Alerty Blog

Top 26 End User Experience Monitoring Tools

Written by Jack Dwyer | Sep 20, 2024 2:15:35 AM

Picture this: You’ve just launched a new app, and everything seems perfect. But then, users start complaining about loading times, glitches, and crashes. It’s frustrating, right? That’s where end user experience monitoring tools come in. These tools let you see what your users see, helping you catch and fix issues fast. In this blog, we’ll show you how these tools fit into front end monitoring tools and why they’re essential for keeping your users happy.

And speaking of keeping users happy, Alerty’s frontend monitoring has you covered. Its tools help you understand what’s happening on your users’ screens in real time so you can keep things running smoothly.

Table of Contents

What Is End User Experience Monitoring?

End-user experience Monitoring (EUEM) isn't just a tool; it's a crucial component of modern IT operations. EUEM ensures everything runs smoothly on the front end by focusing on how real users interact with applications. 

It tracks response times and app availability to keep user satisfaction in check. Think of it as the eyes and ears of your digital systems, ensuring that issues are caught before they reach the user.

EUEM Market Growth

As businesses rely more on digital platforms, EUEM systems are becoming increasingly valuable, improving user engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI). The EUEM market is projected to grow significantly, reaching an estimated valuation of USD 15.31 billion by 2031, from USD 3.51 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.2%. 

This growth is driven by the need for seamless integration with existing IT infrastructures and the demand for more efficient workflows and centralized data analysis.

How Does EUEM Work?

EUEM examines users' actual experiences across different platforms, such as:

  • Web
  • Mobile
  • Virtual desktops

By collecting data from fundamental user interactions, it provides insights into how applications are performing. This isn't just tracking numbers; it's about understanding how users engage with the system. Whether your users are on a smartphone in Tokyo or a desktop in New York, EUEM ensures their experience is top-notch.

Key Techniques in EUEM

EUEM uses several techniques to monitor user experience. Synthetic transactions simulate user interactions to test how well apps perform. Real user monitoring (RUM) looks at data from actual user sessions to get a complete picture of what's happening. 

Deep packet inspection analyzes network traffic to find bottlenecks. Together, these techniques give a comprehensive view of user experience, helping to identify and resolve issues quickly.

Why EUEM Matters

In a world where businesses rely heavily on digital platforms, EUEM is a game changer. Ensuring a seamless experience improves:

  • User engagement
  • Conversion rates
  • ROI

The EUEM market is set to grow significantly in the coming years, driven by the need for integration with existing IT infrastructures and more efficient workflows. This growth highlights the increasing importance of EUEM in the digital age.

8 Benefits Of End User Experience Monitoring

1. Elevate User Satisfaction

End-user monitoring tools offer a front-row seat to how users interact with your digital platforms. Understanding their journey lets you quickly pinpoint everything from slow-loading pages to confusing navigation. 

Fixing these issues leads to happier users who stick around longer and enjoy smoother experiences.

2. Optimize Performance Like a Pro

With end-user monitoring, you're not just reacting to problems after they happen. You’re identifying potential bottlenecks in real time. 

This means you can proactively optimize load times and streamline processes, ensuring your app or website runs smoothly even during peak times. It's all about keeping users engaged and satisfied.

3. Spot Issues Before They Explode

Why wait for users to complain? End-user monitoring lets you detect issues early, minimizing disruptions and preventing minor glitches from becoming major headaches. 

Think of it as an early warning system that keeps your digital platforms running efficiently without the drama of a crisis.

4. Make Decisions You Can Trust

The data from end-user monitoring is a goldmine. It reveals user behavior, preferences, and pain points. This insight is crucial for making informed decisions about:

  • Product development
  • Business strategies

Rather than relying on guesswork, you can use actual data to guide your next moves, ensuring you're continuously improving meaningfully.

5. Stay Agile and Ahead

In today’s fast-paced world, being able to adapt quickly is key. End-user monitoring tools help you stay on top of:

  • Changing trends
  • User preferences 

You can pivot swiftly, introducing new features or updates that keep you ahead of the competition. It’s about being responsive and staying relevant.

