@datadog/browser-rum

What is @datadog/browser-rum?

The @datadog/browser-rum package is a Real User Monitoring (RUM) solution provided by Datadog. It allows developers to collect and analyze performance and user behavior data from their web applications in real-time. This data can be used to identify and troubleshoot issues, improve user experience, and monitor application performance.

What are @datadog/browser-rum's main functionalities?

Real User Monitoring

Initializes the RUM SDK to start collecting data from the user's browser, including session replay recording.

import { datadogRum } from '@datadog/browser-rum';

datadogRum.init({
  applicationId: 'YOUR_APPLICATION_ID',
  clientToken: 'YOUR_CLIENT_TOKEN',
  site: 'datadoghq.com',
  service:'your-service-name',
  // Specify a version number to identify the deployed version of your application in Datadog
  version: '1.0.0',
  sampleRate: 100,
  trackInteractions: true,
});

datadogRum.startSessionReplayRecording();

Custom User Actions

Records custom user actions, such as button clicks, with additional context.

datadogRum.addAction('button_click', { buttonId: 'my-button' });

Logging Errors

Logs errors manually with additional context to help with debugging.

datadogRum.addError(new Error('Something went wrong'), {
  context: {
    productId: 123
  }
});

User Tracking

Sets user information to track user-specific data and associate it with the collected RUM data.

datadogRum.setUser({
  id: '1234',
  name: 'John Doe',
  email: '[e-mail]',
  // User-defined attributes
  plan_type: 'premium',
});

Other packages similar to @datadog/browser-rum

raygun4js

Raygun4js is a JavaScript SDK for Raygun, providing error tracking and real user monitoring. It captures errors and performance data from the browser, offering a feature set that competes with @datadog/browser-rum, with a focus on error diagnosis and resolution.

README

RUM Browser Monitoring

Overview

Datadog Real User Monitoring (RUM) enables you to visualize and analyze the real-time performance and user journeys of your application's individual users.

Setup

To set up Datadog RUM browser monitoring:

1. In Datadog, navigate to the Real User Monitoring page and click the New Application button.
2. Enter a name for your application and click Generate Client Token. This generates a clientToken and an applicationId for your application.
3. Setup the Datadog RUM SDK via npm or via one of the hosted versions: CDN async or CDN sync.
4. Deploy the changes to your application. Once your deployment is live, Datadog collects events from user browsers.
5. Visualize the data collected using Datadog dashboards.

Note: Your application shows up on the application list page as "pending" until Datadog starts receiving data.

Supported browsers: The RUM SDK supports all modern desktop and mobile browsers including IE11. See the browser support table.

Choose the right installation method

Installation method	Use case
npm (node package manager)	This method is recommended for modern web applications. The RUM SDK gets packaged with the rest of your front-end javascript code. It has no impact on page load performance. However, the SDK might miss errors, resources and user actions triggered before the SDK is initialized. Note: it is recommended to use a matching version with logs SDK if used.
CDN async	This method is recommended for web applications with performance targets. The RUM SDK is loaded from our CDN asynchronously: this method ensures the SDK download does not impact page load performance. However, the SDK might miss errors, resources and user actions triggered before the SDK is initialized.
CDN sync	This method is recommended for collecting all RUM events. The RUM SDK is loaded from our CDN synchronously: this method ensures the SDK is loaded first and collects all errors, resources and user actions. This method might impact page load performance.

npm

Add @datadog/browser-rum to your package.json file, then initialize it with:

import { datadogRum } from '@datadog/browser-rum'

datadogRum.init({
  applicationId: '<DATADOG_APPLICATION_ID>',
  clientToken: '<DATADOG_CLIENT_TOKEN>',
  site: '<DATADOG_SITE>',
  //  service: 'my-web-application',
  //  env: 'production',
  //  version: '1.0.0',
  sampleRate: 100,
  trackInteractions: true,
})

Note: The trackInteractions parameter enables the automatic collection of user clicks in your application. Sensitive and private data contained on your pages may be included to identify the elements interacted with.

CDN async

Add the generated code snippet to the head tag of every HTML page you want to monitor in your application.

