Before diving into the how , it is essential to understand the what . PostHog, inspired by , serializes the DOM and user interactions into a structured, non-video format. Instead of capturing pixel-heavy video files, it records incremental JSON snapshots—a lightweight and highly queryable data format. This commitment to data portability is also evident in PostHog's open-source foundation and its transparent pricing, which includes a generous free tier. The goal is to give you maximum visibility and control over your most valuable asset: your user data.
The requirement to be "portable" doesn't override the need to be privacy-conscious. PostHog allows you to mask sensitive information directly on the , meaning sensitive data is never sent to the server in the first place. You can define CSS selectors to block specific elements or use a custom masking function to obfuscate text while still capturing user behavior on the client. posthog session replay portable
This comprehensive guide explores how to build a portable PostHog session replay pipeline, the architectural patterns required, and how to manage data privacy and performance. Why Make Session Replay Portable? Before diving into the how , it is
Since the data format aligns with the standard rrweb specification, you do not need PostHog running to view the recording. You can build a lightweight, portable HTML page that consumes this raw JSON data. This commitment to data portability is also evident
from posthog import Posthog import json