Session replay tool that records what a user does in the app
Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal
Idea type: Freemium
People love using similar products but resist paying. You’ll need to either find who will pay or create additional value that’s worth paying for.
Should You Build It?
Build but think about differentiation and monetization.
Your are here
Your idea for a session replay tool falls into the 'Freemium' category, where users enjoy the product but are hesitant to pay. With 21 similar products already in the market, competition is significant, so differentiation is key. The high engagement (average of 12 comments per product) shows there's definitely interest in this type of tool, so that bodes well for you. Given the freemium nature of the category, you'll need to focus on identifying a clear monetization strategy. You should concentrate on identifying specific user segments who get the most value from the free version and crafting premium features that cater directly to their needs. Focus on what makes your tool unique compared to the rest.
Recommendations
- Begin by deeply understanding which user segments derive the most value from the free version of your session replay tool. Analyze their behavior patterns, pain points, and common use cases to identify opportunities for premium features. Focus on solving problems that these power users face, rather than creating features that appeal to everyone.
- Develop premium features that significantly enhance the experience for your high-value users. Consider features like advanced filtering, custom event tracking, integrations with other tools, priority support, or enhanced data retention. Referencing feedback from similar product launches, integrate a feature to highlight frequent user journey paths, which may be a valuable premium feature.
- Explore charging teams or organizations rather than individual users. Position your tool as a collaborative platform that enables teams to identify and resolve issues faster, improve user experience, and optimize product development. Create team-based features, such as shared dashboards, user roles, and collaborative annotation tools, and test these features with a small subset of users.
- Offer personalized support, training, or consulting services as a premium offering. This can be particularly valuable for users who are new to session replay tools or who need help interpreting the data and implementing improvements. Leverage your expertise to provide actionable insights and recommendations based on their specific needs.
- Experiment with different pricing models and packaging strategies to find the optimal balance between free and paid features. Use A/B testing or other experimentation methods to evaluate the impact of different pricing on user acquisition, conversion rates, and revenue. Some similar products have faced criticism for high pricing or feature gating so be aware of this.
- Address user privacy concerns proactively. Given that privacy is a recurring concern, focus on providing robust privacy controls and clear communication about data handling practices. Consider offering features like data masking, anonymization, and user consent management to build trust and confidence.
- Since many similar tools like Amplitude Session Replay and Statsig Session Replay have received questions about how they differ from free alternatives like Microsoft Clarity, prepare a clear and concise comparison report that highlights your tool's unique selling points and value proposition. Focus on specific use cases and scenarios where your tool provides a superior experience or outcome.
- Actively monitor user feedback and iterate on your product based on their needs and suggestions. Use tools like surveys, in-app feedback forms, and community forums to gather insights and identify areas for improvement. Some similar tools have been criticized for lacking features, having bugs, or being difficult to use. This is the time to improve.
Questions
- Given the competition in the session replay space, what unique data insights or user experience enhancements can your tool provide that free alternatives like Microsoft Clarity don't offer, and how will you clearly communicate these differentiators to potential users?
- Considering that users have expressed privacy concerns about session replay tools, how will you ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and offer transparent controls that empower users to manage their data and consent?
- How can you leverage AI or machine learning to automate the analysis of session replay data and provide users with actionable insights and recommendations, rather than simply offering raw recordings?
Your are here
Your idea for a session replay tool falls into the 'Freemium' category, where users enjoy the product but are hesitant to pay. With 21 similar products already in the market, competition is significant, so differentiation is key. The high engagement (average of 12 comments per product) shows there's definitely interest in this type of tool, so that bodes well for you. Given the freemium nature of the category, you'll need to focus on identifying a clear monetization strategy. You should concentrate on identifying specific user segments who get the most value from the free version and crafting premium features that cater directly to their needs. Focus on what makes your tool unique compared to the rest.
Recommendations
- Begin by deeply understanding which user segments derive the most value from the free version of your session replay tool. Analyze their behavior patterns, pain points, and common use cases to identify opportunities for premium features. Focus on solving problems that these power users face, rather than creating features that appeal to everyone.
- Develop premium features that significantly enhance the experience for your high-value users. Consider features like advanced filtering, custom event tracking, integrations with other tools, priority support, or enhanced data retention. Referencing feedback from similar product launches, integrate a feature to highlight frequent user journey paths, which may be a valuable premium feature.
