Visual playback of the user journey: Introducing Session Replay in Grafana Cloud Frontend Observability

Grafana Cloud Frontend Observability has introduced Session Replay in public preview, an add-on that visually reconstructs user interactions in web applications alongside existing metrics, logs, traces, and session timelines. Built on the Grafana Faro Web SDK, the feature helps teams investigate difficult or hard-to-reproduce frontend problems by showing how an interface appeared and changed during a user’s session, then linking visual events to technical data such as network requests and distributed traces. In a demo banking scenario, a replay revealed repeated failed payment attempts, HTTP 422 responses, and a backend trace indicating insufficient funds, while also exposing that a vague error message created user frustration. Privacy controls mask text and input values by default, offer configurable protections, restrict recording access through a dedicated RBAC role, and retain data for 30 days, although organizations remain responsible for consent and compliance. Session Replay requires Faro Web SDK version 2.8.2 or later, can be enabled by adding replay instrumentation, and is available through a public-preview waitlist as part of Grafana Cloud’s broader digital experience monitoring plans.

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