6. Get More from Your IT Team

End-user monitoring provides clear visibility into what’s working and what’s not. This means you can allocate IT resources more efficiently, focusing on areas that need improvement. 

By optimizing your IT investments, you can maximize impact and efficiency without spreading your team too thin.

7. Keep Improving, Always

End-user monitoring provides continuous data that isn’t just for one-off fixes. It supports an ongoing process of improvement. By making incremental changes based on real user data, you can foster an environment of continuous improvement and deliver seamless experiences over time.

8. Invest Wisely

Understanding your users’ experience helps you make informed decisions about where to allocate resources. If a particular feature is a hit, it might be worth investing more in it. Conversely, you’ll know to pivot or pull back if something isn't resonating with users. 

Gartner’s Market Guide for Digital Experience Monitoring emphasizes that traditional monitoring tools often miss the user’s perspective, which can put your business at risk. EUM provides actionable insights that help you make data-driven decisions to enhance your application.

Related Reading

How Does End User Experience Monitoring Work?

End-user experience monitoring tools are your digital watchdog, always monitoring how users interact with your application or website. They track everything from page load times to network latency, capturing real-time data that helps detect any hiccups or slowdowns, anything that might ruin a user's day. 

These insights allow IT teams to step in and smooth out the wrinkles, ensuring users get the seamless experience they expect. Think of it as a behind-the-scenes crew making sure the show goes smoothly.

Why Is End-User Experience Monitoring So Important?

In a world where user satisfaction can make or break a product, end-user experience monitoring is a game-changer. For example, imagine a fast-food restaurant's rewards app—users expect to order a free chalupa without hassle. 

If technical issues prevent them from doing so, frustration mounts and loyalty fades. EUEM tools help you catch these problems before they spiral out of control. They provide the insights needed to resolve issues quickly, keeping users happy and engaged.

How Do End-User Experience Monitoring Tools Help?

Tools like Alerty are designed to capture real-time data on user interactions, enabling support teams to identify and resolve issues swiftly. By monitoring how users navigate an app, these teams can pinpoint and fix the technical root of the problem. 

This ensures customers can enjoy their rewards without frustration and helps maintain a seamless user experience, which is crucial for the success of any digital service or application.

5 Common Types Of End User Experience Monitoring

1. Understanding Real User Monitoring: Capturing Real-Time Interaction

Real User Monitoring (RUM) is your ace in the hole for capturing how users truly interact with your application. Think of it as a window into the real-world experience of your users. By injecting JavaScript into specific parts of your app, you can monitor actions like:

  • Page views
  • Load times
  • The user's location.

This passive approach gives you the most accurate picture of what happens when users engage with your app. But here’s the catch: RUM requires a decent traffic flow to provide meaningful insights. Without enough users, you’ll be left in the dark.

2. Synthetic Monitoring: Simulating User Actions for Proactive Insight

Synthetic monitoring takes a different approach. Instead of waiting for users to interact with your app, you simulate their actions using scripts. This is useful because it lets you test your app's performance and availability before real users use it. 

By actively monitoring potential issues, you can fix them ahead of time. This proactive approach ensures a smoother experience for your users when they do interact with your application.

3. Application Performance Monitoring: Keeping a Pulse on Your Apps

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is like having a health tracker for your software. It keeps tabs on metrics like:

  • Error rates
  • Downtime
  • Response times 

APM tools provide service providers with insights into how their applications perform and how quickly they troubleshoot issues. This type of monitoring is critical to maintaining the overall performance of IT services and ensuring they’re running smoothly.

5. Device-Based End User Monitoring: Understanding Device Impact

Monitoring your application's load on a user’s device is crucial for optimizing their experience. 

Device-based monitoring helps you identify which resources your app consumes, allowing you to make informed decisions about optimizing it for different devices. By ensuring your application runs smoothly on a user’s system, you’re improving their overall experience.

