At a Glance:
OpenReplay is a self-hosted open-source session replay suite that captures user interactions, network activity, console logs, and JS errors to help developers troubleshoot web app issues faster.
Overview:
OpenReplay is a self-hosted session replay tool for developers building web applications. It captures detailed user interactions, network requests, console logs, JavaScript errors, and performance metrics to help reproduce and resolve frontend issues. Recorded sessions are automatically analyzed for easy triage. The suite also includes live session assist via WebRTC, a Chrome extension for bug reporting, and privacy controls to sanitize captured data. OpenReplay can be self-hosted on major cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure, or used through a cloud-based service for teams that prefer not to manage their own infrastructure.
Key Decision Points:
Self-hosted architecture: Deploy on your own infrastructure using AWS, GCP, Azure, DigitalOcean, or Kubernetes to keep user data within your cloud environment.
Developer-focused debugging: Captures network activity, JS errors, store actions/state, and 40+ performance metrics alongside session replays, not just visual recordings.
Live support capabilities: Includes Assist for real-time screen viewing and WebRTC calls without third-party screen-sharing tools.
Privacy controls: Fine-grained settings allow teams to choose what to capture, obscure, or ignore before data reaches servers.
Frontend framework plugins: Tracks state from Redux, VueX, MobX, NgRx, Pinia, and Zustand, and logs GraphQL queries from Apollo and Relay.
Core Features:
Session replay: Replays user sessions with automatic heuristic-based analysis for issue triage.
DevTools: Provides full debugging context including network activity, JS errors, store actions/state, and performance metrics.
Spot bug reporting: Chrome extension for recording bugs directly from the browser with technical details attached.
Assist live support: Watch users' screens live and initiate WebRTC calls without external screen-sharing software.
Omni-search: Search and filter sessions by user actions, session attributes, or technical events without instrumentation.
Backend log integrations: Sync session replays with logs from Sentry, Datadog, CloudWatch, Stackdriver, Elastic, and other services.
Use Cases:
Frontend developers debugging JavaScript errors and performance issues across user sessions.
Support teams helping users in real time by viewing live screens and starting WebRTC calls.
QA testers and developers reporting and reproducing bugs using browser-based recordings with full technical context.
Teams hosting user data on their own cloud infrastructure to meet data control requirements.
Open-Source Alternative Value:
OpenReplay provides a self-hosted alternative to commercial session replay services, allowing teams to keep captured user data in their own cloud environment. It combines session replay with detailed developer tooling—network inspection, JS error tracking, state management logging, and backend log integrations—without relying on third-party data processing. The fine-grained privacy controls let developers decide what data to capture or obscure before it reaches their servers. A cloud service is also available for users who prefer not to self-manage the deployment.
