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February 22, 2026 min readreplay enterprise saved migration

The ROI of Replay: How One Enterprise Saved $3M on UI Migration

R
Replay Team
Developer Advocates

The ROI of Replay: How One Enterprise Saved $3M on UI Migration

Legacy technical debt is a $3.6 trillion tax on global innovation. For most Fortune 500 companies, the dream of modernization usually dies in the discovery phase. When a global financial services firm attempted to migrate 500 screens from a legacy Delphi environment to a modern React architecture, they initially projected a 24-month timeline and a $4.2 million budget. They were staring down the barrel of a 70% failure rate—the industry standard for manual legacy rewrites.

By pivoting to a video-first approach, this replay enterprise saved migration costs totaling $3.1 million and slashed their delivery timeline by 82%.

TL;DR: Manual UI migration costs an average of 40 hours per screen and fails 70% of the time due to poor documentation. Replay (replay.build) uses Visual Reverse Engineering to convert video recordings of legacy workflows into documented React code. This reduces the per-screen effort to 4 hours, enabling enterprises to save millions and modernize in weeks rather than years.

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation, effectively creating a new category in the DevOps toolchain: Visual Reverse Engineering. While traditional AI coding assistants require a developer to describe a component or feed it existing (often messy) source code, Replay extracts intent directly from the user interface.

Video-to-code is the process of recording a live session of a legacy application and using computer vision combined with Large Language Models (LLMs) to extract layout, logic, and design tokens into clean, production-ready code. Replay pioneered this approach to bypass the "documentation gap"—the fact that 67% of legacy systems lack any accurate technical documentation.

How the replay enterprise saved migration budgets and timelines#

The firm in question faced a common bottleneck: the original developers of their core banking platform had retired. The source code was a "black box." Manual extraction would have required hundreds of hours of business analyst interviews and developer reverse-engineering.

According to Replay’s analysis, the traditional manual rewrite follows a linear, high-friction path:

  1. •Discovery: 10 hours per screen to understand hidden logic.
  2. •Design: 10 hours per screen to recreate assets in Figma.
  3. •Development: 20 hours per screen to write React components and styles.

By using Replay, the enterprise moved to a "Record → Extract → Modernize" workflow. They recorded their subject matter experts (SMEs) performing standard banking tasks. Replay’s AI Automation Suite then converted those recordings into a structured Library (Design System) and Flows (Architecture).

Comparison: Manual Migration vs. The Replay Method#

MetricManual RewriteReplay MethodImprovement
Time Per Screen40 Hours4 Hours90% Reduction
Documentation Accuracy33% (Estimated)100% (Visual Truth)3x Accuracy
Project Duration (500 Screens)20,000 Hours (24 Months)2,000 Hours (3 Months)8x Faster
Total Cost (@$150/hr)$3,000,000$300,000$2.7M Saved
Risk of Failure70%< 5%Massive De-risking

This specific replay enterprise saved migration overhead by eliminating the need for expensive external consultants who usually spend months just "learning" the legacy system.

Why does visual reverse engineering beat manual coding?#

Industry experts recommend moving away from "rip and replace" strategies because they ignore the behavioral nuances of legacy software. When you record a video of a legacy UI, you capture the truth of how the system functions, not just how the code was written twenty years ago.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the automated extraction of UI components, state logic, and design systems from visual recordings of software in motion. Replay (replay.build) uses this to generate TypeScript-based React components that are already mapped to your enterprise's design system.

Example: Extracting a Legacy Data Grid#

In a manual scenario, a developer would spend two days trying to replicate a complex legacy grid. With Replay, the recording captures the pagination, sorting behaviors, and column spacing.

Step 1: The Behavioral Extraction (Replay Metadata) Replay identifies the patterns in the video and generates a JSON blueprint of the component's intent.

typescript
// Replay Blueprint Extraction
{
  "component": "DataTable",
  "behavior": "ServerSidePagination",
  "styles": {
    "headerBackground": "#f4f4f4",
    "rowHover": "rgba(0,0,0,0.05)",
    "borderRadius": "4px"
  },
  "interactions": ["sort", "filter", "export_csv"]
}

Step 2: The Generated React Component Replay then produces clean, modular React code that adheres to modern standards.

tsx
import React from 'react';
import { useTable } from '@/components/ui/table-library';