5. Business Activity Monitoring: Real-Time Insights for Better Decisions

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is all about gaining real-time insights into critical business processes. By tracking data from various sources, BAM provides a comprehensive view of ongoing activities, helping organizations identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies. 

This proactive approach enables stakeholders to make informed decisions and optimize processes for better performance and productivity.

Proactive Solution

And speaking of proactive solutions, catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution today!

Related Reading

How Do You Measure End User Experience? 3 Common End User Performance Monitoring Metrics

1. Why Network Latency Matters

Network latency is the time it takes for data to travel across a network. Think of it as the delay between asking a question and getting an answer. Low latency means faster responses, which leads to smooth application performance and happier users. 

Every organization wants to reduce latency, but some need it more than others. Those undergoing digital transformations, for instance, must keep latency low to ensure productivity remains high during the transition.

2. Application Downtime: The Silent Productivity Killer

Application outages can bring everything to a halt. They can happen due to network issues, coding errors, cloud failures, updates, or security breaches. When applications go down, user experience suffers, and so does your bottom line. 

Monitoring the mean time to detection (MTTD) and mean time to remediation (MTTR) helps you catch and fix problems quickly. The faster you resolve downtime, the better your users feel and the less revenue you lose.

3. Bandwidth and Throughput: Speed Versus Capacity

Bandwidth measures how much data can travel through a network at once. It's like the width of a highway; the wider it is, the more cars can pass side by side. Conversely, throughput measures the amount of data moving through the network, considering delays and losses. 

Think of it as the number of cars that reach their destination. Monitoring both helps you understand how your network performs and how to optimize it, especially during peak usage times.

Top 26 End User Experience Monitoring Tools

Certainly! Here's a comprehensive list of the top tools for end-user monitoring with detailed information about each one:

1. Alerty: A Developer's Best Friend

 Alerty is a cloud monitoring service tailored for developers and early-stage startups. It offers:

  • Application performance monitoring
  • Database monitoring
  • Incident management

It supports technologies like:

  • NextJS
  • React
  • Vue
  • Node.js

Swift Issue Resolution

It helps developers identify and fix issues swiftly. Alerty monitors databases such as:

  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • RDS
  • Tracking key metrics like CPU usage and memory consumption

With quick incident management and Real User Monitoring (RUM) capabilities, it optimizes user experience. Its Universal Service Monitoring covers dependencies such as the following:

  • Stripe API
  • OpenAI
  • Vercel

AI-Powered Efficiency

Alerty uses AI to simplify setup, offering a cost-effective solution compared to competitors. It's designed for ease of use, enabling quick setup, and integrates with tools like Sentry, making it ideal for developers and small teams needing efficient, affordable monitoring. 

Today, catch issues before they affect your users with Alerty's free APM solution!

2. Cisco AppDynamics: Business-Driven Performance Insights

AppDynamics is a full-stack observability platform that correlates performance with key business metrics to identify and resolve performance issues. It automatically tracks traffic requests while providing:

  • Business transaction monitoring
  • Anomaly detection
  • Full-stack analytics

AppDynamics combines application and security monitoring, enabling IT to identify vulnerabilities and resolve issues quickly. It breaks down silos between ops and security teams.

End-User Monitoring

The platform's end-user monitoring component tracks key metrics across devices, browsers, and third-party services to capture data about errors, crashes, network requests, and other events.

3. ControlUp DEX: Real-Time Monitoring at Your Fingertips

ControlUp's digital employee experience management platform monitors physical endpoints, virtual desktops, and SaaS and web applications. It offers end-to-end visibility into servers, desktops, users, and applications. 

This enables IT to troubleshoot performance bottlenecks. The ControlUp DEX platform consists of three main products:

  • Real-Time DX: Gathers data about the end-user experience. 
  • IT admins: Perform real-time monitoring through dashboards that make it possible to pinpoint and proactively fix problems.
  • Solve user interface: Can see the entire environment and search and group resources. 