- Explore charging teams or organizations rather than individual users. Position your tool as a collaborative platform that enables teams to identify and resolve issues faster, improve user experience, and optimize product development. Create team-based features, such as shared dashboards, user roles, and collaborative annotation tools, and test these features with a small subset of users.
- Offer personalized support, training, or consulting services as a premium offering. This can be particularly valuable for users who are new to session replay tools or who need help interpreting the data and implementing improvements. Leverage your expertise to provide actionable insights and recommendations based on their specific needs.
- Experiment with different pricing models and packaging strategies to find the optimal balance between free and paid features. Use A/B testing or other experimentation methods to evaluate the impact of different pricing on user acquisition, conversion rates, and revenue. Some similar products have faced criticism for high pricing or feature gating so be aware of this.
- Address user privacy concerns proactively. Given that privacy is a recurring concern, focus on providing robust privacy controls and clear communication about data handling practices. Consider offering features like data masking, anonymization, and user consent management to build trust and confidence.
- Since many similar tools like Amplitude Session Replay and Statsig Session Replay have received questions about how they differ from free alternatives like Microsoft Clarity, prepare a clear and concise comparison report that highlights your tool's unique selling points and value proposition. Focus on specific use cases and scenarios where your tool provides a superior experience or outcome.
- Actively monitor user feedback and iterate on your product based on their needs and suggestions. Use tools like surveys, in-app feedback forms, and community forums to gather insights and identify areas for improvement. Some similar tools have been criticized for lacking features, having bugs, or being difficult to use. This is the time to improve.
Questions
- Given the competition in the session replay space, what unique data insights or user experience enhancements can your tool provide that free alternatives like Microsoft Clarity don't offer, and how will you clearly communicate these differentiators to potential users?
- Considering that users have expressed privacy concerns about session replay tools, how will you ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and offer transparent controls that empower users to manage their data and consent?
- How can you leverage AI or machine learning to automate the analysis of session replay data and provide users with actionable insights and recommendations, rather than simply offering raw recordings?
- Confidence: High
- Number of similar products: 21
- Engagement: High
- Average number of comments: 12
- Net use signal: 18.1%
- Positive use signal: 20.1%
- Negative use signal: 2.0%
- Net buy signal: -0.9%
- Positive buy signal: 1.5%
- Negative buy signal: 2.4%
Help
This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.
The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.
The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.
The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.
Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.
The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.
The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.
The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.
Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.
Similar products
Relevance
Tabbing through bugs? One replay to catch them all
Hey HN,For anyone who uses session replay tools to debug, monitor, or analyze user journeys, this feature might come in handy. OpenReplay — the self-hosted session replay tool that helps developers troubleshoot web apps faster — now supports tabbed browsing.Here's how:1. Capture and replay user sessions that span across multiple browser tabs, all within a single recording.2. OpenReplay's tracker communicates across browser tabs, ensuring accurate tracking of each tab, even when duplicated or opened with `window.open` without `_blank`.3. With "co-browsing", you can watch and support users in real-time and see how they navigate across multiple tabs of your app.Why it’s important?1. This feature is convenient for developers as it allows them to easily identify bugs by reviewing a complete session in one replay, rather than having to reference multiple recordings.2. It provides a deeper understanding of the user journey and interactions across multiple tabs in your web app, helping in the comprehension of complex user behaviors and paths.3. It provides accurate feedback on user tab actions such as opening, switching, and closing tabs, assisting in UX/UI improvements.Interested? For more details, you can check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/openreplay/openreplay.
3
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Session Replay by Amplitude - Session Replay shows what your customers are doing and why
Session Replay helps companies visualize the user journey, showing what customers like and where they get stuck. Users gain access to both qualitative and quantitative insights to fix issues, drive greater conversion, and improve the customer experience.
Amplitude's Session Replay launch on Product Hunt received positive feedback, with users highlighting its potential for identifying issues and improving product experiences by understanding user behavior. Several comments congratulated the team and wished them well. Questions were raised regarding its advantages over free alternatives like Microsoft Clarity, specifically concerning unique selling points, pricing, and key differentiators. Some users expressed excitement and intention to explore the tool further, while others emphasized the importance of real-world testing. Integration of frequent user journey highlights was suggested.
