What are the best app session replay tools?
Key Takeaways:
- App session replays capture what users saw, tapped, and experienced, giving developers full visibility into bugs.
- Replay timelines help you reproduce issues locally, step by step.
- Rage taps, dead taps, and pauses often reveal usability problems beyond pure code bugs.
A bug report lands in your inbox. You have the logs and crash reports, but that’s not enough to figure out why it happened.
So your team wastes sprint time chasing symptoms instead of solving the real issue.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
At least not if you incorporate session replay into your process.
This analytics technique will help you speed up debugging because it shows exactly what happened in a session gone wrong.
This guide will walk you through using session replay, from setup to fix validation, so you can resolve those pesky bugs faster and with more clarity.
Table of Contents
1. Set up the session replay SDK
First, let’s get technical.
You’ll need to implement a session replay Software Development Kit (SDK) into your app so you can get access to user data and enable functionalities.
However, the exact process depends on the platform and tool.
If you’re using Shake’s session replay, it requires no additional setup.
You can either enable or disable it. This enables or prevents data being sent to your dashboard.
Also, when a bug happens, you get the session replay automatically attached to the bug report.
That’s great news for your developers because they get the big picture without manually collecting info about the bug.
On the other hand, if you’re using Datadog, you’ll need to set up Datadog RUM Browser Monitoring first.
Start by creating a RUM application, generating a client token, and initializing the RUM Browser SDK.
After you’ve initialized the SDK, set up mobile session replay for iOS or Android.
When it comes to iOS, link the Session Replay library to your project based on your package manager.
Then enable session replay in your app. Here’s how to do it if you’re using Datadog:
import DatadogSessionReplay
SessionReplay.enable(
with: SessionReplay.Configuration(
replaySampleRate: sampleRate,
// Enable the experimental SwiftUI recording
featureFlags: [.swiftui: true]
)
)If you want to set up Mobile Session Replay for Android, follow these two steps.
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Declare the Datadog Session Replay as a dependency:
build.gradle.kts
implementation("com.datadoghq:dd-sdk-android-rum:[datadog_version]")
implementation("com.datadoghq:dd-sdk-android-session-replay:[datadog_version]")
// in case you need Material support
implementation("com.datadoghq:dd-sdk-android-session-replay-material:[datadog_version]")
// in case you need Jetpack Compose support
implementation("com.datadoghq:dd-sdk-android-session-replay-compose:[datadog_version]")After you’ve done that, you can enable Session Replay in your app.
Application.kt
val sessionReplayConfig = SessionReplayConfiguration.Builder([sampleRate])
// in case you need Material extension support
.addExtensionSupport(MaterialExtensionSupport())
// in case you need Jetpack Compose support
.addExtensionSupport(ComposeExtensionSupport())
.build()
SessionReplay.enable(sessionReplayConfig)After this initial setup, it’s time to enable base functionalities like:
- Gesture tracking
- Log collection
- Network capture
This step is important because these data points are the baseline and, in some cases, can be enough to positively impact your debugging workflow.
For example, Shake comes with these features and much more.
Also, its SDK adds only 2.5 MB to your app, so it can continue to run fast and seamlessly.
Don’t forget to mask sensitive data like passwords, credit card numbers so your users’ privacy stays protected and in line with privacy regulations.
Once the SDK is live, the app will start capturing user sessions.
But that doesn’t mean you should capture everything.
2. Control what gets recorded
Imagine you have an app that’s used thousands of times per day, by users all over the world.
If you record its user sessions randomly, all you’ll get is heaps of irrelevant data, and even worse, you’ll miss bugs that make users leave the app.
And when more than 1 in every 2 apps installed is uninstalled within 30 days of being downloaded, that’s a risk you can’t afford to take.
That’s why being strategic when deciding what sessions to record is essential.
Start by thinking about where bugs are most likely to happen. Maybe it’s in a newly released feature, or a flow users often get stuck in.
But don’t play a guessing game and waste valuable time. Use data from other sources like your analytics to identify and choose the most critical issues.
Look for patterns.
For example, if your analytics show a significant drop in app registrations, active users, or session length, it’s worth checking whether a bug or another technical issue caused it.
But you don’t have to record everything and sift through it manually. You can automate what gets captured.
For instance, record sessions that include:
- A crash
- Network failure
- JavaScript error
Or capture only sessions triggered manually in the code.
That way, your team avoids reviewing dozens of irrelevant replays just to find one useful clue.
Another way to customize your recording logic is with tags and filters.
Let’s say you’re testing a new checkout flow. You could tag users in that experiment and record only their sessions.
App session replay tools like Sentry, Shake, and Instabug let you use custom filters and tags like this to cut through the noise and focus on critical bugs.
So before you hit “record”, think about what goal you are trying to achieve and why.
This way, you won’t get overwhelmed by a mountain of data, and you’ll save time and energy for the next step.