4. Datadog: A Scalable Monitoring Powerhouse

Datadog is a monitoring and security platform that enables IT and DevOps teams to see inside their application stacks, even at scale. With over 600 built-in integrations, Datadog aggregates metrics and events across a wide range of:

  • Systems
  • Applications
  • Services

Distributed Tracing

Organizations can trace requests across distributed systems and monitor their code using open-source tracing libraries.

Datadog provides auto-generated service overviews to track application performance and graphs and alerts based on error rates or latency percentiles.

5. Dynatrace: AI-Powered Performance Intelligence

Dynatrace is a software intelligence platform that provides end-to-end observability, regardless of scale. The platform includes:

  • Infrastructure monitoring
  • APM
  • DEM
  • Application security
  • Business analytics
  • Cloud automation

IT teams can use AI-powered analytics to predict and resolve issues before they impact users. This feature includes a full topological model incorporating code-level detail and behavioral and user experience data.

Digital Experience

The Digital Experience module is one of the key components of the Dynatrace platform. It ensures that each monitored application is functional and available, including:

  • Web
  • Mobile
  • IoT applications

6. EG Innovations EG Enterprise: Comprehensive Cloud Monitoring

EG Enterprise is a cloud-based application and IT infrastructure monitoring platform that supports on-premises and cloud-hosted applications. It includes tools to:

  • Monitor both modern and legacy applications and tools to detect
  • Diagnose
  • Resolve application issues, all from a centralized interface

The platform provides built-in user experience metrics, proactive alerting and actionable insights.

7. Raygun: Enhance Your App's Performance

Raygun is a monitoring tool suite that provides visibility into the quality and performance of web and mobile apps. The platform includes three primary tools: 

  • Application Performance Monitoring
  • Crash Reporting
  • Real User Monitoring

With Raygun, IT teams can gather detailed information about how users are accessing applications and how the applications are performing.

Real User Monitoring

The Real User Monitoring product provides insights into front-end performance issues that can impact mobile or web users. It supports languages like:

  • React
  • Angular
  • JavaScript
  • Xamarin
  • iOS
  • Android

8. Middleware: Optimize Your User Journey

Businesses can enhance their applications with Middleware's Real User Monitoring (RUM) by gaining comprehensive user journey visibility and optimizing performance. It helps track:

  • Real-time user activity
  • Identify performance bottlenecks
  • Troubleshoot issues with core web vitals such as LCP, FID, and CLS

Additionally, users can capture business-critical actions like checkout clicks and analyze full transactions for web and mobile apps.

9. Nexthink Infinity: A New Era of Digital Experience Management

Nexthink launched Infinity, a cloud-based analytics, automation, and remediation platform, in 2022. The platform uses machine learning and benchmarking to enable 

IT teams can diagnose issues and automatically find their root causes. Nexthink Infinity provides visibility across all environments and proactively identifies employee experience issues. It is a comprehensive DEX tool that allows IT teams to remediate over a million workspaces.

10. Riverbed Alluvio Aternity: Predict and Prevent Disruptions

Alluvio Aternity is a digital experience management platform that provides actionable user experience insights while helping to predict and prevent business disruptions. The platform collects and stores technical telemetry from various devices and applications.

Alluvio Aternity combines:

  • IT service benchmarking
  • Device performance monitoring
  • APM
  • EUEM into a single platform

11. ThousandEyes: Real-Time Network Performance Monitoring

ThousandEyes is a network performance monitoring tool that offers real-time monitoring and analytics for:

  • Network performance
  • Application performance
  • User experience

ThousandEyes allows organizations to monitor and optimize end-user experiences with its:

  • Comprehensive network visibility
  • Intelligent monitoring
  • Real-time analytics

12. Oracle Business Activity Monitoring: Stay on Top of Your KPIs

Oracle BAM enables organizations to monitor and analyze critical business activities and serves as a dashboard for tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. 

Oracle BAM collects data from various sources across the enterprise and presents it in customizable dashboards and reports.

