3 alternatives · Heatmaps & Session Replay
Best alternatives to Hotjar in 2026
Hotjar is the tool most people picture when they hear "heatmap": visual overlays showing where visitors click, how far they scroll, and where their attention concentrates on a page, paired with session recordings that let you rewatch individual visits. It also includes on-site surveys and feedback widgets, positioning it as a broader qualitative research tool alongside its visual analytics, and is now part of Contentsquare.
What is Hotjar?
Why look for Hotjar alternatives?
Hotjar's free plan caps the number of daily sessions recorded, and its pricing climbs meaningfully once you need higher traffic coverage. Founders who just want unlimited heatmaps and recordings without a traffic cap often check Microsoft Clarity first, since it has no such limit and costs nothing.
3 alternatives to Hotjar
Completely free heatmaps and session recordings, no visitor cap.
Microsoft Clarity provides heatmaps, session recordings, and behavior analytics entirely free with no visitor or session limits, funded by Microsoft's advertising business rather than subscriptions.
Session replay and heatmaps covering both web and native mobile apps.
Smartlook covers session replay, heatmaps, and funnel analysis for both websites and native mobile apps, differentiating itself from web-only tools with mature mobile SDKs.
Enterprise-grade digital experience analytics with powerful session search.
FullStory offers session replay and behavior analytics with deep search and segmentation across every recorded session, built for larger teams analyzing user experience at scale.
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Frequently asked
Is Hotjar free?
Hotjar has a free plan with a daily session limit for heatmaps and recordings. Paid plans raise or remove that limit and add more advanced survey and analysis features.
What is the difference between Hotjar and Google Analytics?
Google Analytics gives you numbers: pageviews, bounce rate, conversion funnels. Hotjar gives you visual and qualitative insight, actual heatmaps and recordings, showing why users behave the way the numbers suggest.
Does Hotjar slow down my site?
Like any tracking script, it adds some page weight, though Hotjar is generally considered lightweight enough not to meaningfully impact load times for most sites.
Is Hotjar owned by another company?
Yes, Hotjar merged with Contentsquare in 2021 and now operates as part of that broader digital experience analytics company.
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