diff --git a/datasette/handle_exception.py b/datasette/handle_exception.py
index 1a0ac979fe..96398a4c9f 100644
--- a/datasette/handle_exception.py
+++ b/datasette/handle_exception.py
@@ -5,9 +5,13 @@
 )
 from .views.base import DatasetteError
 from markupsafe import Markup
-import pdb
 import traceback
 
+try:
+    import ipdb as pdb
+except ImportError:
+    import pdb
+
 try:
     import rich
 except ImportError:
diff --git a/docs/contributing.rst b/docs/contributing.rst
index 45330a8347..c1268321f8 100644
--- a/docs/contributing.rst
+++ b/docs/contributing.rst
@@ -111,10 +111,14 @@ Debugging
 
 Any errors that occur while Datasette is running while display a stack trace on the console.
 
-You can tell Datasette to open an interactive ``pdb`` debugger session if an error occurs using the ``--pdb`` option::
+You can tell Datasette to open an interactive ``pdb`` (or ``ipdb``, if present) debugger session if an error occurs using the ``--pdb`` option::
 
     datasette --pdb fixtures.db
 
+For `ipdb <https://pypi.org/project/ipdb/>`__, first run this::
+
+    datasette install ipdb
+
 .. _contributing_formatting:
 
 Code formatting
@@ -349,4 +353,4 @@ Datasette bundles `CodeMirror <https://codemirror.net/>`__ for the SQL editing i
       -p @rollup/plugin-node-resolve \
       -p @rollup/plugin-terser
 
-* Update the version reference in the ``codemirror.html`` template.
\ No newline at end of file
+* Update the version reference in the ``codemirror.html`` template.