Glitchless vs Unreal Insights: what players hit versus why, frame by frame
The Glitchless team · October 23, 2026 · Checked against Epic's Unreal Engine documentation and the 5.5 to 5.8 release notes on October 23, 2026
Unreal Insights is Epic's profiler, free with the engine. It records CPU and GPU timers, memory, asset loading and networking for a process you trace, on your machine or a test device, and it's the deepest view there is of why a frame is slow. It doesn't collect anything from players, and Shipping builds strip it.
Glitchless records frame times, hitches with their category, crashes and how people play from every player's session, merged, and hands it to your coding agent.
They work together: Glitchless finds which hitch matters, and Insights shows exactly why.
Side by side
| Feature | Glitchless | Unreal Insights |
|---|---|---|
| Where the data comes from | ||
| Data from players in the wild | Yes | Machines and test devices you trace, live or to a file |
| Every session merged into one view | Yes | Per session; the Session Browser lists them |
| Works in Shipping builds | Yes, sent as prod | Shipping strips profiling tools |
| Engines | Unreal, Unity, Godot, web, GameMaker | Unreal |
| Performance and crashes | ||
| Frame times from players' devices | Every frame, merged across players | Every frame of the process you trace |
| Each stutter's likely cause | Shader and PSO compiles, GC, loads, streaming | You read the timers; 5.8 saves a snapshot of each hitch |
| Deep per-session traces (every function, memory, GPU passes) | No | Yes |
| Errors and crashes | With callstacks and the events before | Not a crash reporter; 5.8 can attach a trace to a crash (Windows) |
| Players | ||
| Custom events and funnels | Yes | Bookmarks and counters, no funnels |
| Retention (D1, D7, D30) | With install mode | No |
| Level death heatmaps | Yes | A World Partition streaming view (5.8, experimental), not gameplay |
| In-game bug reports with a screenshot | Yes | No |
| Agents | ||
| MCP server for coding agents | 16 tools | No; 5.8's TraceQuery CLI turns a trace into JSONL |
| Autoplay runs that check a fix | Web games; any build can measure itself | No |
| Running it | ||
| Open source | MIT | Source-available with Unreal, under the Unreal EULA |
| What you run | Hosted, or one container | Unreal Trace Server and the Insights app, locally |
| Cost | Free tier; Indie $19 a month; free to self-host | Free with Unreal Engine |
Which one should you choose?
Choose Unreal Insights if
- You can reproduce the problem on your machine or a test device, and want the exact function, asset or allocation behind a slow frame.
- You're chasing memory, loading or networking in detail.
- You're profiling during development, before anyone else plays.
Choose Glitchless if
- You want to know which hitches real players hit, how often, on which level and in which release.
- Your players run Shipping builds on hardware you don't have.
- You also want crashes, funnels, retention, death heatmaps and bug reports.
- Your coding agent does the fixing: Glitchless's MCP server gives it the findings, and
-glitchless-measurechecks its change.
Using them together
Glitchless tells you which hitch your players hit, how often and where, and names its category: a PSO compile, garbage collection, a map load or a streamed level. Reproduce it with -trace=default (or 5.8's snapshothitches -start) and open the trace in Insights to see the exact timer, asset and allocation. With an agent, the Glitchless MCP server finds the hitch, the agent reruns the game with tracing, and 5.8's TraceQuery turns the trace into JSONL it can read.
Frequently asked questions
Does Unreal Insights work in Shipping builds?
Epic's docs say the Shipping configuration strips console commands, stats and profiling tools, and that Test keeps some of them. The Glitchless plugin sends from Shipping builds, as prod.
Can Unreal Insights show data from my players?
Not by itself. It records sessions you trace, streamed live or saved to a file, one session at a time. Glitchless merges every player's session into one view.
Is Glitchless's hitch cause as precise as Insights?
No. Glitchless names the category (a PSO compile, garbage collection, a map load, a streamed level, an asset load) from what the engine reports for that frame. Insights shows the exact timer, asset and allocation. That's why they work well together.
Does Epic's Unreal MCP use Insights?
Epic's Unreal MCP docs don't mention Insights. 5.8's TraceQuery can turn a trace into JSONL for an agent, and the Glitchless Toolset adds Status and Measure tools to Unreal MCP while you Play In Editor. See Glitchless for Unreal.
Sources
- Unreal Insights (Epic docs)
- Unreal Insights reference (Epic docs)
- Trace in Unreal Engine 5 (Epic docs)
- Unreal Insights Session Browser (Epic docs)
- Build configurations reference (Epic docs)
- Unreal Engine 5.8 release notes
- Unreal MCP in the Unreal Editor (Epic docs)
Something out of date? Email support@glitchless.gg and we'll fix it. Glitchless isn't affiliated with Epic Games; product names are their owners' trademarks.