Does session replay impact performance? Such as page load time?

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Mixpanel Session Replay is designed with performance in mind and generally has minimal impact on your website or app’s performance.For Web: Mixpanel uses the open-source library rrweb, which is optimized for performance. When recording starts, rrweb takes an initial snapshot of the DOM and then asynchronously monitors changes using MutationObserver, which avoids repeated full snapshots. User interactions are also throttled, and data is compressed before being sent to Mixpanel servers. The SDK has been extensively tested and typically has minimal impact on website performance. However, the initial snapshot does require some processing, and more complex or interactive pages may generate more data. It’s recommended to conduct your own performance testing after implementation to ensure everything runs smoothly for your specific use case. There is no explicit mention of increased page load time, but the initial snapshot and ongoing monitoring are designed to be lightweight and non-blocking to the UI thread Implement Session Replay (Web) FAQ.For iOS: There is no impact on your app’s performance when there are no user interactions or screen changes. When there are interactions, the expected impact on CPU and memory is negligible, and there is no impact on disk I/O. Mixpanel’s own testing found the overhead to be unnoticeable, but it’s advised to test in your own environment, as results may vary depending on your app’s specifics Implement Session Replay (iOS) FAQ.For Android: The knowledge sources do not explicitly mention performance impact for Android, but the implementation and masking features are similar to iOS, suggesting a similar approach to minimizing performance overhead.Summary: Mixpanel Session Replay is built to minimize performance impact, but you should always test in your own environment to ensure it meets your standards, especially for complex or highly interactive applications.

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