13. Whatfix: Gain Actionable Insights into User Behavior

Whatfix offers detailed insights into user behavior across your website and applications. It collects and analyzes data related to:

  • User Engagement
  • Interactions
  • Adoption patterns within the application 

By leveraging this feature, businesses gain a deep understanding of how users navigate through their software.

14. Cflow: Simplify Workflow Management

Cflow is a cloud-based workflow automation software designed to:

  • Streamline
  • Automate
  • Monitor business processes

The platform’s functionality is centered around a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor that makes it possible to:

  • Create
  • Manage
  • Optimize workflows

15. Pendo: Unlock User Interaction Insights

Pendo helps companies understand and improve how users interact with their digital products. It gives businesses a clear picture of how people use websites, apps, or software by tracking every:

  • Click
  • Swipe
  • Interaction

16. Serverless360: Monitor Your Serverless Architectures

Serverless360 is a comprehensive monitoring platform for managing complex serverless architectures within cloud environments like Microsoft Azure. 

It provides centralized monitoring, management, and automation capabilities for serverless applications.

17. Elastic Observability: Get Real-Time Insights Into Your Stack

Elastic Observability is a monitoring and network observability solution that provides real-time insights into application performance, infrastructure, and logs. The platform's log and metric analysis strengths ensure prompt detection and resolution of performance issues.

18. New Relic: Monitor Your Applications in Real Time

New Relic is an APM solution that provides real-time insights into:

  • Application performance
  • User experience
  • Business impact

With real user monitoring, application performance insights, and comprehensive analytics, New Relic equips organizations with tools to monitor and optimize the end-user experience.

19. Splunk: Gain Full Visibility Into Your Infrastructure

Splunk is a cloud-based platform that provides monitoring, logging, and analytics capabilities for:

  • Applications 
  • Infrastructure

With real-time monitoring, performance analytics, and the ability to correlate data from various sources, Splunk ensures a comprehensive view of the end-user journey.

20. Icinga: Simplify Network Monitoring

An open-source network monitoring and management tool that provides real-time visibility into:

  • Network performance
  • Health

The platform's emphasis on real-time insights ensures a seamless digital experience for end-users.

21. Auvik: Keep Your Network Healthy

A cloud-based network monitoring and management tool that provides real-time visibility into:

  • Network performance
  • Health
  • Security

Network Monitoring

With its emphasis on:

  • Network discovery
  • Mapping
  • Automated monitoring

Auvik provides insights into device performance and network health.

22. ScienceLogic: Gain Full Visibility Into Your IT Infrastructure

An IT infrastructure monitoring and management platform that offers real-time visibility into:

  • Network performance
  • Health
  • Security

ScienceLogic is recognized for its effectiveness in End User Monitoring (EUM).

23. PRTG Network Monitor: Simplify IT Management

A comprehensive IT management software solution that offers network bandwidth monitoring capabilities. It provides real-time:

  • Traffic analysis
  • Bandwidth usage reports
  • Device tracking

24. AppNeta: Gain Visibility Into the End-User Experience

AppNeta is a network performance monitoring tool that offers real-time monitoring and analytics for network performance and application performance. 

With features like real user monitoring, application performance insights, and comprehensive analytics, AppNeta enables organizations to gain visibility into the end-user experience.

25. Catchpoint: Gain Comprehensive Insights Into the End-User Experience

Catchpoint is a cloud-based network and digital experience monitoring platform that provides real-time monitoring and analytics for:

  • Network performance
  • Web performance
  • User experience

Focusing on providing comprehensive insights into the end-user experience, Catchpoint offers features such as:

  • Real user monitoring
  • Synthetic monitoring
  • Advanced analytics

26. Kentik: Unlock Network Traffic Intelligence

Kentik is a network traffic intelligence platform that provides real-time:

  • Network performance monitoring
  • Analytics

With its advanced capabilities in network traffic analysis, flow data processing, and real-time visibility, Kentik provides organizations with the tools needed to monitor and enhance the end-user experience effectively.