Users criticize the product for lacking a clear unique selling point, especially when compared to free alternatives like Microsoft Clarity. The absence of session replay was a previous pain point for some. There's a call for real-world validation to prove its worth beyond theoretical appeal. Integrating a feature to highlight frequent user journey paths was also suggested to improve the value proposition.
189
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14.3%
-7.1%
14
189
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Pulse FlightRecorder - User-driven session replay for product and UX feedback
Pulse FlightRecorder delivers rich, contextual replay videos captured, submitted and annotated by your own app users. Used by Product and UX teams to gain customer intimacy and launch with confidence.
Users are congratulating the launch and expressing enthusiasm for the product. Some users want to try it out for their projects. There is a query regarding integrations, specifically with Notion and other tools. Good luck wishes were offered to the Pulse Flight Recorder Team.
96
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6
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Session Replays by Requestly - Debug web apps faster with record & replay
Requestly Session Replays streamline internal bug reporting and thereby enable devs to debug web applications faster. Anyone in the company can record web interactions stitched with Network, console logs, Stack trace, device info to make it easy to fix bugs.
The Requestly Session Replays launch on Product Hunt received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with many users congratulating the team and expressing excitement about the product's potential for debugging, QA, and collaboration. Several users highlighted the time-saving aspect and the tool's usefulness in providing context for bug reports, with some noting its advantage over traditional screenshots and annotations. The open-source nature, multi-browser support, and encrypted sessions were frequently praised. Questions were raised about data security, differences from similar tools like Posthog, mobile app support, origin, and integration with CI/CD. Minor issues were reported by some users.
Users criticize the product for Datadog session replays being resource-intensive and costly. Some found the sign-in process confusing, noting an avatar display bug in the desktop app. A broken link to safety and security information (resulting in a 404 error) was also reported. One user inquired about CI/CD support with automated tests.
710
94
31.9%
2.1%
94
710
31.9%
2.1%
Relevance
How we made the Co-browsing feature in our Session Replay tool
Hello HN,We wanted to share how the Co-browsing feature works within OpenReplay. Co-browsing allows its users to monitor their customers' real-time interactions with their websites or products and instantly engage with those who need assistance. OpenReplay, for its part, is a self-hosted session replay tool that helps developers troubleshoot web apps faster.Here’s how we did it:1. When a user starts a session, we open a WebSocket connection to initiate a new "room" on our backend. This room is capable of supporting one user session and multiple support agents. We use socket.io on the front end and uWS on the back end to ensure scalability and performance in case of tens of thousands of rooms with multiple WebSockets connections.2. The user's session is then listed in the "Cobrowse" view but remains inactive in terms of data transmission through WebSocket. It awaits a support agent to initiate a live replay connection.3. As soon as the support agent joins, we send a signal to our Tracker, which includes the OpenReplay Assist plugin. This plugin then hooks into our message processing method, copying all sent messages to the WebSocket channel and triggering our Tracker to restart so it can scan and send the entire DOM tree.4. When both parties are connected, we create WebRTC peer channels for both, enabling the potential use of video calls.Side Note: For sessions with canvas elements present in the DOM, we create a dedicated peer channel and send canvas data as a variable frame rate video stream, adjusting dynamically to changes in the DOM.What sets our co-browsing feature from other tools’ co-browsing feature, like FullStory:1. Video calling: to initiate video calls with users for direct support or onboarding. We send the support agent name as a call signal (call popup on the user's end) and wait for the user to respond (accept/decline)2. Call recording: live sessions can be recorded in video format for review or training.3. Group call: multiple support agents can join a single active user session and initiate a group call with the end user.4. Remote control: to guide users directly to their target.5. Annotations: with user consent for remote control, a support agent can draw directly on the end user's screen. (similar to screen drawing feature in Slack huddle)6. Time travel in session: to go back in time and observe past user actions or watch his console logs, and then return to real-time or live mode. (like scrubbing in a youtube video)7. Live tabbed browsing: to observe users as they navigate through multiple browser tabs.8. Muti-live sessions: to monitor up to 4 live sessions at the same time.9. Watch console: to view active user console activitiesFor 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5: These features are activated via WebSocket upon request from the support agent and require end-user explicit confirmation, and can be stopped anytime.- Remote control allows for scrolling, clicking, page visits, and inputs within the web app, adhering to what web API allows us to trigger from the JS side, as other features are restricted for user security.- Annotations are made on a transparent canvas overlay, invisible until the agent begins drawing
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Metricalp Analytics - Session Replays - You you can see and replay full sessions of your users now!
