Microsoft Clarity vs OpenReplay

Free

From $4.5 per 1k sessions (indicative, cloud)

Free with no traffic cap. Microsoft uses aggregated data to improve its products, which is the trade you are making.

Self-hosting costs only infrastructure. Cloud pricing is usage-based and cheaper than the closed-source leaders.

Everything, unlimited, at any traffic level.

Self-hosted community edition is free and unlimited.

Category standard

Microsoft · since 2020

Established

OpenReplay · since 2021

• No cost and no sampling at any volume — nothing else in the category comes close on price.
• Rage-click and dead-click detection surfaces real usability problems immediately.
• Easy to install and reasonable default masking of sensitive fields.

• Full data sovereignty — recordings stay inside your infrastructure.
• Developer-focused feature set comparable to LogRocket.
• No volume-based pricing when self-hosted.

• Data goes to Microsoft, which is a real consideration for GDPR-sensitive deployments.
• Filtering and segmentation are shallower than paid tools.
• Support is community-based and the roadmap is not yours to influence.

• Self-hosting session replay is a non-trivial operational commitment, including storage.
• Smaller community and fewer integrations than the commercial tools.
• Analytics and funnel features are thinner.

Almost anyone starting with session replay, and anyone whose paid tool is mainly used for basic replay.

Privacy-constrained or high-volume teams that cannot use a hosted replay vendor.