Sentry Session Replay - A Detailed Review & Best Alternative

What is Sentry’s session replay?

Sentry’s session replay feature is a developer-focused take on this fairly well-known product analytics tool.

Like most session replay features, it lets you view video-like reproductions (not actual videos) of user sessions. However, in addition to tracking user actions, it also lets you view these reproductions with additional context from your app’s:

• Output console

• Network calls

• DOM tree

All of these tools let you debug issues visually (i.e., in the context of a user session) and make it easier to spot errors or slow-loading elements that could be causing problems for your users. At the moment, this is a web-only feature—Sentry’s session replay won’t work for mobile apps.

Key features

• Error & Performance Connections: Connect session replays with errors and performance issues recorded in Sentry.

• Debugging Tools: View video play-by-plays with additional context from your app's console, network calls, and DOM tree.

• Privacy-focused: Ensures user data privacy by masking all HTML text, images, and user inputs by default.

• Frustration Monitoring: Skip straight to session recordings with the highest number or percentage of rage or dead taps.

• Monitoring: Supports performance, error, and CRON monitoring.

Pricing

Sentry's pricing model is based on monthly events and the number of projects hosted. This means every plan includes a set event limit, with the option to handle extra events as needed. Additional data costs are determined by the volume you require Sentry to manage. 

The plans available are:

• Free: 1 user, error & performance monitoring, and 50 replays.

• Team ($26/month): Unlimited users, third-party integrations, and 500 replays.

• Business ($80/month): Dashboards, cross-project management, and 500 replays.

• Enterprise (custom): Fully customizable. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Comprehensive error tracking

• Supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks

• Intuitive dashboard and interface

Cons:

• Can become expensive for larger projects

• May require a training to use all features effectively

• Primarily focused on debugging, which may limit its session replay capabilities

Sentry alternative for mobile session replays: UXCam

Looking for a tool that supports mobile session replays (and tons of additional features)? UXCam might be the perfect fit.

Our mobile analytics platform is packed with features (like session replays) that are designed to help you uncover the whys behind user behavior. While Sentry’s feature is designed for debugging, ours is designed for every step of the customer journey.

Our session replay feature is trusted by more than 37,000 apps worldwide—and it has led to some pretty transformational insights. For example, Recora slashed support tickets by 142% by examining user sessions for quick, fixable issues.

Key features

• Compliant Session Replays: View compliant recreations of real user sessions with identifying information excluded by default.

• Segmentation: Filter sessions by any event or user characteristic to find what you’re looking for. 

• Funnels: Analyze user behavior and identify drop-off points in your funnel to optimize conversions (and quickly jump to replays from any funnel stage).

• Retention Analytics: Track user engagement and retention over time and compare segments to understand what’s working (and what needs some love).

• User Journey Mapping: Visualize the paths users take through your app to identify common patterns and pain points.

Pricing

UXCam offers three main pricing plans based on the number of sessions.

Here are the plans:

• Free (up to 3,000 monthly sessions)

• Growth (custom)

• Enterprise (custom)

All of our plans (free and paid) support session replays with lengthy retention periods, so you can continuously track and analyze user behavior over time.

Why choose UXCam over Sentry for session replays?

1. Mobile support: If you want to gather mobile session replays, Sentry won’t work.

2. UX focus: UXCam’s session replay is designed to improve UX, while Sentry’s is designed to help you catch bugs.

3. Comprehensive analytics: Beyond simple session replays, UXCam provides heatmaps and user behavior insights.

Sentry vs. UXCam: session replay comparison

Conclusion

User experience is crucial in app development. While both Sentry and UXCam offer session replay features, only UXCam is focused on helping you use session replays to improve UX holistically. Plus, our platform is designed for mobile, while Sentry’s session replay feature is web-only.

Want to take UXCam’s session replays for a spin? Sign up for free today.

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