Imagine a user's journey visualized: initial page view, navigation to a pricing page, a purchase event – followed by an unexpected abandonment in the shopping cart. By analyzing recurring patterns within session replays, you can pinpoint potential issues.
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SessionStackAI - Session replay, but make it AI
SessionStack just got its own AI capability to condense session replays into short summaries! Now you have visibility of your users’ experiences in less time, paired with UX tips for better adoption and faster growth. And this is just the beginning…
The product launch received positive feedback, with users expressing love for the idea and congratulating the team. One user inquired about the internal workings of the product, expressing amazement. Overall sentiment is positive, with users congratulating the team on the product launch.
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Capture and replay <canvas> elements in your web app
Hey HN,OpenReplay — the self-hosted session replay tool that helps developers troubleshoot web apps faster — now supports recording the <canvas> element.What’s New?- Canvas Support: Easily reproduce bugs by replaying complex graphics and animations.- Co-browse via P2P: Co-browse with users while streaming canvas elements in real-time, and identify issues and frustrations as they happen.- Customize Recordings: Customize FPS and quality of canvas in session replay, for optimal network usage and replay detail.Why it matters?- Gain deep insights into graphics-intensive parts of web applications, eliminating blind spots in bug reproduction and user behavior analysis.- Stream canvas content in real-time, providing immediate visibility into ongoing issues and enhancing the overall support experience via co-browsing.Check out our GitHub repo at https://github.com/openreplay/openreplay, or documentation at https://docs.openreplay.com/en/installation/canvas for more details.
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Capture and replay React Native sessions
Hey HN! We've expanded our session replay capabilities to include React Native for iOS. Using OpenReplay, a session replay and analytics tool that you can self-host, developers can record, replay, and troubleshoot issues in their apps.What’s included:- React Native iOS focus: tailored for React Native apps on iOS.- Full-fledged DevTools: includes crash analytics, network payloads, and performance metrics for comprehensive debugging.- Smart heuristics: features like auto-detect of crashes and tracking of user frustrations, such as click rage, to identify issues quickly.- Customizable tracking: the OpenReplay SDK allows tailored session tracking, capturing user interactions and changes.Benefits:- Fast bug identification: with session replay, see exactly what went wrong.- In-depth analysis: beyond surface-level issues, understand the root cause.- Optimize user experience: use insights to refine and improve your app’s usability.Interested? For more details, you can check out the GitHub repo [0] or documentation [1]:[0] https://github.com/openreplay/openreplay[1] https://docs.openreplay.com/en/rn-sdk
Requests support for Android
No Android support
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Waldo Sessions: Run, Inspect, Share mobile sessions from the browser
Hi HN,PM at Waldo here.We are launching Waldo Sessions: a tool to run, inspect and share mobile sessions from your browser.Waldo provides a fresh device (in the configuration of your choosing), you upload a build and can begin interacting with your app through your browser. Network calls and console logs load in real time alongside your device.Sessions are automatically recorded and stored as a Replay: video playback, the timeline of gestures, device details, network activity, and logs. Replays can be shared with your team, providing the context required to debug faster.If you work on mobile apps (as a dev, QA, PM, or designer), please try it out and tell me what you think! Sessions and Replays are available for free, and we even provide demo apps for you to upload and test the product.Happy to answer any questions!
Users discussed the challenges and solutions related to storage backend. Additionally, replays were highlighted as useful for mobile bug reports.
The product has features that are heavily scoped toward specific usage, limiting its versatility. Additionally, users find it difficult to provide context on mobile bug reports.
19
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2
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Wirequery – Full-stack session replay and more
Users are unclear if the tool captures live behavior or stores data, and there's interest in a comparison with the rrweb library. There's appreciation for elaboration on the product's features. It's noted that the tool is for web app sessions, and one comment has been flagged for review.
Users find the documentation and demo unclear.
