Respectlytics Respect lytics
Menu
Replace mParticle Faster cold start

Replace mParticle to speed up cold start

Migrate from mParticle to a lighter analytics SDK to reduce cold-start latency. Helps developers avoid collecting personal data.

Example mParticle call (the "before")

swift Respectlytics
import mParticle_Apple_SDK

let options = MParticleOptions(key: "YOUR_KEY", secret: "YOUR_SECRET")
options.identifyRequest = MPIdentityApiRequest.withEmptyUser()
options.identifyRequest?.email = email
options.identifyRequest?.customerId = userId
MParticle.sharedInstance().start(with: options)

let event = MPEvent(name: "Paywall Purchase", type: .transaction)
event?.customAttributes = ["value": price, "currency": "USD"]
MParticle.sharedInstance().logEvent(event!)

Heavy analytics SDKs do work at app launch — reading identifiers, initialising queues, network dispatch — that compounds visibly on lower-end devices. Respectlytics's SDK adds typically under 30ms to cold start, vs 100-300ms for Firebase Analytics's full initialisation chain.

Remove mParticle cleanly

  1. 1

    Remove the mParticle SDK from your build (mParticle-Apple-SDK / mparticle-android-sdk / react-native-mparticle / mparticle_flutter_sdk)

  2. 2

    Remove MParticle.start() and MParticle.logEvent(...) call sites

  3. 3

    Critically: review your mParticle output forwarders and decide which downstream destinations you still need data flowing to (most don't — Respectlytics is direct)

  4. 4

    Delete Identity.identify() and modify() calls — those drive the identity merge graph

  5. 5

    Delete the mParticle workspace's mobile input once events have stopped flowing

mParticle vs Respectlytics — faster cold start

mParticleRespectlytics
Typical cold-start contribution (p50)— see tool note above< 30ms
Initialisation work on launchReads IDFA/AAID, opens SQLite, spins up threadsAllocates ring buffer (RAM-only)
Number of background threads spawned— typically 2-41
Synchronous I/O on init— typical (SQLite open)None

Frequently asked questions

How do I measure cold start before / after?

iOS: Xcode Organizer's Launch Time metric (aggregate from real users) or Instruments → App Launch template (synthetic). Android: adb shell am start -W <package>/.<activity> or Play Console's Vitals → Startup time. Measure before removing the old SDK, after, and compare on the same device class.

Does Respectlytics block the main thread on init?

No. Respectlytics.configure(appKey:) is synchronous but does only in-memory work (allocates the ring buffer). The network flush runs on a background dispatch queue / coroutine.

What's typical magnitude of improvement?

On a mid-range Android device, removing Firebase Analytics + AppsFlyer typically saves 100-300ms off cold start, depending on Google Play Services init state. On iOS the delta is usually 50-150ms. Effect is more pronounced on cold-start (uncached) than warm-start launches.

Does cold-start improvement actually affect business metrics?

Yes — first-session abandonment correlates with launch latency in published benchmarks. A 100ms improvement on the slowest deciles of your device distribution can show a measurable first-day retention lift.

Related migration guides

Track what matters. Collect nothing you don't.

Five-field event schema, RAM-only event queue, no IDFA, no AAID, no persistent user IDs. Helps developers avoid collecting personal data in the first place.