Imagine your website is an ant farm. The ants crawling through tunnels represent your users journeying across pages as they engage with your digital platforms. Real user monitoring (RUM) tears down the walls hiding user activity, giving you clear visibility into how they navigate and experience your site.
Equipped with transparent RUM insights, you can transform that user experience, removing frustrating blockers like slow page loads and errors which drive visitors away. Read on to discover 12 top RUM tools along with expert guidance for getting started.
Why Real User Monitoring Matters More Than Ever
Delivering seamless digital experiences has become table stakes for engaging modern consumers. 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page that takes over 3 seconds to load according to Google research. Choppy mobile video drives a 25% increase in abandoned views per Youbora.
RUM gives digital teams unprecedented visibility into the real load times, errors and user journeys happening on their web and mobile platforms. This makes it possible to:
- Discover issues losing conversions – Like checkout drop off spikes on especially slow product pages
- Prioritize experience hot spots – Such as lagging carousels frustrating high-traffic landing pages
- Validate fixes – Confirm upgrades like web performance optimizations actually improve real user experiences
Without RUM providing this visibility, you are essentially troubleshooting your digital experience with a blindfold on.
Key Capabilities of Enterprise-Ready RUM Solutions
Robust real user monitoring solutions come packed with capabilities to suit the needs of different users and use cases. Below are key features to look for when evaluating options:
Data Collection – At a minimum, a RUM platform should auto-capture page views, clicks, taps, load times, errors and basic device details like browser and location. More advanced systems also collect detailed user session workflows and custom events.
Flexible Analytics – Custom reporting and data segmentation empowers different teams to slice performance data from different angles whether reviewing by device type or funnel step.
Actionable Alerting – Smart alert rules detect anomalies and trigger notifications when conversions, load times or other critical metrics deviate from expected ranges. This enables IT teams to get ahead of emergent user experience degradations.
Root Cause Diagnostics – When performance dips or errors spike, the best RUM solutions equip engineers to quickly trace issues to their true source from front-end to back-end. This accelerates mean time to resolution.
Now let’s explore 12 top-tier RUM solutions capable of delivering against these table stake requirements at enterprise scale.
12 Best-in-Class Real User Monitoring Solutions
1. Datadog
Overview – Datadog is one of the most ubiquitous monitoring solutions thanks to its breadth of observability data collection spanning metrics, traces, logs and more. RUM comes built-in for full visibility into the real end user experience.
Key Strengths
- Distributed tracing links front-end web errors with correlated back-end logs and traces for accelerated root cause analysis
- Powerful dashboarding flexible enough for technical and non-technical teams
- End-to-end workflow integrates RUM data alerts with runbooks and collaboration tools like Slack and PagerDuty
Ideal For – Engineering teams at large digital enterprises seeking full-stack monitoring and collaboration capabilities
2. New Relic
[Insert New Relic logo]Overview – Already a staple in many technology stacks for its code-level application performance monitoring, New Relic offers RUM tightly integrated with the rest of its robust APM platform.
Key Strengths
- Custom NerdGraph query language enables data analysts to segment and analyze raw RUM event data
- Tight linking between user actions and underlying application transactions
- Cross-platform visibility including most modern web frameworks like React and Angular
Ideal For – Digital teams with advanced data science skillsets seeking customizable access to detailed RUM event data
3. Dynatrace
[Insert Dynatrace logo]Overview – Dynatrace provides deeper code-level application observability and user experience monitoring with Davis AIOps and real-time analytics.
Key Strengths
- Davis AI engine auto-detects anomalies in web performance metrics like page load deviations
- Smartscape dashboard offers intuitive full-stack visibility
- Root cause analysis narrows issues to specific lines of code commit changes
- Supports modern architectures like Kubernetes and cloud
Ideal For – Large enterprises modernizing complex application stacks to the cloud
Discover Dynatrace Software Intelligence Platform
4. Akamai mPulse
[Insert Akamai logo]Overview – Coming from CDN leader Akamai, mPulse RUM offers unmatched global scale reaching real user audiences in 100+ countries.
Key Strengths
- Codeless setup gets you user experience visibility fast by simply entering your web app‘s URL
- Isolates third-party web content dependencies revealing their impact on performance
- Manages the extensive Akamai edge network improving caching and acceleration
Ideal For – Media, retail and software companies operating consumer-facing sites globally
5. Catchpoint
[Insert Catchpoint logo]Overview – Catchpoint shines when it comes to rapid web performance issue diagnosis with topology maps tracing problems to infrastructure and code.
