Embrace

Embrace is real user monitoring software that connects application performance signals to individual sessions across mobile and web. It is best suited to frontend and mobile engineers, with DevOps and SRE teams also in its intended audience. Its session-level context and broad export options are compelling, but the free tier’s short retention and firm caps make plan choice important.

Overview

Embrace brings crashes, network requests, custom events, and web performance measures into the context of full user sessions. That makes it useful for tracing technical problems to user journeys rather than reviewing isolated metrics. Mobile monitoring covers crashes, ANRs, networks, and performance; web monitoring adds session timelines, Core Web Vitals, errors, custom metrics, and alerting.

The platform is built on OpenTelemetry, and customers can send metrics, network spans, logs, or traces to other destinations. Configurable dashboards, SLO support, and user journey analysis round out its monitoring capabilities. Embrace was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Los Angeles.

Key features

• Session-level investigation: Crashes, network requests, custom events, and Core Web Vitals can be examined alongside the user session. This is a strong fit when teams need to understand the impact and sequence of a frontend or mobile issue.
• Mobile and web RUM: Mobile monitoring includes crash, ANR, network, and performance insights. Web monitoring adds full timelines, Core Web Vitals, exception and error reporting, custom metrics, and alerting.
• Dashboards and user flows: Teams can configure dashboards, define custom metrics, use SLO support, and analyze user journeys. These capabilities suit teams that need to move from a detected signal to a broader view of the affected experience.
• OpenTelemetry and destinations: Embrace supports data forwarding through its data destination and OpenTelemetry interfaces. Documented integrations include Slack and webhooks, plus destinations such as Datadog, Grafana Cloud, Honeycomb, New Relic, Splunk, Elastic, Chronosphere, and Observe. This gives teams options to connect monitoring data to other tools.
• SDK coverage: Instrumentation documentation covers Android, iOS, web, React Native, Unity, and Flutter, extending beyond the platforms listed for the product.

Pricing

Embrace prices mobile and web RUM on the same session basis, and both contribute to overall session consumption. That shared quota simplifies cross-platform accounting, but teams need to track combined usage rather than treat mobile and web as separate allowances.

• Free — free: Pay-as-you-go, with up to 1 million sessions per year and 5 users. It includes 3 days of event retention, errors, exceptions, crashes, basic performance monitoring, dashboards, and alerting. It is a practical starting point for small teams, but three days of retention limits how far back they can investigate. Reaching either the session cap or user cap prevents additional ingestion or users unless the customer upgrades.
• Pro — $0.80 a month: Pay-as-you-go or annual contract, with a minimum spend of $80/month. It allows up to 10 users and 14 days of event retention, and adds custom dashboards, API access, metrics forwarding, standard customer support, and discounts for higher session volume. The listed per-month price does not remove the minimum spend, so Pro is a better fit for teams whose needs justify that floor. It still has a user cap and shorter retention than Enterprise.
• Enterprise — custom pricing: Annual contract, unlimited users, 30 days of event retention, custom metrics, events and spans forwarding, and gold-tier customer support. It fits larger teams that need more seats, longer retention, or the Enterprise forwarding and support provisions; the annual contract is a less flexible commitment than the Free plan’s pay-as-you-go terms.

A 30-day trial is offered. The Free plan is billed pay-as-you-go, while Pro supports pay-as-you-go or an annual contract and Enterprise is an annual contract.

Platforms

Embrace supports Android, iOS, web, and API. Its SDK documentation also covers React Native, Unity, and Flutter, making it relevant to teams working across native and cross-platform applications.

Who it's for

Embrace is a strong candidate for frontend and mobile engineers who need session context around crashes, network behavior, and performance. DevOps and SRE teams can also use its dashboards, SLO support, alerting, and data forwarding. It is less compelling for teams that need substantial retention or more than five users while staying on the free tier, or that cannot justify Pro’s monthly minimum spend.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Session timelines connect technical signals with user journeys, helping teams investigate issues in context.
• Pro: OpenTelemetry support and multiple data destinations give teams ways to forward monitoring data into other tools.
• Pro: Android, iOS, and web coverage, with SDK documentation for React Native, Unity, and Flutter, suits mixed application stacks.
• Con: The Free plan stops ingestion or new user additions at 1 million annual sessions or 5 users, whichever comes first.
• Con: Free retention is only 3 days, while Pro’s minimum spend is $80/month despite its listed $0.80 per month price.
• Con: Enterprise requires an annual contract, which may not suit teams seeking a flexible commitment.

Alternatives

For a broader category comparison, browse Real User Monitoring. Teams focused on game crash reporting can also compare the Game Crash Reporting Software category.

• Middleware is worth considering for teams wanting a free tier that includes up to 100GB of data, 1k RUM sessions, and 20k synthetic checks, across a wider set of platforms.
• BugSnag may suit teams looking for a free plan with 7.5K events and 1M spans per month, and support for 50+ platforms.
• TrueWatch Real User Monitoring is an alternative for teams preferring usage-based RUM pricing at $0.43 per contact, billed per 10K page views per day.
• Last9 Real User Monitoring is another mobile and web RUM option, with custom pricing.
• Grafana Faro may suit web-only teams seeking a free allowance of 50,000 sessions per month or a Pro plan at $19 a month.
• New Relic Browser Monitoring is a web-focused alternative with a free tier that includes 100 GB of monthly data ingest and one full platform user.
• Amazon CloudWatch RUM is a paid alternative for Android, iOS, and web.
• Coralogix RUM is a paid alternative for Android, iOS, and web.

Verdict

Choose Embrace if your team needs mobile and web performance signals tied to full user sessions, especially when OpenTelemetry forwarding and user journey analysis matter. The Free tier is a useful entry point for a small, low-volume team, but its 3-day retention and strict user and session caps are real constraints. Look elsewhere if those limits or Pro’s $80/month minimum do not fit your needs.