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How Cobrowsing works in Session Replay
Hello Hackers,We wanted to share how the Co-browsing feature works within OpenReplay. Co-browsing allows its users to monitor their customers' real-time interactions with their websites or products and instantly engage with those who need assistance. OpenReplay, for its part, is a self-hosted session replay tool that helps developers troubleshoot web apps faster.Here’s how we did it:1. When a user starts a session, we open a WebSocket connection to initiate a new "room" on our backend. This room is capable of supporting one user session and multiple support agents. We use socket.io on the front end and uWS on the back end to ensure scalability and performance in case of tens of thousands of rooms with multiple WebSockets connections.2. The user's session is then listed in the "Cobrowse" view but remains inactive in terms of data transmission through WebSocket. It awaits a support agent to initiate a live replay connection.3. As soon as the support agent joins, we send a signal to our Tracker, which includes the OpenReplay Assist plugin. This plugin then hooks into our message processing method, copying all sent messages to the WebSocket channel and triggering our Tracker to restart to scan and send the entire DOM tree.4. When both parties are connected, we create WebRTC peer channels for both, enabling the potential use of video calls.Side Note: For sessions with canvas elements present in the DOM, we create a dedicated peer channel and send canvas data as a variable frame rate video stream, adjusting dynamically to changes in the DOM.What sets our co-browsing feature from other tools’ co-browsing feature, like FullStory:1. Video calling: to initiate video calls with users for direct support or onboarding. We send the support agent name as a call signal (call popup on the user's end) and wait for the user to respond (accept/decline)2. Call recording: live sessions can be recorded in video format for review or training.3. Group call: multiple support agents can join a single active user session and initiate a group call with the end user.4. Remote control: to guide users directly to their target.5. Annotations: with user consent for remote control, a support agent can draw directly on the end user's screen. (similar to the screen drawing feature in Slack huddle)6. Time travel in session: to go back in time, observe past user actions, check his console logs, and then return to real-time or live mode. (like scrubbing in a YouTube video)7. Live tabbed browsing: to observe users as they navigate through multiple browser tabs. 8. Muti-live sessions: to monitor up to 4 live sessions at the same time.9. Watch console: to view active user console activitiesFor 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5: These features are activated via WebSocket upon request from the support agent and require end-user explicit confirmation, and can be stopped anytime.- Remote control allows for scrolling, clicking, page visits, and inputs within the web app, adhering to what web API allows us to trigger from the JS side, as other features are restricted for user security.- Annotations are made on a transparent canvas overlay, invisible until the agent begins drawing
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Mixpanel Session Replay - Watch and learn to make better decisions
Mixpanel’s Session Replay enables you to make better product decisions with both data and visual replays of user journeys. Analyze trends in your data, then zoom in to watch individual sessions and better understand why users do what they do.
Mixpanel's Session Replay launch on Product Hunt received positive feedback, with users praising its ability to combine quantitative data with session replays for deeper user behavior insights. The tool's seamless integration of data analysis and user experience was highlighted. Several users inquired about pricing, specifically the availability of a free or entry-level plan for smaller SaaS businesses, and whether specific features are included in the free package. There were privacy concerns about the replay feature.
Concerns were raised regarding Mixpanel's handling of edge cases, performance in slow internet conditions, and unusual user behavior. Additionally, questions were posed about the product's privacy practices and how it handles user consent.
229
13
7.7%
13
229
7.7%
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Track, Replay, Optimize: Monitor Your Website with Our Application
Hi there!I'm Martin and I would like to show what we were working on in the past year. Our website monitoring application helps you keep track of your visitors' behavior on your website. With this tool, you can replay a visitor session or watch it live, capture console messages and network activities, and even create heatmaps for your pages to view mouse movements and clicks.Additionally, the application captures frontend javascript errors and provides an overview of them with attached recordings. The A/B testing option allows you to test different page designs and content to see which drives more conversions (BETA), and you can create events and funnels to track visitor behavior.Our chat feature enables you to add a chat widget to your website and create a chatbot using ChatGPT3.5. With this, you can chat with visitors and watch their behavior live.We hope this information helps you understand how our application works and how it can benefit your website monitoring needs.We would greatly appreciate your feedback on this application as it is our first version and still in beta.To start using our application, you will need to register and create a new site. Once you have done so, you will need to copy the script to the end of your page HTML, just before the </body> tag.
