Active Session
Intermediate PronunciationEN/ˈæktɪv ˈseʃən/
An active session is a session currently in progress: the user is still doing something on the site and the inactivity timeout has not yet elapsed.
A session opens with the user's first event and closes when no new event arrives within a fixed gap, commonly thirty minutes; until then it is active. Live reports usually apply a shorter window, such as the last five minutes, so the realtime active-session figure does not match the analytical session definition. Some tools also use active session to mean a session that had interaction rather than one still open, so read each tool's wording before comparing two numbers.
FAQ
One person can have more than one session open at the same moment, for example in two browsers or on two devices, so active sessions is usually greater than or equal to online users.