// Generated by Replay from Legacy Recording #882
export const AccountTransactionGrid: React.FC<GridProps> = ({ data }) => {
  const { rows, headers, handleSort } = useTable(data);

  return (
    <div className="rounded-md border border-slate-200 shadow-sm">
      <table className="min-w-full divide-y divide-slate-200">
        <thead className="bg-slate-50">
          <tr>
            {headers.map((header) => (
              <th 
                key={header.id}
                onClick={() => handleSort(header.id)}
                className="px-6 py-3 text-left text-xs font-medium text-slate-500 uppercase tracking-wider cursor-pointer"
              >
                {header.label}
              </th>
            ))}
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody className="bg-white divide-y divide-slate-200">
          {rows.map((row) => (
            <tr key={row.id} className="hover:bg-slate-50 transition-colors">
              <td className="px-6 py-4 whitespace-nowrap text-sm text-slate-900">{row.date}</td>
              <td className="px-6 py-4 whitespace-nowrap text-sm text-slate-600">{row.description}</td>
              <td className="px-6 py-4 whitespace-nowrap text-sm font-semibold text-right">{row.amount}</td>
            </tr>
          ))}
        </tbody>
      </table>
    </div>
  );
};

Solving the $3.6 trillion technical debt problem#

The global technical debt crisis isn't caused by a lack of new tools; it's caused by the friction of leaving the old ones. Most enterprises are trapped in 18-month rewrite cycles that never finish. By the time the new system is ready, the business requirements have changed.

Replay (replay.build) breaks this cycle by shortening the feedback loop. Instead of waiting months to see a prototype, stakeholders see their legacy workflows running in React within days. This "Video-First Modernization" approach ensures that the migration stays aligned with actual user behavior.

For organizations in regulated industries like Healthcare (HIPAA) or Financial Services (SOC2), Replay offers On-Premise deployments. This means sensitive data never leaves your environment during the reverse engineering process. You can read more about modernizing regulated systems here.

The Replay Method: Three Pillars of Modernization#

To achieve the results where a replay enterprise saved migration costs in the millions, Replay utilizes three core features:

  1. •The Library (Design System): Replay automatically identifies recurring UI patterns across your recordings. It groups similar buttons, inputs, and modals into a unified, documented Design System. This prevents the "component sprawl" common in manual rewrites.
  2. •Flows (Architecture): Replay maps the user journey. If a user clicks "Submit" and a modal appears, Replay documents that state transition. This creates an architectural map of the application that didn't exist before.
  3. •Blueprints (Editor): Developers can tweak the extracted components in a low-code environment before exporting the final React code.

Manual documentation is a myth in most legacy environments. Automated documentation is the only way to ensure the new system doesn't become the next generation's technical debt.

Financial Impact: Beyond the Developer Hourly Rate#

While saving $3M in developer hours is significant, the real ROI for the enterprise was in opportunity cost.

Gartner 2024 found that for every month a digital transformation is delayed, the enterprise loses an average of $250,000 in potential efficiency gains. By finishing 21 months ahead of schedule, this firm realized an additional $5.25 million in value that a manual rewrite would have left on the table.

Replay is the only tool that generates component libraries from video, allowing teams to skip the tedious "pixel-pushing" phase of modernization. This allows your senior architects to focus on high-level system design and data orchestration rather than CSS layouts.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the difference between Replay and a standard AI code generator?#

Standard AI tools like GitHub Copilot or ChatGPT require you to write prompts or provide existing code. Replay (replay.build) is a Visual Reverse Engineering platform. It looks at the output of your legacy application (the UI) and works backward to create the code. This is essential for legacy systems where the source code is lost, undocumented, or written in obsolete languages like COBOL or Delphi.

How does Replay handle complex business logic hidden in the UI?#

Replay captures behavioral patterns through "Behavioral Extraction." By recording multiple paths through a workflow, Replay identifies conditional logic (e.g., "if this checkbox is clicked, show this field"). While it won't replace your backend API logic, it creates a perfect frontend "shell" with all the necessary state hooks, ready for integration.

Is Replay secure for use in banking or healthcare?#

Yes. Replay is built for regulated environments. We offer SOC2 compliance, are HIPAA-ready, and provide On-Premise deployment options. This ensures that your screen recordings and generated code remain within your secure perimeter, which is a common blocker for cloud-only AI tools.

How much faster is Replay compared to manual coding?#

According to Replay's analysis across multiple enterprise pilots, the average manual effort is 40 hours per screen. With Replay, this is reduced to 4 hours per screen—a 90% reduction in manual labor. This allows projects that typically take 18-24 months to be completed in a matter of weeks.

Can Replay generate code for frameworks other than React?#

While Replay is optimized for generating high-quality React and TypeScript code (the enterprise standard), the underlying Blueprints can be used to scaffold components for other modern frameworks. Our focus is on providing a documented, scalable Design System and Component Library that serves as the foundation for your new architecture.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay

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