Alexis Kestler
Hi there!
As an experienced data analyst and long-time user experience optimization geek, I want to share my insights on an important website performance topic – real user monitoring.
Real user monitoring (RUM) allows you to literally watch your website visitors in action. By collecting data straight from real users‘ browsers as they interact with your site, RUM gives invaluable visibility into their experience.
With RUM, you can answer critical questions like:
- How long does my homepage take to fully load?
- Which pages have the most errors?
- Where are users dropping off in the purchase funnel?
And with this user experience intelligence, you‘re empowered to optimize pages, fix issues quickly, and remove pain points. The result? Happier customers, lower bounce rates, and increased conversions.
According to research by Akamai, a stunning 49% of users expect a web page to load in under 2 seconds. With user expectations sky high, real user monitoring is essential forProviding fast, smooth website experiences.
In this guide, we‘ll explore 9 top RUM tools available and how they can help improve your website‘s user experience.
What Exactly is Real User Monitoring?
Before diving into the tools, let‘s briefly explain what real user monitoring involves:
RUM tools work by installing a small snippet of JavaScript tracking code on your website pages. As a real user visits and interacts with your site, this script silently collects various performance data points, including:
- Page load time
- Resource load times (HTML, images, CSS, JS)
- Errors and crashes
- Clicks, scrolls, form submissions
- Browser, device, location info
This real user telemetry is transmitted back to the RUM platform, which crunches the numbers and generates visual analytics. RUM provides an insightful window into real users‘ experiences on your live website.
Benefits of real user monitoring include:
- Pinpointing performance bottlenecks
- Diagnosing issues based on user impact
- Continuously improving site speed and stability
- Reducing frustrating lag and latency
- Increasing engagement, conversions, sales
Forrester reports that improving site performance by just 250ms can increase conversions by up to 2%. RUM delivers the actionable data you need to drive these performance gains.
Now let‘s explore 9 top RUM solutions available and how they work.
1. Uptrends Synthetic Monitoring and RUM
Uptrends offers a powerful combination of synthetic monitoring and real user monitoring.
To implement Uptrends RUM, all you need to do is add their JavaScript snippet to your web pages. This small script starts collecting key visitor performance data including page load times, clicks, form inputs, errors, and more.
The RUM telemetry feeds into Uptrends‘ customized dashboards giving you visibility into real user experiences by geography, browser, device, OS, and other filters. You can instantly see which pages are slowest, where users are encountering errors, and how experiences compare across locations.
Uptrends complements its RUM data by conducting automated synthetic tests from over 200 global monitoring points. These mimicked user transactions measure availability and performance for the full site.
Blending synthetic checks with real user data provides a complete picture of both overall website health along with the specific issues affecting visitors. Uptrends makes it straightforward to ingest both data streams into consolidated dashboards.
For large enterprises, Uptrends offers an on-premises option in addition to its SaaS platform. Their RUM solution empowers teams with insights from real user interactions supplemented by worldwide synthetic monitoring.
Key Capabilities:
- Real user experience monitoring
- Global synthetic monitoring from 209+ locations
- Customizable dashboarding
- Advanced analytics and filtering
- Alerting integration and workflow automation
2. Boomerang – Open Source RUM from Akamai
Boomerang is an open-source RUM tool created by Akamai – so it‘s completely free to implement!
It functions as a JavaScript library that you simply include in your web pages. Once installed, Boomerang starts measuring and recording vital user experience metrics like:
- Page load times
- Network connection speeds
- Resource load times
- User interactions
- Errors
And Boomerang grabs all this RUM data without hampering site performance. It uses asynchronous script loading, so even if boomerang.js is blocked or slow to load, your actual page renders normally. This avoids the "observer effect" where performance monitoring negatively impacts the very user experience it‘s measuring!
As an open source project, Boomerang is also customizable to your needs. You can write plugins to extend its capabilities or integrate the data into your own analytics systems.
For organizations that want extra features and enterprise support, Akamai offers a paid Boomerang Enterprise version. This bundles additional perks like customer data storage, custom analytics, and technical support.
Overall, Boomerang provides free, lightweight RUM that collects user experience data without the overhead of commercial tools. And the open source access allows limitless customization for your use case.
