Open Debugger: Clicking on this launches the Chrome Developer Tools, which opens a new tab at http://localhost:8081/debugger-ui.
• React DevTools: It is a standalone tool for debugging non-browser-based React apps.

Chrome DevTools

Chrome DevTools is one of the most popular React Native debug tools by JavaScript. It can work for web and mobile applications, is supported by React Native by default, and allows remote debugging.

To access the developer menu within your React Native app running on an Android Emulator, press Ctrl + M on Windows and Cmd + M on Mac. When the app is on an actual device, shake the device. Then, select “Debug JS Remotely” to open the Google Chrome Debugger. Press ‘Cmd + Option + I’ on Mac and ‘Ctrl + Shift + I’ on Windows to open the Developer Tools. You can easily debug your app, add breakpoints, and view your code.

Below are the actions that you can perform using the Chrome DevTools:

• Modify or Alter the DOM and CSS of your application.
• Log the messages to the console.
• Check the props and the state of your components
• Set the breakpoints on specific lines of the code and step through your code line by line.
• Inspect the component hierarchy and see how your components are nested.

A significant limitation of using ChromeDevTools with React Native is that you cannot debug and edit styles as you can with web apps. It also offers fewer features than ReactDevTools when inspecting the React component hierarchy.

React Native Debugger

It is one of the top React Native debugging tools and a standalone application for debugging your business projects. It combines the Chrome Developer Tools with the React and Redux debuggers, eliminating the need for two distinct debugging apps. It is a desktop application available for MacOS, Linux, and Windows. Unlike the React Developer Tools, it does not require setup.

Key features of the React Native debugger are:

• Toggle inspector from Dev Menu to inspect React Native elements and edit styles.
• Interface for Redux DevTools to view logs.
• Real-time reload and hot module replacement.
• Interface for React Developer Tools to inspect and debug elements.
• Built-in Chrome Debugger and React DevTools support.

LogBox

React shipped the LogBox with version 0.63 to handle the errors and warnings. This React Native debug tool are a modified version of the legacy YellowBox and RedBox, focusing on three main aspects: more concise, well-formatted, and actionable logging outputs. The LogBox focuses on three main issues: redundant errors and warnings, poorly formatted logs, and unactionable logs.

The RedBox in LogBox displays the errors in three sections: the source, component stack, and call stack. The YellowBox, on the other hand, shows the warnings in two sections: source and call stack.

LogBox offers features such as:

• Log Notifications: Warnings and errors with red/yellow badges at the bottom of the screen.
• Code Frame: Displays errors and warnings with source code.
• Component Stacks: Separated from error messages into their section.
• Collapsed Stack Frames: Non-application code stack frames are collapsed by default.
• Improved Syntax Error Formatting: Code frames with highlighted syntax.

React Developer Tools

React Developer Tools is one of a few standalone debugging tools for React Native applications. It offers several add-on features not available within the Chrome DevTools, such as debugging asynchronous code and inspecting the state of the React components. It offers to integrate the Chrome DevTools easily, and you can get two new tabs within your Chrome DevTools: “Components” and “Profiler”.

To start debugging with the React Developers tool, you must first install the React Native Debugger, which you can do from GitHub. If you are a MacOS user, you can execute the command given below on your terminal.



brew update && brew install --cask react-native-debugger

After successfully downloading and installing the package, you can quickly start using it, run your application, and activate the debug mode.

The features of React Developer Tools include:

• It allows for debugging the React components.
• It makes it easy to debug the styles in React Native.
• The new version also has features that work with the inspector within the developer menu.
• It lets you instantly see the changes made to take effect without reloading the app.
• It also offers features such as Debug Redux, UI Inspector, Network Inspector, Breakpoints, AsyncStorage Management, and more,
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React Native CLI

This tool is primarily used for developing React Native applications but can also be used as a debugging tool. It offers information about the dependencies and libraries used within the application, which helps debug issues caused by version mismatches.

The RN CLI offers features that make it a React Native debugging tool:

• It helps with a fast refresh that allows for quicker issue identification.
• Launching the app for the interaction with the debugging interfaces.
• Hot reloading will enable developers to see the results of code changes instantly without restarting the app.
• It helps identify the performance bottlenecks and optimize the application performance by offering a detailed performance metric.
• It details the dependencies and libraries used within the applications to identify and resolve version mismatches.

