What is a heatmap?

A heatmap is a visualisation that aggregates an interaction metric, such as clicks, mouse movement or scroll depth, from many sessions onto a single page image, using colour to show where activity concentrates.

Why it matters

Heatmaps answer questions about populations. Where do people click on the pricing page? How far down the article do they scroll? What do they ignore? They compress thousands of sessions into a single picture, which makes them good for spotting patterns and useless for explaining any single one.

That is the natural division of labour with session replay. A heatmap shows that many users click a non-interactive image; a replay shows one of them doing it, what they expected, and what they did next. The analytics versus replay post covers the split.

How AnyReplay handles it

AnyReplay is a session replay product and does not ship a heatmap. What it records is the raw material a heatmap is built from: a DOM recording with every click, scroll and mouse move as an event, tied to the element under it rather than to pixel coordinates alone. Where AnyReplay adds value is the per-session view: rage click flags to find sessions worth watching, and session translation so a reviewer can watch a user in any language. If you need aggregate heatmaps, pair AnyReplay with an analytics tool and use replay to answer the why.