OpenReplay
Open-source session replay and frontend observability stack alternative to FullStory and LogRocket.
Why consider OpenReplay?
OpenReplay is a self-hosted session replay and developer monitoring suite. It records user interactions, network requests, Redux/Vuex state, and console errors.
Learn OpenReplay by building
Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.
In this guide11 sections
What is OpenReplay?
OpenReplay is an open-source session replay and frontend observability suite designed to help developers and product teams reproduce bugs and understand user experience issues. It operates as a privacy-friendly, self-hosted alternative to commercial session recording platforms like FullStory, LogRocket, and Hotjar.
OpenReplay acts like a flight data recorder for web applications: it records user DOM interactions, mouse clicks, scrolling behavior, network fetch/XHR requests, Redux/Vuex application state mutations, and JavaScript console exceptions, letting engineers watch pixel-perfect session replays alongside integrated developer DevTools.
Who Is It For?
- Frontend & Full-Stack Developers: Reproducing elusive, client-side production bugs without asking users for screenshots or manual reproduction steps.
- Product Managers & UX Researchers: Analyzing customer user drop-offs, identifying rage-clicks, and optimizing web conversion funnels.
- Security & Compliance Teams: Storing session recordings strictly on on-premises private servers with automatic masking of sensitive PII data.
Key Features
- Pixel-perfect session replay: Watch exact user interactions with synchronous console logs and network activity.
- Integrated Web DevTools: Inspect network request payloads, response codes, stack traces, and component state changes.
- Omnichannel privacy sanitization: Automated client-side masking of passwords, credit cards, and PII input fields.
- Performance & UX analytics: Track Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS), page load timings, and rage-click events.
- Easy SDK integration for React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, and vanilla JavaScript applications.
Deploying OpenReplay on Linux
OpenReplay provides an automated single-node installation script:
# Run the installation script on an Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server (minimum 4 CPU, 16 GB RAM)wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openreplay/openreplay/main/scripts/helmcharts/openreplay-cli.shbash openreplay-cli.sh -iAccess the OpenReplay web interface at your domain (e.g. https://openreplay.example.com) and generate your project tracking snippet.
Integrating OpenReplay SDK in React
npm install @openreplay/trackerInitialize the tracker in your application root:
import Tracker from '@openreplay/tracker';const tracker = new Tracker({ projectKey: "YOUR_PROJECT_KEY", ingestPoint: "https://openreplay.example.com/ingest", respectDoNotTrack: true, maskAllInputs: true // Automatically masks all form input fields for privacy});tracker.start();// Identify logged-in userstracker.setUserID("user_12345");Practical Use Cases
1. Instant Bug Reproduction
A customer reports that a checkout button failed; an engineer opens OpenReplay, watches the customer's exact actions, and spots a 400 Bad Request error in the integrated network tab.
2. Rage Click Detection & UX Optimization
A UX designer filters sessions containing "Rage Clicks" on the pricing page, discovering an unclickable image that users mistook for a button.
3. Redux State Time Travel Debugging
A developer inspects state mutations step-by-step leading up to a frontend exception, fixing edge-case component lifecycle bugs in minutes.
Troubleshooting and Limitations
- Hardware Sizing: Session capture and video rendering require adequate compute and memory; allocate at least 16 GB of RAM on the OpenReplay server for high-traffic sites.
- Canvas / WebGL Content: OpenReplay records standard DOM elements; for canvas-heavy WebGL games, enable the canvas recording plugin explicitly.
Official Resources
- Official Website: https://openreplay.com
- GitHub Repository: https://github.com/openreplay/openreplay
- Documentation: https://docs.openreplay.com
Related tools
More options with a similar category or technology profile.
diskus
Minimal, fast alternative to du -sh written in Rust using multi-threaded directory traversal.
peco
Simplistic interactive filtering tool for Unix pipelines, process lists, and file trees.
Dapr CLI
Command-line tool for managing Dapr distributed application runtime environments and sidecars.
Freeze
Generate beautiful image screenshots and SVGs of code snippets and terminal outputs.