Reactotron

Reactotron is an open-source application for debugging React Native applications, similar to the React Native Debugger. This debug tool has comparable features, making either one sufficient for the job. Reactotron provides a rich interface for debugging, including inspecting Redux or MobX-State-Tree state, viewing custom logs, running custom commands, resetting state stores, and restoring state snapshots. It’s easy to set up, flexible, and supports extensive extensions.

Critical features of Reactotron include:

• A panel to run and switch between multiple devices for debugging.
• It is compatible with other debuggers like the React Native Debugger.
• Support for plugins, such as those for State Management and Redux, offering store values and action updates.
• Effective tracking of API calls and responses, displaying details like response headers, request parameters, and more.

Flipper

Flipper is another open-source React Native debug tools developed by Facebook for iOS and Android RN applications. It was initially introduced with default integration in the React Native 0.62 version and has evolved into a trusted and stable tool. Flipper helps simplify the process of debugging RN applications with its mirroring production environments, which provides more confidence than direct debugging methods. It directly connects to your React Native app without switching to debugging methods.

Flipper offers an extensive plugin library that ensures feature enhancement via plugins or directly from the interface. You can manage the plugins using the Plugins icon beneath the Device icon on the sidebar.

The Flipper offers features such as:

• Visually inspect the React components
• It is open-source in nature with an MIT license
• Create your plugins to visualize and debug the data
• Inbuilt tools include a log viewer, interactive layout inspector, and network inspector.

Safari Developer Tools

The Safari Developer Tools are amongst the React Native debug tools for debugging the iOS version of your RN applications. It allows you to use workflows such as setting breakpoints, inspecting variables, and more. Follow the steps given below to start working with the Safari developer tools:

• Use a physical device, go to Settings, then click Safari , Advanced. Also, make sure that the “Web Inspector” is turned on. (The step is not needed in the Simulator.)
• On your Mac device, enable the Develop Menu in Safari by clicking on Preferences, then Advanced , and selecting “Show Develop Menu in the Menu Bar.”
• Select your application JSContext, click on Develop, then select Simulator (or other device), and then select JSContext.
• Safari Web Inspector possesses a Console and a Debugger.

Every time your application is reloaded via live reload or manually, a new JSContext is created. To avoid manually selecting the latest JSContext each time, enable Automatically Show Web Inspectors for the JSContexts in Safari. This will automatically display the new JSContext.

Debugging Using VSCode

React Native developers spend significant time using VSCode, and switching between the debuggers and the coders is challenging. Therefore, the React Native tools debug VSCode can help debug your RN applications using VSCode. This saves time and resources, allowing ample time to develop and debug new functionalities in real time. To leverage the potential of VSCode in debugging, you must follow the steps given below:

• Install the given extension “React Native Tools” from the Extensions tab in the Visual Studio Code.
• Click on the Run and Debug Tab and select “Create a launch.json file”.
• Add the configurations for your iOS and Android applications.

You can easily debug your code line-by-line using breakpoints similar to the Chrome debugger or native debugging tools like Android Studio and Xcode.

Vysor

Vysor is not a React Native debugging tool but a desktop application that simulates your Android phone screen on your computer. This makes it more straightforward to test and fix issues within your React Native application. The application looks and behaves similar to that of an actual device. You can use Vysor to set up device farms and remotely debug and test your application across various devices.

The key features of Vysor include:

• Use this tool to make your Android device screen visible on your computer screen.
• Then, use your keyboard and mouse to interact with your device.
• You can also take screenshots and record screen videos as needed.
• Monitor the screen to identify performance bottlenecks, UI glitches, or other issues.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we can easily infer that different applications demand a different approach to debugging and performance optimizations. These were the list of the top React Native debugging tools that you can choose from to debug your business applications and make them free from errors. However, as a business owner, if you are confused about the right choice of React Native debug tools or application development approach, get in touch with a leading React Native app development company that will allow you to focus on your core business. At the same time, ensure the development of a fast, efficient, and error-free business application.