6 Best Practices For End User Monitoring

1. Stay Ahead with Alerts

Synthetic monitoring is like a vigilant watchtower for your website. You simulate user interactions to spot issues like downtime and slow load times. But here’s the kicker: if you don’t set up alerts, you might miss the moment things go south. 

Use tools like Alerty to receive instant notifications through SMS, email, or push alerts. This way, you’ll know problems before they impact your users.

2. Get Real with Transaction Monitoring

Running basic checks is a good start, but transaction monitoring takes it to the next level. You simulate user journeys, like buying a product or signing up, ensuring these crucial processes work smoothly. 

This proactive approach helps you catch issues early, keeping your customers happy and your business running smoothly.

3. Test Like a Global Citizen

Your app might perform differently in Tokyo than it does in New York. That’s why testing from multiple locations is crucial. 

This allows you to identify performance problems affecting users in specific regions. It also gives you a global view of your app’s performance and helps you deliver a consistent user experience.

4. Keep an Eye on New Features

When introducing a new feature or tweak an interface, accurate user monitoring (RUM) offers valuable insights. 

It shows how these changes impact user interaction, helping you catch issues before they reach production. This ensures that new features enhance, rather than hinder, the user experience.

5. Integrate for a Holistic View

Applications are complex beasts. They’re composed of code, databases, and infrastructure. Problems in these areas can lead to downtime or poor performance. 

Integrating RUM with other monitoring tools gives you a comprehensive view of your app’s health. This holistic approach helps you quickly troubleshoot issues, ensuring a smoother user experience.

6. Protect Your Bottom Line

Early detection of performance problems prevents users from leaving your platform in frustration. With fewer issues, your development team can focus on initiatives that generate business value. 

You’ll boost customer satisfaction and conversion rates, all while keeping your bottom line healthy.

Related Reading

Catch Issues Before They Affect Your Users with Alerty's Free APM Solution

Alerty has crafted a niche in cloud monitoring, and it makes sense why. Built for developers and startups, it’s an affordable solution that gets you tracking fast. It covers application performance monitoring, database monitoring, and incident management. It’s geared towards tech stacks like:

  • NextJS
  • React
  • Vue
  • Node.js.

You can spot performance issues before they become user headaches. Alerty supports databases like:

  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • RDS

Performance Monitoring

You can watch key performance metrics like CPU use and memory consumption. It even handles Universal Service Monitoring for dependencies like:

  • Stripe API
  • Vercel

Integration with tools like Sentry and its AI-driven setup make it a no-brainer for small teams looking to catch issues fast.

Real User Monitoring: Keep Users Happy

Alerty’s Real User Monitoring (RUM) lets you see how users interact with your app. It tracks key metrics like:

  • Load times
  • User paths
  • Errors

That visibility helps you pinpoint issues that might be affecting user experience. With RUM, you can optimize your app for performance and ensure it delivers the best possible user experience. Alerty’s RUM is easy to set up and use so that you can gather insights immediately.

Quick Incident Management: Minimize Downtime

Alerty’s incident management features help you respond to issues quickly and minimize downtime. It integrates with popular tools like Slack and PagerDuty to get alerts where you need them. 

When an incident occurs, you can track it through Alerty’s dashboard and collaborate with your team to resolve it. The platform’s AI-driven insights can help you identify the root cause of an issue and take action to prevent it from happening again.

Universal Service Monitoring: Stay Ahead of Dependencies

Alerty’s universal service monitoring monitors your app’s external dependencies. It tracks the health and performance of services like:

  • Stripe API
  • OpenAI
  • Vercel

That means you can catch issues with third-party services before they affect your app. Alerty’s monitoring is designed to be lightweight and flexible, so it won’t slow down your app or interfere with your workflow.

Cost-Effective Monitoring: Get More for Less

Alerty is designed to be cost-effective, especially for early-stage startups and small teams. Its pricing is based on the number of services you monitor, so you only pay for what you use. 

The platform’s lightweight agents and AI-driven setup make it easy to start, so you can start monitoring your app without much upfront investment. With Alerty, you can get the needed performance insights without breaking the bank.