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I Built a Tool to Experience Your Software Like a User
Hi Hacker News!I’m excited to share a project I've been working on: a browser extension that lets you experience your software exactly as your users do.Key Features:- Records browser session, along with mouse events and resize events to give you an actual view into how users experience your software.- Users can annotate videos with actionable feedback.- Speed up, slow down, and add pan and zoom animations to demos (This is more for product people)Why I Built It:There's a huge gap between how developers see their software and how their users do. You'll notice that the first time you see someone using your web app at a resolution you didn't anticipate or clicking on things they thought were buttons.This is a tool to collect feedback from coworkers, stakeholders, and power-users to record new features and user flows.Try It Out:You can check out the extension itself here:https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/oadbjpccljkplmhnjek...I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts on how this tool can be improved or further developed. Thanks for taking a look Hacker News!
2
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We’re open-sourcing our session replay tool
Hey HN! We’re open-sourcing highlight.io (https://github.com/highlight/highlight), a session replay and error monitoring tool. Highlight.io gives you a high-precision video-like replay of what users are doing when an error or exception occurs in your web app, along with a full-fledged error monitoring experience (similar to bugsnag, rollbar, etc..).The main value prop of highlight.io is that we help you understand the full context surrounding an error and allow you to drill down to the code path that a user invoked (i.e user clicked button X, sent network request Y, and backend code Z was executed). Some of our customers compare this to a “web debugger” of sorts. A picture of what this looks like in our app is here [1].For some background, when we worked at our previous companies as engineers, we encountered hard-to-reproduce issues spanning across both the frontend and backend. The main issues were (1) if a customer complained about a problem, it was hard to reproduce the issue without asking for a screen-share or jumping on a video call; and (2) when viewing errors caught by tools like BugSnag or Rollbar, understanding the triggered code path required stitching together logs, errors, and trace; all from different sources.Highlight.io is completely open source and written in Go and Typescript. To build the replay capability, we use an open source project called rrweb [2] and have worked closely with their team to add support for features like canvas recording, shadow dom recording, and more [3]. Beyond that, we use the OpenTelemetry spec for our SDKs [4], which has made it pretty straight forward to support several languages, even with our small 4-person engineering team!Our product is completely self-serve at app.highlight.io. Installing it is as easy as a npm/yarn import and installing the backend sdk of your choosing. In addition, given the privacy-centric nature of session replay, we also offer the option to self-host [5]. Highlight.io currently makes money off of our hosted offering, and our self-hosted deployment is completely free. We’re also toying with the idea of an “enterprise” self-hosted deployment, similar to gitlab’s billing model, and thoughts from the community on this front would be appreciated!And as far as what’s next for us: Our customers are asking to render logs and traces on a highlight.io session (and vice versa), and we’re excited to be going deeper into a developer’s debugging stack. The long term goal is to build a platform that connects replay, errors, logs and more so that engineers can “playback” the full state of a web application.Overall, we’re quite new to the open source scene and would love the HN community to share their feedback on what we’re building. If anyone has opinions on where we’re going, or what they’d like to see in an open source monitoring product, we’re all ears. Check us out at highlight.io and at github.com/highlight/highlight to give us a shot.[1]: https://www.highlight.io/docs/getting-started/frontend-backe...[2]: https://github.com/rrweb-io/rrweb[3]: https://highlight.io/docs/general/product-features/session-r...[4]: https://opentelemetry.io/docs[5]: https://www.highlight.io/docs/general/company/open-source/se...
Users compared the Show HN product to competitors like Highlight.io, LogRocket, OpenReplay, and PostHog, focusing on features, pricing, and error monitoring capabilities. Privacy concerns, particularly regarding session replay and data residency, were raised, with some users advocating for opt-in strategies and PII scrubbing. The business-friendly license was appreciated, but there were calls for more open-source security features like SSO/SAML without enterprise restrictions. Interest in self-hosted versions for data privacy was evident, alongside discussions on enterprise deployment and revenue strategies. Technical aspects of session replay and DOM serialization were queried, and there was excitement about the open-source move and upcoming Ruby/Rails SDK.
Users criticized the product for lacking screenshots/videos, high pricing, and poor error grouping. Concerns about privacy, handling sensitive information, and PII scrubbing were frequent. The business model, particularly the open core approach and placing basic features behind enterprise licenses, was questioned. Users were wary of litigation, the effectiveness of self-hosting enforcement, and the availability of critical features in the open-source version. There were also doubts about the effectiveness of filtering, capturing request headers/bodies, and SAML support. The comparison to PostHog and concerns about AWS usage were also noted.
