What is Highlight.io used for?

Highlight.io is listed as a Developer Tools tool on TiloBox. Review the overview, features, and official documentation on this page to decide whether it solves your specific workflow.

How do I get started with Highlight.io?

Start with the project's GitHub repository and official website for supported installation and deployment instructions. Test the setup with representative data or a small project before rolling it out more widely.

What license does Highlight.io use?

Highlight.io is listed under the Apache-2.0 license. Read the complete license text and the project's notices before using, modifying, or distributing the software.

Is Highlight.io ready for production use?

Production readiness depends on your requirements. Review maintenance activity, security practices, documentation, backup and upgrade procedures, and compatibility with your stack; then validate it in a non-production environment.

Is Highlight.io an alternative to LogRocket?

Highlight.io is listed as an alternative to LogRocket. Compare the core workflow, deployment model, integrations, and licensing against your must-have requirements before switching.

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Highlight.io

The open-source, full-stack monitoring platform: error monitoring, session replay, and logging.

View on GitHub Visit website

LicenseApache-2.0

GitHub stars9.4k

Last commit1 weeks ago

Tags6 topics

Session ReplayClickhouseOpentelemetryLoggingSelf HostedError Monitoring

Overview

Why consider Highlight.io?

Highlight.io is an open-source web application monitoring platform. It combines full-stack error tracking, session replays, and backend log streaming into a single developer suite.

Guided learning

Learn Highlight.io by building

Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.

3 min read 11 sections

In this guide11 sections

What is Highlight.io?

Highlight.io is an open-source, full-stack application monitoring platform built with Go, React, OpenTelemetry, and ClickHouse. It operates as a modern open-source alternative to commercial developer tooling suites like Sentry, LogRocket, and Datadog.

Highlight.io bridges the gap between frontend user sessions and backend infrastructure: it connects frontend session replays directly to backend error stack traces and distributed server logs, allowing developers to see exactly what a user experienced in the browser right alongside the corresponding backend exceptions and database query logs.

Who Is It For?

Full-Stack Engineering Teams: Investigating end-to-end user issues spanning React/Next.js frontends and Python/Node/Go backends.
QA & Reliability Engineers: Triaging uncaught JavaScript exceptions with exact user reproduction recordings and sourcemap stack traces.
Security-Conscious Organizations: Deploying complete session replay and error monitoring entirely on self-hosted infrastructure.

Key Features

Full-stack correlation: Link frontend session replays directly with backend server errors and OpenTelemetry traces.
Real-time error monitoring: Group errors by root cause, inspect demangled stack traces via sourcemaps, and track regression states.
High-performance log management: Search, filter, and stream backend logs powered by ClickHouse storage.
Native SDK support for Next.js, React, Vue, Python, Node.js, Go, Ruby, and Java.
Automated PII masking: Redact sensitive customer fields, credit card inputs, and custom CSS classes.

Deploying Highlight.io with Docker Compose

bash

1# 1. Clone the official self-hosted repository

2git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/highlight/highlight.git

3cd highlight/docker

5# 2. Run the deployment setup script

6./run.sh

Access the dashboard at http://localhost:3000 to register an account and generate your project tracking tokens.

Integrating Highlight in Next.js

bash

1npm install @highlight-run/next

Configure Highlight in your app/layout.tsx or pages/_app.tsx:

tsx

1import { HighlightInit } from '@highlight-run/next/client';

3export default function RootLayout({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {

4 return (

5 <html lang="en">

6 <HighlightInit

7 projectId={'YOUR_PROJECT_ID'}

8 serviceName={'my-nextjs-app'}

9 tracingOrigins={['localhost', 'api.example.com']}

10 networkRecording={{

11 enabled: true,

12 recordHeadersAndBody: true,

13 }}

14 />

15 <body>{children}</body>

16 </html>

17 );

18}

Practical Use Cases

1. Unified Frontend-to-Backend Debugging

A customer encounters an error during checkout; the developer watches the recorded user click, clicks "View Error", and immediately sees the exact Python exception and database error logged in the backend.

2. Sourcemap-Decoded Stack Traces

A minified production JavaScript crash occurs; Highlight automatically matches uploaded sourcemaps, pinpointing the exact line in TypeScript source files.

3. High-Volume Serverless Log Ingestion

A cloud backend emits millions of structured JSON log lines; Highlight indexes them into ClickHouse for rapid full-text filtering.

Troubleshooting and Limitations

Sourcemap Upload Security: Automate sourcemap uploads during CI/CD using the official Highlight CLI (npx @highlight-run/sourcemap-uploader) with private API keys.
ClickHouse Storage Disk Capacity: For high-volume log streams, configure data retention policies under Settings -> Retention to purge telemetry older than 30–60 days.

Official Resources

Official Website: https://www.highlight.io
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/highlight/highlight
Documentation: https://www.highlight.io/docs

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