Key Features:
- Free, open source real user monitoring
- Asynchronous script loading prevents performance hits
- Waterfall diagrams reveal resource load times
- Plugin architecture supports customization
- Paid enterprise version available
3. Catchpoint – Full Stack Monitoring with Powerful RUM Focus
Catchpoint offers a full monitoring stack including RUM, synthetic testing, alerting, and more. Their RUM solution provides deep insights into your real website visitors‘ experiences.
The RUM script collects all user activity – clicks, page views, scrolls, taps, transactions, errors, form inputs, and more. Catchpoint‘s visual dashboards spotlight performance metrics like page load times, resource load times, and web vitals scores.
You can slice and dice Catchpoint‘s RUM data by location, browser, device, OS, and other filters. This allows drilling into how experiences differ across geo, tech stack, and other user segments.
Whenever availability or performance deviates outside your specified thresholds, Catchpoint automatically triggers alerts via email, Slack, PagerDuty and more. The dashboards feature advanced troubleshooting to pinpoint root causes.
Catchpoint RUM integrates seamlessly with their synthetic monitoring solution for a holistic view. Synthetic tests run automated user journeys from 50+ global monitoring nodes, validating availability and performance worldwide.
For monitoring modern web and mobile apps, Catchpoint‘s powerful RUM capabilities deliver the rich user telemetry needed to optimize experiences and exceed customer expectations.
Key Advantages:
- Granular real user monitoring
- Global synthetic monitoring
- Intelligent alerting andRoot cause analysis
- Full-stack monitoring integrations
- RUM-centric optimization and troubleshooting
4. Raygun – Front-End RUM Focused on User Experience
Raygun offers an innovative RUM solution centered on monitoring front-end web application performance.
Raygun RUM installs via a simple JavaScript snippet that collects detailed user telemetry like page load times, resource loads, errors, user clicks, form inputs, and more.
This real user data feeds Raygun‘s visualizations giving you an unprecedented window into your users‘ experiences:
- Waterfall diagrams reveal precise page load stages
- Slowest pages are flagged immediately
- Failing resources, like images or scripts, are identified
- Individual user journeys are reconstructed
Filters allow slicing RUM data by location, browser, device, OS, and other parameters to isolate issues. Raygun makes it easy to zero in on pages and resources causing slow load times or errors.
Raygun RUM pairs seamlessly with their robust error and crash reporting tool. This connects performance data with code-level errors and exceptions affecting users.
With its meticulous focus on front-end metrics and visualizations, Raygun RUM provides unparalleled insights to optimize user experience and site performance.
Key Advantages:
- Lightweight front-end focus
- Page load waterfall diagrams
- Slow resource detection
- User session recordings
- Integration with crash reporting
5. Pingdom – RUM and Synthetic Monitoring
Pingdom offers a versatile RUM solution alongside synthetic monitoring and alerting tools.
The lightweight Pingdom RUM script captures all your real website visitors‘ activity – clicks, taps, page views, transactions, and more. This user telemetry feeds a suite of web performance analytics.
Pingdom‘s dashboards spotlight user-impacting metrics like page load times, resource load times, web vitals scores, error rates, and user flows. Filters enable slicing RUM data by location, browser, device, OS, and other facets.
Pingdom RUM integrates seamlessly with their synthetic monitoring capabilities. Automated scripts mimic user journeys from 50+ global locations, measuring worldwide availability and performance.
Blending real user data with synthetic monitoring provides a holistic view of the overall customer experience. Pingdom bundles it all into customizable dashboards along with alerting capabilities.
They offer several pricing tiers based on pageviews monitored from $44 to $239 per month. For organizations wanting RUM-driven insights combined with synthetic testing, Pingdom is an excellent choice.
Key Features:
- Real user monitoring
- Global synthetic monitoring
- Custom dashboards
- Performance threshold alerting
- Available standalone or bundled
6. RapidSpike – Specialized RUM for Web Performance
RapidSpike offers an innovative RUM solution purpose-built to optimize web performance for real users.
The cornerstone is a blazing-fast JavaScript monitor that collects detailed page load times, resource timings, network metrics, and other web vitals telemetry from each visitor to your site.
This real user data feeds RapidSpike‘s comprehensive performance analytics dashboards. You get page load and resource timing visualizations revealing optimization opportunities:
- Waterfall diagrams show resource blocking and dependencies
- Page load heatmaps highlight slowest pages
- Web vitals benchmarks measure field performance
And you can filter performance data along numerous dimensions – browser, device, geography, connection type, and more. RapidSpike RUM provides a meticulous look at real users‘ web performance experiences.