3. Identify relevant sessions
Once the session recording is live, it’s time to find and identify roadblocks in user sessions.
Now, you don’t need to watch hundreds of recordings until you find a bug or error. Filters, tags, search, and triggers will help you find them more quickly.
You can filter session replays by error type, such as:
- Crashes
- Failed network requests
- Unhandled exceptions
You can also search sessions by user ID to follow up on a specific bug report. Some tools let you filter sessions by:
- Length
- Screen name
- App version
- Device model
For example, if you’re tracking an issue that appears limited to a specific OS version, those filters help you isolate the problem faster.
Similarly, if you’ve just released a new build, filtering by app version lets you compare user behavior before and after deployment.
This helps you confirm whether a fix worked or identify if a new issue has emerged.
Sentry’s session replay, for example, offers a replay page with filters for URL path, error tags, and more. You can also group sessions by shared issues or behaviors.
The point is to narrow your view so you’re only watching sessions that matter right now.
This step is especially important if you’re dealing with a high-traffic app. Filtering cuts your watch time dramatically by pointing you to relevant or critical sessions.
The faster you find the right replay, the faster you’ll debug. You’ll also gain insights that help you improve the app experience for end users.
4. Interpret session data for context
After you’ve found the right session, it’s time to figure out what went wrong and why.
App session replays are great for this because they have what logs or basic user feedback don’t: context.
You can see what the user tapped, which screen they were on, how they navigated, and even how long they paused between actions.
These little details matter because they show you whether the app truly is in line with user expectations.
Let’s say a user abandons the checkout flow.
Logs might show an error, but the replay shows what triggered it:
- The moment a button appeared disabled
- A screen going white
- The user tapping repeatedly in frustration
These kinds of interactions, like dead taps (when a tap does nothing) or rage taps (repeated taps on the same spot), are often signals of either broken elements or confusing UX.
Many session replay tools detect these automatically, giving you faster insight into real usability problems.
On top of that, always pay close attention to user intent. Ask yourself:
- Were they trying to complete a task?
- Did they repeat steps?
- Did something interrupt their flow?
Learning to spot these cues will help you identify not just technical bugs, but also usability problems that impact the overall user experience.
The more clearly you see what the user was doing before the bug appeared, the easier it is to recreate the bug and fix it.
5. Reproduce the bug locally
The next step is to reproduce the bug in your dev environment.
Session replay gives you a detailed timeline of a session:
- Screens visited
- Buttons tapped
- Inputs filled
- Network calls made
Together, these make it much easier to recreate the conditions that triggered the issue.
Let’s say a replay shows a crash on an Android after the user navigated back and forth a few times.
You can open your staging build, match that same flow on an emulator or test device, and walk through the steps.
Once you’ve triggered the same issue locally, you can go into the code, isolate the problem, and work on a fix.
And because you’re working from a session that actually broke, you know the steps you’re testing are not a guess, but based on an authentic user session.
Visual replay isn’t the only thing that’ll help you dig out issues.
Tools like Shake give you logs, gestures, and even console output from the session.
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You can trace the issue in your debugger using all this information.
For bugs tied to timing or edge cases, this level of detail is often the difference between a guess and a meaningful fix.
Overall, when your local reproduction is based on actual user sessions, it leads to faster, more precise debugging.
6. Validate the fix
After a fix is deployed, use session replay to monitor new sessions and make sure the bug doesn’t reappear.
This step is especially useful when dealing with bugs related to flows or user behaviors that happen in real time.
Instead of waiting for new reports, save time by watching how users interact with the updated feature.
Start by reviewing sessions that follow the same path where the bug first happened.
Ask yourself:
- Are users now completing the flow successfully?
- Is the screen behaving as expected?
If you had previously seen drops in interactions or crash spikes, check those metrics again to see whether they’ve returned to normal.
Many tools let you tag or group sessions by version, device, or even custom flags. That makes it easier to compare behavior before and after the fix.
You can also check whether related issues still appear in logs, or whether original triggers like slow network calls or edge-case inputs continue to cause trouble.
Also, session replay can confirm whether the fix has restored expected user behavior, like seeing users complete a form they previously abandoned.
It also gives you insight into any unintended consequences of your fix, such as:
- UI regressions
- Slower performance
- New bottlenecks elsewhere in the flow
This kind of post-fix validation will give you a confidence boost before you roll out a wider release.
Instead of relying solely on QA testing or user feedback, you’re seeing how the fix performs in real usage.
And if something still isn’t right, you’ll catch it early and correct it quickly, saving time, frustration, and follow-up cycles.
Conclusion
Session replay speeds up debugging and gives your team the clarity and confidence to fix issues.
While logs and reports tell you what happened, session replay shows you how and why it happened, through the user’s eyes.
To get the full picture, combine session replays with insights from analytics and user feedback.
No need to wait for the next bug to slow down your sprint.
Build session replay into your workflow and start solving app issues with more confidence.
