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Observability

Session Replay

Choose whether and how to capture privacy-controlled playback of individual web interactions for diagnosis and experience analysis.

Recommendation

Defer replay until aggregate evidence is insufficient.

When individual playback is justified, choose by debugging workflow, experience-analysis depth, integration, deployment control, and the full privacy gate.12

For: Product, support, design, and engineering teams with a defined need for individual interaction playback

Main trade-off

Individual playback can accelerate diagnosis while increasing privacy, consent, masking, retention, deletion, access, client-performance, storage, and governance risk.123456

Why there is no single default: Replay captures a sensitive and operationally expensive form of evidence. The default is to defer it; once justified, the five candidates fit materially different workflows.

Privacy and operating gates

Selection starts with whether capture is necessary and lawful, then evaluates masking, consent, retention, deletion, access, performance, and workflow fit.

  1. Necessity and scope

    Name the questions aggregate analytics, errors, logs, and support evidence cannot answer; minimize pages, fields, users, and duration captured.12

  2. Privacy controls

    Verify masking defaults, custom masking, network and URL capture, consent, prohibited data, regions, deletion, retention, and access auditing.12

  3. Workflow fit

    Decide whether replay supports debugging, enterprise experience analysis, product analytics, a free site workflow, or self-operated control.24

  4. Performance and cost

    Measure client overhead, recording volume, retention, seats, sampling, storage, support, and self-hosting operations.13

Session replay routes

Five formal candidates are compressed into four readable routes; LogRocket and Fullstory share a managed-specialist comparison.

A managed specialist workflow is justified

Compare LogRocket and Fullstory.

LogRocket emphasizes debugging context while Fullstory extends toward broader enterprise experience analysis.

Verify: Run the same masking, consent, retention, access, and workload test against both before selection.1

A free web replay route is sufficient

Evaluate Microsoft Clarity.

Clarity can fit a bounded website workflow when its capture and retention model are acceptable.

Verify: Free price does not remove privacy, data-governance, access, or fit review.2

Replay should share product analytics

Evaluate PostHog.

Replay can connect to product events and analysis in an existing PostHog workflow.

Verify: Verify text, URL, network, input, retention, and consent controls rather than assuming safe defaults.3

Deployment control justifies self-operation

Evaluate OpenReplay.

An open-source or dedicated deployment route can fit teams deliberately owning the replay infrastructure.

Verify: Licensing, version, security, upgrades, storage, reliability, masking, deletion, and operating cost require direct ownership.4

Official resources

Verify current capabilities, collection boundaries, privacy controls, retention, and commercial terms in the official documentation before implementation.

Sources

Official product documentation supporting the decision routes and boundaries on this page.

  1. 1
    LogRocket Session Replay

    LogRocket · Accessed Official

  2. 2
    Fullstory Session Replay

    Fullstory · Accessed Official

  3. 3
    Microsoft Clarity recordings

    Microsoft · Accessed Official

  4. 4
    PostHog Session Replay

    PostHog · Accessed Official

  5. 5
    OpenReplay documentation

    OpenReplay · Accessed Official

  6. 6
    PostHog replay privacy controls

    PostHog · Accessed Official