General app stability improves as crash-free sessions near 100%

Instabug has released its Mobile App Stability Outlook 2024 report, shedding light on the current state of app performance across various platforms and industries.

The report reveals that mobile apps have maintained the high stability rates observed in the previous year, with only minor fluctuations across all percentiles. The median crash-free session rate stands at an impressive 99.95%, confirming a high level of stability across the board.

Top-performing mobile teams at the 75th percentile have achieved a near-flawless score of 99.99% crash-free sessions, establishing ‘five 9s’ as the benchmark for highly successful mobile applications. Even apps lagging behind at the 25th percentile showed marginal improvement, scoring 99.77%.

iOS has regained the lead in stability, with a median crash-free session rate of 99.91% compared to 99.80% on Android. This reversal is consistent across all percentiles, highlighting the ongoing challenge of fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.

The report also provides insights into industry-specific performance. The Health/Fitness sector leads the pack with a median of 99.98% crash-free sessions, closely followed by Social/Dating and Telecom at 99.97%. Interestingly, the Lifestyle/Sports category trails significantly behind at 99.67%, possibly reflecting the varied scenarios and environments these apps encounter.

Correlation between app stability and star ratings

A clear correlation between crash-free rates and app store ratings has been reaffirmed. Apps with ratings below 3 stars scored a lower median of 99.82% crash-free sessions, while those rated above 4.5 stars achieved 99.84% at the 25th percentile. This data suggests a ‘critical stability threshold’ of around 99.7% crash-free sessions to reach a 3-star rating, and approximately 99.85% to exceed 4.5 stars.

The report delves deeper into other stability metrics, including Application Not Responding (ANR) errors, Out Of Memory (OOM) errors, app hangs, and forced restarts. While these issues show varying trends, they underscore the importance of a holistic approach to app stability beyond crash-free rates.

ANR errors have seen a notable increase, with a median of 2.62 per 10,000 sessions. OOM errors remain low at 1.12 per 10,000 sessions, while app hangs and forced restarts show little change from previous years.

“Mobile app stability continues to evolve in pursuit of growing user expectations. Near-flawless crash-free rates are now a reality for many of the top mobile teams, enabling them to tackle other stability and performance issues that impact their users,” notes Instabug.

The report emphasises the need for mobile teams to adopt a comprehensive view of app stability and performance to meet and exceed user expectations. With the bar for app quality continually rising, developers must leverage advanced tools and AI-driven insights to deliver exceptional mobile experiences.

These stability metrics serve as crucial indicators for success in the app stores. Developers and businesses alike would do well to heed these benchmarks in their quest for five-star ratings and user satisfaction.

See also: Platform engineering is falling short of expectations

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Tags: Apps, coding, development, programming, report, research, software, stability, study, Testing