Various embodiments provide a multi-channel collaborative visual analytics (CVA) system, method and computer program product for coordinating collaborative data exploration. The system comprises a central CVA server and a plurality of client devices. The CVA server has a plurality of local channels and a global channel. Each client device is coupled to one or more local channels of the central CVA server by one or more WebSockets and communicates state change event data of a distributed-web-connected application to the central CVA server. The central CVA server manages both real-time delivery and recorded playback of the state change events for the plurality of client devices. The CVA system further comprises a persistent store that stores the state change events from the plurality of client devices for deferred playback.