Frontend application monitoring

In the early 2000s, web applications were simple HTML pages backed by more complex services on the backend. Nowadays, frontend applications can be just as complex as the backend because they need to support a wide variety of users and devices while remaining performant and easy to use.

The growing complexity of frontend applications has led to a new type of monitoring solution — frontend application monitoring — which helps software teams ensure great digital experiences for all their users.

What is frontend application monitoring?

Frontend application monitoring encompasses a set of tools used to observe and analyze an application’s performance, user experience, and potential issues from the user’s perspective.

While backend application performance monitoring relies on observability through traces, metrics, and logs, frontend application performance monitoring involves three main data types:

• Error tracking: Identifying and diagnosing bugs or issues that prevent users from using an application as intended
• Performance monitoring: Measuring an application’s speed and responsiveness to ensure optimal user experiences
• Session replay: Recording user interactions in real time to gain insights into potential bottlenecks or problematic areas within the app

Collecting and leveraging this data efficiently helps developers create more seamless user experiences.

Error tracking

Error tracking involves capturing runtime errors in applications and providing detailed information about the environment and user actions leading up to the error. This can help you:

• Better understand the root cause of errors
• Diagnose, prioritize, and resolve issues more effectively
• Identify potential problems before they impact user satisfaction or revenue

However, logging and tracking JavaScript errors can quickly become an overwhelming and time-consuming task. Users may encounter different errors depending on the exact device, browser, platform, or version they used. Errors may be caused by network issues, third-party scripts, or unpredictable user behaviors.

Having a sophisticated frontend monitoring solution like LogRocket in place can mitigate the challenges of error tracking and help you efficiently improve application performance.

Performance monitoring

Performance monitoring focuses on evaluating KPIs like page load times, rendering times, and API response times that directly influence an app's overall usability. For example:

• Tackle slow JavaScript code by identifying bottlenecks and optimizing execution
• Prevent frontend errors that can lead to unresponsive UIs or broken functionality
• Optimize load times through techniques like lazy loading, caching, and minimizing resource sizes
• Address slow API calls by monitoring response times and optimizing server-side performance

There are many factors that contribute to an application’s performance, so it can be difficult to find the right balance between optimization efforts and development resources. Choose a tool that provides a clear and comprehensive picture of your frontend application’s performance to ensure you’re spending your time and effort where it matters most.

Session replay

Using a session replay tool to help with frontend application monitoring can provide a clear picture of how real users experience and behave on frontend applications.

A web app session recording is a visual representation of user interactions within an application, created by capturing events like clicks, scrolls, and form inputs in real time. For example, LogRocket records and uses data such as:

• DOM tree mutations
• Mouse movements, scrolling, and clicks
• Scrolling and taps on mobile
• Network requests and responses
• JavaScript exceptions
• Keyboard strokes
• All pages visited
• And much more

The result is a high-fidelity session replay that looks and feels like a video recording, but is really just HTML. User session recordings help developers recreate issues, improve KPIs, and prioritize which bugs to fix by providing insights into how users experience their applications in real-world scenarios.

Popular frontend application monitoring tools

Frontend performance monitoring can be complex. Popular tools like the following can help streamline the process:

• Datadog: An application monitoring platform with some frontend-focused features like real user monitoring (RUM) and synthetic browser testing
• Grafana: An open source visualization tool that can integrate with various data sources for frontend monitoring purposes
• LogRocket: A complete solution offering error tracking, performance monitoring, and session replay capabilities tailored for frontend applications

While tools like Datadog and Grafana offer some frontend application monitoring capabilities, you may need to add other tools to get a complete picture of performance metrics, the scope and impact of errors, and the exact way real users experience your application.

A solution like LogRocket provides a comprehensive set of features so your whole team can work from a single source of truth to create better user experiences.

Features to look for in frontend monitoring tools

When choosing a frontend performance monitoring solution, consider features like the following:

• The ability to collect and aggregate data: Correlating error, performance, and session information can help you easily identify patterns and address the most frequent and severe issues as quickly as possible. With LogRocket, you can aggregate quantitative and qualitative user data as well as error and performance metrics to surface issues and opportunities to improve UX
• Machine learning capabilities: Cut through noisy data with intelligent issue identification, grouping, and severity ratings. LogRocket’s Galileo machine learning module alerts you to critical issues that need your immediate attention, helping you focus on the most impactful user-facing problems rather than dealing with a high volume of false positives
• High-fidelity session replays: Capture every interaction to better understand user behavior. LogRocket provides pixel-perfect user session recordings so you can easily recreate user-reported issues, improve KPIs, and collaborate across teams to prioritize and address problems proactively — all while protecting user privacy and minimally impacting app performance

With these features and more, LogRocket can be an invaluable tool for entire frontend teams, streamlining performance monitoring efforts and ultimately leading to better, more reliable frontend applications.

Try LogRocket for free today!

Install LogRocket in under 3 minutes. Get free access to all features for 14 days. Cancel at any time.