408
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1.8%
-7.1%
56
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1.8%
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Statsig Session Replay - Ship better products with contextual user insights
Statsig's integrated session replays give crystal clear insights into how users experience your product, allowing you to see what resonates, and fix what doesn't. Benefit from direct integration with Analytics, Feature Flags, & A/B Tests.
The comments reflect excitement and congratulations on the Statsig session replay launch on Product Hunt. Users are interested in its integration with existing features like A/B testing and analytics, particularly session replay's impact on user experience and insights. Questions arise regarding differentiation from competitors like OpenReplay, Fullstory, Figma, Clarity and Amplitude, as well as concerns about user privacy and data protection. Several users highlight its ease of use, attractive interface, and value for early-stage founders in understanding user behavior. Overall, the sentiment is positive, with many expressing intent to try the product.
Users questioned the product's unique selling proposition, especially compared to existing tools like Openreplay and Fullstory, whose limitations prompted the search for alternatives. Feedback suggested offering comparison reports with Clarity and PostHog to highlight differentiation. There was also a comment that previous internal session replay tools were not utilized. Some users also inquired about additional AI features beyond the existing offerings.
240
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Flytrap - Replay all user errors in your dev environment
Flytrap is a replay tool that allows you to replay the bugs encountered by users in your own development environment. Unlike alternatives like Replay.io that require additional tooling to catch replays, Flytrap allows you to replay the bugs of ALL users.
The product launch received positive feedback, with users expressing excitement about its potential and usefulness. Some users specifically liked the product name. There's a sense that it could significantly improve the current situation.
39
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25.0%
4
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Replay It App - Instant Feedback. Hands Free.
🎥 Replay It: Real-Time Video Analysis for Chrome Empower your performance with Replay It! Record, playback, and analyze videos in real-time on Google Chrome. Perfect for coaches, educators, and performers. Elevate your skills today!
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Unlogged – open-source record and replay for Java
Hello HN! Parth, and Shardul here. We have been building unlogged.io for the last 21 months. We started as a time travel debugger and pivoted to record and replay with assertions, mocking, and code coverage. You can save the replays in the form of a JSON and commit them to your git.Both Parth and I come from an e-commerce/payments background where production bugs meant heavy financial losses. Big billion days/Black Friday sales meant months of code freezes with low productivity. Before committing the code, we wanted to replay production traffic and know the breaking changes right away, like in sub-second. Kind of like unit+integration tests on steroids.So, we built an SDK that adds probes to the code in compile time. The SDK logs code execution, in detail.Git: https://github.com/unloggedio/unlogged-sdkWe also built an IDE plugin that keeps monitoring code changes, hot reloads these changes, replays the relevant methods, and alerts on failing replays. It also lets developers call Java methods directly, mock downstream methods in run time, highlight code coverage in real-time, and show performance numbers for methods with inlay hints. (right above each method)Git: https://github.com/unloggedio/intellij-java-pluginWe are excited to launch the first version of our product that replays with assertions + mocking + code coverage reports right inside the IDE.Link to our IntelliJ plugin: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/18529-unlogged/Record and Replay Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCyE-doEB0Define Assertions on Replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKsi1p634-MTrack Code Coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMmp954kfaUGenerate JUnit Test Cases: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTUmg5b1Z_QMocking when replaying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_aqU1u-KmwDocumentation: http://read.unlogged.io/Roadmap:1. Create a production logger-So that the performance impact is minimal-out of the box masking PII from production logs-creating meaningful input/return value combinations from production traffic to be replayed locally.2. Creating a CI test runner that can integrate with CI/CD pipelines.3. Auto-Replaying API endpoints of only the changed code.4. Real-time alerts for the performance impact of code changes.5. Creating a dashboard with reports, email/slack alerts.
Users are inquiring about plugin availability for Eclipse and IntelliJ, showing interest in support for multiple programming languages and environments, including JVM languages like Scala, Android app development, Python, and Node.js. There's also interest in a paid support option. One user proposes specific SDK and plugin names.
Users have expressed concerns about the lack of an Eclipse plugin and potential compatibility issues.
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