<script>
 (function(h,o,u,n,d) {
   h=h[d]=h[d]||{q:[],onReady:function(c){h.q.push(c)}}
   d=o.createElement(u);d.async=1;d.src=n
   n=o.getElementsByTagName(u)[0];n.parentNode.insertBefore(d,n)
})(window,document,'script','https://www.datadoghq-browser-agent.com/datadog-rum.js','DD_RUM')
  DD_RUM.onReady(function() {
    DD_RUM.init({
      clientToken: '<CLIENT_TOKEN>',
      applicationId: '<APPLICATION_ID>',
      site: '<DATADOG_SITE>',
      //  service: 'my-web-application',
      //  env: 'production',
      //  version: '1.0.0',
      sampleRate: 100,
      trackInteractions: true,
    })
  })
</script>

Notes:

• The trackInteractions parameter enables the automatic collection of user clicks in your application. Sensitive and private data contained on your pages may be included to identify the elements interacted with.
• Early RUM API calls must be wrapped in the DD_RUM.onReady() callback. This ensures the code only gets executed once the SDK is properly loaded.

CDN sync

Add the generated code snippet to the head tag (in front of any other script tags) of every HTML page you want to monitor in your application. Including the script tag higher and synchronized ensures Datadog RUM can collect all performance data and errors.

<script src="https://www.datadoghq-browser-agent.com/datadog-rum.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script>
  window.DD_RUM &&
    window.DD_RUM.init({
      clientToken: '<CLIENT_TOKEN>',
      applicationId: '<APPLICATION_ID>',
      site: '<DATADOG_SITE>',
      //  service: 'my-web-application',
      //  env: 'production',
      //  version: '1.0.0',
      sampleRate: 100,
      trackInteractions: true,
    })
</script>

Notes:

• The trackInteractions parameter enables the automatic collection of user clicks in your application. Sensitive and private data contained on your pages may be included to identify the elements interacted with.
• The window.DD_RUM check is used to prevent issues if a loading failure occurs with the RUM SDK.

TypeScript

Types are compatible with TypeScript >= 3.0. For earlier versions, import JS sources and use global variables to avoid any compilation issues:

import '@datadog/browser-rum/bundle/datadog-rum'

window.DD_RUM.init({
  applicationId: 'XXX',
  clientToken: 'XXX',
  site: 'datadoghq.com',
  sampleRate: 100,
})

Configuration

Initialization parameters

The following parameters are available:

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
applicationId	String	Yes		The RUM application ID.
clientToken	String	Yes		A Datadog client token.
site	String	Yes	datadoghq.com	The Datadog site of your organization. US: datadoghq.com, EU: datadoghq.eu
service	String	No		The service name for your application.
env	String	No		The application’s environment, for example: prod, pre-prod, staging, etc.
version	String	No		The application’s version, for example: 1.2.3, 6c44da20, 2020.02.13, etc.
trackInteractions	Boolean	No	false	Enables automatic collection of users actions.
sampleRate	Number	No	100	The percentage of sessions to track: 100 for all, 0 for none. Only tracked sessions send rum events.
silentMultipleInit	Boolean	No	false	Initialization fails silently if Datadog's RUM is already initialized on the page.
proxyHost	String	No		Optional proxy host (ex: www.proxy.com), see the full proxy setup guide for more information.
allowedTracingOrigins	List	No		A list of request origins used to inject tracing headers.

Options that must have matching configuration when also using logs SDK:

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
trackSessionAcrossSubdomains	Boolean	No	false	Preserve the session across subdomains for the same site.
useSecureSessionCookie	Boolean	No	false	Use a secure session cookie. This disables RUM events sent on insecure (non-HTTPS) connections.
useCrossSiteSessionCookie	Boolean	No	false	Use a secure cross-site session cookie. This allows the RUM SDK to run when the site is loaded from another one (iframe). Implies useSecureSessionCookie.

Example

Init must be called to start the tracking:

init(configuration: {
    applicationId: string,
    clientToken: string,
    site?: string,
    sampleRate?: number,
    silentMultipleInit?: boolean,
    trackInteractions?: boolean,
    service?: string,
    env?: string,
    version?: string,
    allowedTracingOrigins?: Array<String|Regexp>,
    trackSessionAcrossSubdomains?: boolean,
    useSecureSessionCookie?: boolean,
    useCrossSiteSessionCookie?: boolean,
})