Akamai mPulse — Real user monitoring that connects performance to business results
Correlate real-world performance with conversions, revenue, and user satisfaction. Akamai mPulse captures live user interactions across web and mobile, analyzes 200+ performance and business metrics in real time (including Core Web Vitals), and applies predictive analytics to show which fixes will have the biggest impact on outcomes.
Read the product brief to see how teams use mPulse to prioritize, prove, and scale performance improvements.
Why mPulse
See what customers actually experience. Capture field data for page loads, API calls, resources, devices, networks, and geographies — as users experience them.
Tie speed to revenue. Model how changes to LCP, INP, CLS, and other metrics influence conversions and revenue so you can fix the right things first.
Detect and fix issues faster. Get instant alerts when thresholds are crossed or anomalies occur, even during traffic spikes. Separate bot traffic from human behavior to focus on true customer experience.
Keep historical context. Analyze seasonality and trends with 13 months of retained data.
Optimize third parties. Monitor and manage the impact of ads, analytics, A/B tools, and other third-party scripts.
How it works
Collect: A lightweight beacon gathers real-user performance and business data from web and mobile sessions.
Analyze: Out-of-the-box dashboards populate instantly with sitewide views and drill-downs.
Report: Slice by device, browser, country, page group, traffic source, and custom dimensions.
Alert: Get notified on threshold breaches and automatically detected anomalies to shorten time to resolution.
What mPulse measures
mPulse tracks real-user performance and engagement across:
Core Web Vitals: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
Page and network: TTFB, DOM load, total load, resource timing, JavaScript errors, API latency
User context: device, browser, OS, geography, connection speed
Business signals: conversions, revenue, abandonment, custom KPIs and timers
Traffic quality: human vs. bot segmentation
Third parties: individual script and tag impact
Prioritize the right fixes with patented what‑if analysis
Many RUM tools show you what’s slow. mPulse goes further by estimating the lift you can expect when you improve a specific metric for a targeted audience or flow. Its patented what‑if analysis models the relationship between performance and outcomes (like conversion rate or revenue per session) so you can:
Quantify the upside of reducing LCP or INP in a funnel step
Compare the business impact of multiple optimization options
Build a prioritized backlog with expected ROI, not just technical severity
Core Web Vitals and anomaly detection during traffic spikes
mPulse continuously measures Core Web Vitals from field data and lets you:
Track P75 and distributions for LCP, INP, and CLS across pages, segments, and geographies
Separate bot traffic to avoid skewed vitals and business metrics
Detect anomalies in real time — including sudden regressions during events, launches, or peak season — with alerts that point to likely causes (resource, region, device, or third-party script)
How this compares in practice:
- Teams often pair mPulse with an APM like Dynatrace to get full front‑end plus back‑end visibility. mPulse specializes in front‑end CX and Core Web Vitals at massive scale, adds predictive “what‑if” modeling tied to revenue, and provides built‑in bot filtering and spike-aware anomaly detection that complement back‑end diagnostics.
Real user performance and revenue modeling vs. New Relic Browser
New Relic Browser offers front‑end telemetry within a broader observability platform. mPulse is purpose‑built for digital experience optimization, emphasizing:
Native correlation between performance and business KPIs (conversion, revenue, abandonment)
Patented what‑if analysis to forecast revenue impact before you implement changes
Executive and DevOps dashboards designed to communicate business value of performance to stakeholders
Many organizations use mPulse alongside New Relic for business-focused prioritization of front‑end work while maintaining unified observability for infrastructure and application code.
API and data access
mPulse provides programmatic access so you can automate reporting and integrate RUM data with your analytics stack. You can:
Query real-user metrics and aggregates over time windows
Segment by dimensions such as page group, device, browser, geography, and custom dimensions
Retrieve Core Web Vitals percentiles and distributions
Export data for use in third-party tools or warehouses
For implementation details, endpoints, and examples, see the mPulse technical documentation: View TechDocs.
If you need low-latency streaming of logs and telemetry to external platforms, Akamai DataStream provides an additional path for exporting observability data.
Common use cases
Ensure exceptional user experience: Track KPIs that matter to your site, identify bottlenecks quickly, and verify improvements with live user data.
Monitor third-party resources: Find slow or unstable tags and quantify their impact on Core Web Vitals and conversion.
Prioritize site enhancements: Use revenue-linked what‑if analysis to decide which frontend improvements deliver the biggest payoff.
Scale for peak: Maintain a cohesive view of web and mobile performance during traffic surges, seasonal peaks, and major releases.
mPulse also ingests signals from tools you already use (for example, AppDynamics, Dynatrace, New Relic) so you can correlate front‑end experience with back‑end health.
How Akamai improves website performance
Akamai helps you deliver fast, reliable digital experiences and then validate results with real-user data.
Deliver and accelerate: Akamai’s globally distributed edge platform and performance solutions help reduce latency and improve page responsiveness for users everywhere. See App and API Performance and Ion.
Observe and optimize: Use mPulse for real-user insights and Core Web Vitals, and CloudTest for large-scale synthetic and load testing.
Monitor continuously: Combine RUM and synthetic monitoring to catch issues proactively and verify real-world impact. Learn more about RUM vs. synthetic testing.
What you get
Real-time analytics and dashboards for executives and DevOps
Automated anomaly detection and alerting
13-month data retention for trend analysis and seasonality
Bot detection and traffic quality insights
Core Web Vitals tracking and business impact modeling
Third-party monitoring and custom metrics, dimensions, and timers
“With Akamai mPulse, we can pinpoint performance degradations and substantiate the value of performance improvements to optimize the customer experience and, in turn, our revenues.” — Stuart Gray, Frontend Site Performance, Shop Direct Read the customer story
Get started
Try mPulse Lite free for 30 days: real-user performance, real-time analytics, executive and DevOps dashboards, iOS mobile app, and 1M beacons/month. Start a free trial on this page.
Ready for full capabilities (alerting, reporting, anomaly detection, data science insights, custom metrics/dimensions/timers, unlimited page groups)? Contact Sales to see mPulse in action and discuss pricing.