Embrace

Embrace is a real user monitoring platform for mobile apps and web experiences, connecting performance signals with user sessions. Mobile monitoring captures sessions and provides crash, ANR, network, and performance insights. Web monitoring includes full session timelines, Core Web Vitals, exception and error reporting, custom metrics, and alerting. Crashes, network requests, custom events, and web vitals can be examined in session context. Embrace is built on OpenTelemetry and says customers own their data and can connect it with other tools. Its documented SDK instrumentation covers Android, iOS, web, React Native, Unity, and Flutter. The platform offers configurable dashboards, SLO support, custom metrics, user journey analysis, and data forwarding for metrics, network spans, logs, or traces. Mobile and web sessions share a pricing basis. The free plan includes up to 1 million sessions per year and five users, with three days of event retention; reaching either cap stops additional ingestion or users unless the customer upgrades. Pro is listed at $0.80 per month with an $80 monthly minimum spend.

Embrace brings mobile and web performance signals into user-session context, with OpenTelemetry-based integrations and data forwarding. The free plan has explicit session, user, and retention limits, while Pro carries an $80 monthly minimum spend.

Embrace is aimed at frontend and mobile engineers, and also highlights DevOps and SRE teams. It suits teams that want session-level performance context across mobile and web.

Embrace is a real user monitoring platform for mobile apps and websites. It suits frontend and mobile engineers who need to trace technical problems through user sessions, as well as DevOps and SRE teams connecting those signals to broader observability tools. Its strongest case is the combination of session context and OpenTelemetry-based data forwarding; the free tier’s strict ingestion cap and short retention make it a limited long-term option for growing workloads.

Overview

Embrace brings crashes, network activity, custom events, and web performance measures into the context of user sessions. That helps teams follow the sequence around an issue and see how it affected a user, instead of investigating each signal on its own. Mobile monitoring covers crashes, ANRs, network requests, and performance. Web monitoring adds session timelines, Core Web Vitals, exception and error reporting, custom metrics, and alerting.

Configurable dashboards, SLO support, and user journey analysis give teams ways to track service health and investigate user flows. Embrace was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Los Angeles.

Key features

• Full-session context: Crashes, network requests, custom events, and Core Web Vitals can be viewed alongside sessions. This is valuable when engineers need to reconstruct what happened around a mobile or web issue, rather than start from an aggregate alert.
• Mobile and web monitoring: Mobile coverage includes crashes, ANRs, network activity, and performance; web coverage adds session timelines, Core Web Vitals, errors, custom metrics, and alerting. Teams responsible for both app and web experiences can use one session-based approach, with both RUM sources counting against the same session allowance.
• OpenTelemetry and exports: Embrace is built on OpenTelemetry and supports forwarding metrics, network spans, and logs or traces. Destinations include Datadog, Grafana Cloud, Honeycomb, New Relic, Splunk, Elastic, Chronosphere, and Observe, alongside Slack and webhooks. This is a practical fit for teams that want RUM signals in an existing toolchain.
• Dashboards and user flows: Configurable dashboards, custom metrics, SLO support, and user journey analysis help teams monitor service health and examine how people move through an experience.

Pricing

Embrace uses session-based pricing, and mobile and web sessions count toward the same overall consumption. The Free plan costs nothing, billed Pay-as-you-go. It allows up to 1 million sessions per year and 5 users, with 3 days of event retention. It includes errors, exceptions, crashes, basic performance monitoring, dashboards, and alerting. This is a useful starting point for a small team, but reaching either the session or user cap prevents further ingestion or adding users until the account upgrades.

Pro is $0.80 a month, billed Pay-as-you-go or Annual Contract, with a minimum spend of $80/month. It raises the user allowance to 10 and retention to 14 days, and adds custom dashboards, API access, metrics forwarding, standard customer support, and discounts at higher session volumes. It fits teams that need more room and export access, though the minimum spend makes it a paid commitment even when session usage is modest.

Enterprise has custom pricing on an Annual contract. It includes unlimited users, 30 days of event retention, custom metrics, events and spans forwarding, and gold-tier customer support. This is the clearest fit for larger organizations that need those expanded limits and support. The free plan’s 3-day retention and Pro’s 14 days are notably shorter than Enterprise’s 30 days.

The pricing note includes a 30-day trial. Plan terms also describe Embrace as billed Pay-as-you-go or by annual contract, depending on the plan.

Platforms

Embrace supports Android, iOS, web, and API. Its instrumentation documentation also covers React Native, Unity, and Flutter, extending its relevance to teams building cross-platform apps and games.

Who it's for

Embrace is best suited to frontend and mobile engineers who need session-level context for crashes, network problems, and performance issues. DevOps and SRE teams can use its dashboards, SLO support, and data forwarding to connect user-facing signals with wider observability workflows. Teams that need longer event history, more than 5 users on the free tier, or session volume beyond the annual cap should weigh the paid minimum and plan limits against their needs.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Full-session context connects technical signals to user journeys, helping teams investigate the sequence and impact of an issue.
• Pro: OpenTelemetry-based forwarding and a broad set of listed destinations let teams route metrics, spans, logs, or traces into established observability tools.
• Pro: Mobile and web sessions share one pricing basis, with monitoring coverage for both app and browser experiences.
• Con: The free tier stops ingestion at 1 million sessions per year or 5 users and retains events for only 3 days, which can constrain team growth and retrospective investigation.
• Con: Pro has an $80/month minimum spend, while its 14-day event retention remains shorter than Enterprise’s 30 days.

Alternatives

Real User Monitoring is a useful category starting point for comparing RUM tools. Teams focused on game crash reporting can also browse Game Crash Reporting Software.

• Dynatrace Kubernetes Monitoring may suit teams whose priority is Kubernetes monitoring, with hourly pod-based consumption and a free trial.
• BugSnag is another freemium option, with a free tier described around event and span allowances and support for more than 50 platforms.
• Middleware offers a free tier with data, RUM session, synthetic check, and browser test allowances for teams comparing broader monitoring quotas.
• Dynatrace Real User Monitoring is a paid alternative with per-session pricing and a separate RUM with Session Replay plan.
• TrueWatch Real User Monitoring offers freemium access and pay-as-you-go RUM pricing based on page views.
• Raygun Application Performance Monitoring is a paid option with monthly plans priced per 100,000 traces.
• Last9 Real User Monitoring offers custom pricing for teams seeking another RUM option.
• Amazon CloudWatch RUM is a paid alternative with usage-based pricing.

Verdict

Choose Embrace if your frontend or mobile team needs to connect performance issues to complete user sessions and route telemetry into an existing observability stack. Its OpenTelemetry foundation and coverage across mobile and web make that combination compelling. Look elsewhere if the free tier’s 1 million annual sessions, 5-user ceiling, or 3-day retention is too restrictive, or if Pro’s $80/month minimum does not fit your expected usage.