Unlike some RUM tools attempting to span monitoring use cases, RapidSpike focuses intently on precision web performance analytics. Their specialized solution is purpose-built for developers and web performance engineers optimizing the real user experience.
Key Advantages:
- Lightweight real user performance monitoring
- Page load waterfall diagrams
- Breakdowns by device, location, connection, and more
- Web performance benchmarking
- Developer-focused web optimization
7. Elastic APM – Open Source App Monitoring with RUM
Elastic APM provides open source application performance monitoring capabilities, including some helpful RUM features.
Elastic APM installs lightweight agents on your app servers to monitor performance metrics like request throughput, response times, errors, and more. For web apps, it also offers a RUM component that tracks page load times and user interactions via JS sensors.
The Elastic Stack already powers analytics and monitoring for over 13,000 organizations according to DB-Engines. For existing Elastic users, APM provides a frictionless way to add application monitoring data.
Metrics stream into Elasticsearch and feed pre-built Kibana dashboards. This enables visualizing application bottlenecks and slow endpoints degrading user experience.
Although not a full-featured RUM solution, Elastic APM‘s open source approach and tight ELK integration make it appealing for organizations invested in that stack. The RUM component provides helpful web and mobile app performance tracking.
Key Capabilities:
- Open source performance monitoring
- RUM for web and mobile apps
- Distributed tracing support
- Kibana dashboards for visualizations
- Integrates with Elastic Stack
8. SpeedCurve – RUM Plus Synthetic and Visual Analysis
SpeedCurve provides robust monitoring including RUM, synthetic testing, visual troubleshooting, and custom analytics.
SpeedCurve‘s RUM script captures all user interactions on your site. This powers their advanced performance analytics dashboards highlighting optimization opportunities:
- Slowest page load times surfaced
- Failing resources flagged
- Geographic and device performance differences revealed
Unique SpeedCurve features include side-by-side video session playbacks and filmstrip views. These visual tools make it easy to viscerally understand usability issues real users face.
SpeedCurve‘s synthetic monitoring runs from over 50 global locations to complement the RUM data. This provides a holistic perspective of user experience and site performance.
For web teams invested in optimization, SpeedCurve delivers powerful data visualizations and user-centric analytics. The detailed RUM telemetry enables continuously improving real visitor experiences.
Key Features:
- Real user experience monitoring
- Global synthetic monitoring
- Session video and filmstrip replays
- Lighthouse auditing integration
- Custom analytics and reporting
9. Sematext RUM – Specialized for Web Apps
Sematext Experience offers a RUM solution purpose-built for monitoring web and mobile app user experience.
Lightweight agents collect precise RUM telemetry from all your web and mobile application traffic. Key metrics captured:
- Page load times
- Resource timing waterfalls
- Web vitals performance
- User flows and conversions
- Errors and exceptions
Sematext‘s visualizations provide detailed analysis to isolate user experience bottlenecks:
- Waterfall diagrams reveal slow assets
- Web vitals benchmarks measure field performance
- Resource costs expose expensive assets
Specialized capabilities like single page app monitoring cater to the unique RUM needs of modern web applications. Popular frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue supported out of the box.
For engineering teams operating web and mobile apps, Sematext RUM provides targeted, precise monitoring to optimize real user experiences.
Key Advantages:
- Lightweight RUM monitoring
- Resource waterfall analysis
- Single page app support
- Web vitals and performance budgeting
- Intelligent alerting capabilities
It‘s Time to Start Monitoring Real User Experiences
Real user monitoring sheds light on the actual experiences your customers receive when visiting your site. Without RUM, you‘re optimizing blindly.
Adding RUM reveals:
- Slow pages damaging engagement
- Failing resources frustrating users
- Conversion bottlenecks stymieing sales
Armed with RUM intelligence, you can delight customers by eliminating pain points and performance issues. Fast, smooth websites drive increased engagement, conversions, and revenue.
All the RUM solutions highlighted offer compelling capabilities:
- Performance monitoring for real individual users
- Powerful analytics dashboards
- Identifying optimization opportunities
- Combining RUM with synthetic monitoring
Evaluate which RUM features are most important for your use case and tech stack. Leveraging real user telemetry will empower your team to provide the best possible web experiences.
What RUM platforms are you considering or already using? I‘d love to hear your experiences optimizing real user monitoring!
