Real User Monitoring: Measuring What Matters
Raygun is an error and performance monitoring platform for websites and mobile apps. For sites, it works by installing a JavaScript snippet — a quick process that activates monitoring immediately. What you get is more than a single performance snapshot: Raygun provides historical dashboards that let you observe how performance trends over time.
This is Real User Monitoring (RUM), which captures how actual visitors experience your site. This stands in contrast to synthetic testing, which runs against headless browsers — valuable, but not representative of real conditions. With RUM, you're measuring genuine user experiences, giving you more accurate data than a simulated environment.
Once logged in, you can view high-level trends and drill down into specific pages or individual user sessions to diagnose performance issues.
Core Web Vitals Built In
Raygun now includes Google's Core Web Vitals metrics directly: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift.
One notable advantage is that you don't need to manually select which pages to track these metrics on. If Raygun is installed on a page, that page is monitored. This provides full coverage for sites that have the snippet deployed globally, so you're not left guessing whether an untracked page is underperforming.
Filtering the Noise
Comprehensive data collection means you'll have plenty to work with. Raygun makes it manageable through targeted filters. If a user reports a problem in a particular browser — say, slowness in Firefox — you can filter your view down to that browser and focus on sessions originating from it.
From Monitoring to Action
The real value of Raygun lies in its diagnostic detail. Each measurement is paired with waterfall timelines, session data, and instance-level diagnostics. That combination lets you investigate the root cause of low scores, not just record them — allowing you to actively improve your Core Web Vitals rather than simply track them.
Unified Performance and Error Tracking
While the performance monitoring features get attention, Raygun is also a robust error reporting tool. Having both capabilities in one platform means you don't have to deploy and maintain separate services for crash reporting and performance monitoring. Both are surfaced in the same interface, reducing tool sprawl and consolidating your monitoring workflow.
Once you've completed the free trial, available plans start at $8/month for RUM with Core Web Vitals included. A 14-day free trial of Raygun is available to get started.
