Kumu uses Embrace to eliminate networking issues and thrive in the social livestreaming space

Kumu is a powerful social media platform that brings together the voices of users from all over the globe. They use it to connect with each other and have fun by messaging, livestreaming, and participating in events like game shows, trivia contests, and ongoing campaigns to see who can earn the most virtual gifts.

Kumu grew its global footprint from an initial userbase that was heavily concentrated in The Philippines. Like in many parts of the world, the users had older, less powerful Android phones and lived in areas with poor network connectivity. This resulted in crashes and app failures due to the memory and data-intensive nature of Kumu’s platform. Kumu engineers needed a way to identify and categorize issues to more effectively prioritize engineering resources.

Embrace’s network monitoring and session replay empower Kumu to look up user complaints and immediately identify whether they stem from poor network connection or the application. With this information, Kumu can deliver better user experiences while reducing their issue resolution times.

While Kumu started as a messaging app akin to Line or WeChat, it soon evolved to embrace its users’ changing digital behavior. They wanted a more authentic way to connect with each other, and Kumu pivoted towards livestreaming to provide a space for more immediate and real experiences.

And though Kumu has now expanded globally, when it first partnered with Embrace, it was a small app with its fair share of growing pains. With so many network and resource-intensive features, Kumu engineers had difficulty troubleshooting the cause of app failures.

Early on, with a userbase primarily in The Philippines, Kumu faced three main problems in delivering a stable, performant mobile app:

• The users had older, cheaper Android devices.
• The Philippines has some of the worst WiFi in the world.
• The Kumu app is incredibly data and memory-intensive.

This meant that app failures could easily stem from code, device, and environmental factors. Kumu engineers couldn’t effectively prioritize their debugging efforts because they couldn’t identify the root cause behind user complaints.

Crashlytics lacked actionable data to identify new issues and solve the issues Kumu already knew about.

With Embrace, Kumu engineers can go from a user complaint directly to the individual session where it occurred. They can see the technical details (e.g. views/activities, breadcrumbs, logs, network calls) alongside user actions (e.g. taps, button presses). In this way, Kumu is able to dramatically expedite their troubleshooting process.

Kumu previously struggled to fix high numbers of ANRs (Application Not Responding) crashes on Android.

In addition, Kumu engineers added code to the app to help users deliver better reports.

It’s easy to deluge mobile engineers with too much information though. That’s why it was important that Kumu’s tooling made their lives easier by simplifying the debugging process.

Kumu has come a long way in the past few years. They currently have over two million monthly active users and are getting around ten thousand new user downloads per day. In October 2020, the app topped the download charts of both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the free apps category. And Kumu’s success is no accident — it is a reflection of their endless commitment to delivering exceptional user experiences

Embrace is happy to help companies like Kumu achieve their goals. By being the single source of truth for mobile teams, Embrace enables faster issue identification, prioritization, and resolution. Mobile-first companies like Kumu get complete visibility into the health of their apps, so they can spend less time fixing issues and more time building features.