Smartlook
Session replays, heatmaps and funnels for web and mobile — the Brno-built product now inside Cisco's observability stack.
Acquired — still operating
Acquired by Cisco in 2023 and folded into Cisco AppDynamics; still operates standalone, but Cisco's official guidance steers new buyers toward Splunk Observability Cloud.
About
Smartlook was founded in 2016 in Brno, Czechia, and built a strong product at the intersection of qualitative UX research and product analytics: session recordings, heatmaps, custom events, funnels, and crash reporting across web and native mobile — it can even record Unity-engine games, per third-party comparisons. Named customers include O2, Miele, and Hyundai (provider-claimed). In 2023 Cisco closed the acquisition of Smartlook (confirmed on Cisco's Q4 FY2023 earnings call) and folded it into Cisco AppDynamics' full-stack observability offering.
The product still operates in 2026 — reviews are still being written, with a free plan covering about 1,500 sessions a month and paid tiers starting around $39/month. But Cisco's official guidance steers buyers toward Splunk Observability Cloud (RUM plus digital experience analytics), and independent migration guides now treat the standalone product as a flight risk. Buy it for what it does today, not for where it goes next.
What it can do
- Session recordings for web and native mobile apps
- Heatmaps, funnels, custom events, and retention analysis
- Crash reporting with session context
- Recordings shareable with timestamps and team notes
- Slack and analytics integrations (GA, Mixpanel, Segment, Zendesk)
- Can record Unity-engine games (provider-claimed)
Setup
- Sign up for the free plan and add the tracking script or mobile SDK.
- Configure custom events and funnels for the journeys you care about.
- Watch recordings from funnel drop-offs and crash reports.
- Share timestamped recordings with support or dev teams via Slack integration.
Prerequisites
Free to start; paid plan for higher session volumes. Evaluate Cisco's long-term direction before committing to a contract.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (METRICS tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: founded 2016 in Brno; acquisition closed 2023 per Cisco's official earnings call; product still reviewed and sold in 2026 (free ~1,500 sessions/mo, ~$39/mo starter per third-party comparisons). Strengths: genuine web/mobile parity, Unity recording, solid event/funnel analytics. Docked for: (1) Cisco's migration guidance points new buyers at Splunk, making the standalone product's future uncertain; (2) customer logos and session figures are provider-claimed, not independently verified; (3) enterprise ownership has narrowed the self-serve appeal. License: proprietary SaaS, closed-source.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.5/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 6.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 2.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · Founded 2016 Brno; acquired by Cisco 2023 (earnings call confirmed)
- · Still operating: free ~1,500 sessions/mo, starter ~$39/mo
- · Cisco steers new buyers to Splunk — standalone future uncertain
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.