Grafana Cloud Frontend Observability now offers Session Replay, a public preview add-on that visually reconstructs a user's session alongside existing telemetry (metrics, logs, traces). It builds on the Grafana Faro Web SDK, masks text and input values by default for privacy, uses RBAC to restrict recording access, and follows the same 30-day retention as other Frontend Observability data. Enabling it requires installing the @grafana/faro-instrumentation-replay package (Faro Web SDK 2.8.2+) and adding two lines of instrumentation code. A walkthrough shows how replay combined with trace correlation helped diagnose a failed banking payment caused by insufficient funds and a confusing error message.
Questions this post answers
How do I enable Session Replay in Grafana Cloud Frontend Observability?
Install the @grafana/faro-instrumentation-replay package and add ReplayInstrumentation to the Faro Web SDK instrumentations array during initializeFaro. Session Replay requires Grafana Faro Web SDK version 2.8.2 or later. Once deployed, sessions with a recording show the replay directly on the session detail page in the Sessions tab of Frontend Observability, alongside the event timeline. Developers instrumenting frontend monitoring can find setup walkthroughs like this one on daily.dev.
What privacy protections does Grafana Session Replay have by default?
Session Replay masks all text and input values by default before any data leaves the browser, giving a strict privacy baseline out of the box. A dedicated role-based access control role limits who can view recordings, and replay data follows the same 30-day retention policy as other Frontend Observability data. Configuration is flexible so teams can tailor masking to their own privacy requirements, but consent obligations remain the organization's responsibility. Teams evaluating session replay tools for privacy compliance can track feature details like this on daily.dev.