Key Strengths
- Network topology visualizations reveal exactly where bottlenecks emerge
- Page Integrity metric highlights missing page elements explaining degraded user experiences
- Monitoring spans vital third-party content delivery networks
Ideal For – Retailers and media sites dependent on fast, seamless third-party web app integrations
Explore Catchpoint End User Monitoring
6. AppNeta
[Insert AppNeta logo]Overview – AppNeta makes RUM accessible for growing digital teams with an affordable and easy to implement SaaS solution.
Key Strengths
- Quickly exposes front-facing performance issues beyond back-end application code
- CDN monitoring reveals third-party content delivery impact
- Intuitive visualizations spotlight pain points fast
Ideal For – Digital teams with limited budgets and monitoring expertise
Learn About AppNeta End User Monitoring
7. Rigor
[Insert Rigor logo]Overview – Rigor collects an expansive view of experience metrics spanning real visitor traffic, Rigor’s own simulated traffic and lab environments.
Key Strengths
- Headless browser testing determines exactly how pages visually render for users
- Filmstrip visual replay diagnoses rendering issues
- Side-by-side analysis contrasts synthetic vs. real user data
Ideal For – Ecommerce retailers laser focused on optimizing conversion funnels
Understand Rigor End-to-End Testing
8. ThousandEyes
[Insert ThousandEyes logo]Overview – ThousandEyes provides network infrastructure monitoring extended to web and mobile app experience.
Key Strengths
- Code-level visibility detects bottlenecks within modern JavaScript app frameworks
- Confirms when issues stem from endpoints vs. networks vs. apps
- Alerts instantly when user experiences degrade
Ideal For – Global enterprises managing complex application delivery environments
Learn About ThousandEyes Endpoint Agent
9. Cloudflare Radar
[Insert Cloudflare logo]Overview – Cloudflare Radar measures real user website performance leveraging Cloudflare’s vast global network.
Key Strengths
- Reveals web app asset load times by geography and Cloudflare data center
- Shared public dashboard links facilitate discussing insights
- Free plan allows unlimited URLs
Ideal For – Companies using Cloudflare services seeking lightweight user monitoring
10. SpeedCurve
[Insert SpeedCurve logo]Overview – Browser specialist SpeedCurve measures true website load performance experienced by real users.
Key Strengths
- Visual playback compares site speed against competitors
- Proxy approach eliminates skew from browser add-ons
- Synthetic monitoring blended with RUM for full coverage
Ideal For – Digital agencies managing several brand sites seeking lightweight implementation
Understand SpeedCurve Real User Monitoring
11. Raygun
[Insert Raygun logo]Overview – Raygun makes application monitoring accessible for dev teams with an affordable RUM offering focused on web apps.
Key Strengths
- Quickly exposes front-end performance affecting site visitors
- Preconfigured real user data dashboards accelerate insights
- Error and crash reporting round out monitoring
Ideal For – Lean engineering teams at smaller software and digital-first businesses
Learn About Raygun Real User Monitoring
12. Mixpanel
[Insert Mixpanel logo]Overview – Growth favorite Mixpanel offers lightweight, out-of-the-box web and mobile RUM perfect for broader product teams.
Key Strengths
- User behavior analytics integrate seamlessly with RUM data
- Low overhead asynchronous data collection won’t slow page loads
- Codeless implementation gets you insights fast
Ideal For – Early stage startups optimizing conversion funnels
Understand Mixpanel RUM Capabilities
From Blind to Vision: The Power RUM Brings
Imagine transitioning from useless skepticism of your digital experience to complete confidence in improvements using tangible RUM insights about real users. Follow these best practices to get there:
1. Align on Critical User Journeys – With stakeholders, pick vital site workflows to baseline like checkout.
2. Instrument Key Pages – Tag necessary pages to capture experience data across aligned flows.
3. Analyze & Share Findings – Create reports spotlighting optimization opportunities and rally support.
4. Prioritize Experience Upgrades – Whether tackling errors, speed or conversions, capture quick wins.
5. Validate with RUM – Use ongoing reporting to confirm upgrades actually improve real user experiences.
Evolving from blind assumptions to RUM-powered vision puts your digital experience optimization on a cycle of continuous positive impact powered by visitor insights. Consider mixing different RUM solutions across technical and non-technical teams to empower alignment. With the right platform picking up user signals in the background, you can fully focus resources on what matters most: creating delightful digital experiences.
