11 Hotjar alternatives and competitors in 2024

Hotjar is a product analysis tool that helps understand how users interact with your website or digital product via heatmaps, click-tests, and session recordings. As one of the leading heatmap tools, it’s a solid choice if you’re looking for a visual way to analyze product usage.

But, there’s a downside: the functionalities provided by Hotjar are only the tip of the UX research iceberg. Understanding your user and building user-centric products informed by real data goes deeper than just on-screen interactions.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other UX research tools to choose from, each with their own different price points and suite of specialized features, and research methods.

Here’s our list of the 11 top Hotjar alternatives to gather in-depth UX research and user behavior analysis.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of Hotjar alternatives, let’s take a look at Hotjar and exactly what it does (and doesn’t) bring to the UX research table.

Hotjar’s platform primarily focuses on boosting your digital product’s conversion rates. It also sports an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

However, Hotjar isn’t the best option for many UX research teams for several reasons. Here’s what you need to look out for when considering Hotjar alternatives.

Let’s take a look at the specifics.

Hotjar features primarily focus on how users interact with your website rather than gaining in-depth insights that can explain why they interact that way. As a strictly-quantitative data tool, Hotjar only gives you half the answers. While you can run user surveys with Hotjar, the tool lacks many other research methods—such as card sorting, tree testing, user interviews, and prototype testing.

An alternative tool with comprehensive set of research methods will provide your UX team with in-depth quantitative and qualitative data to not only identify problems, but learn how to address them.

Hotjar data reports can be useful, depending on your needs, but users complain at their limited customization and flexibility. They don’t segment data ranges or identify trends by day or month, and there’s no way to gather follow-up data or dig deeper into the insights. You’ll get trends on how your product is performing, but the lack of detailed segmentation makes it difficult to pinpoint why your digital product is having these results. If you want these crucial insights, opt for a tool that offers custom reports, collaboration with team members, and the ability to conduct further research on key insights.

When choosing Hotjar, you’ll sign up for a plan that gives you a finite amount of daily user sessions. If you exhaust your daily sessions without gaining valuable insights, you’ll need to wait until the following day before you can continue your UX research project. There’s also different pricing depending on whether you want the Observe or Ask features, or a combination.

Choosing a better-value SaaS tool with a more straightforward pricing plan that can scale alongside your research can make all the difference between getting insights when you need them, and having to hit pause.

Hotjar no longer offers the popular features of form analytics and conversion funnels. These features help you gain a clearer picture of how users interact with forms on your website and pinpoint where they tend to drop off. To combat this gap, you’ll need to add an additional tool to your tech stack that offers these features—or swap to a tool that can provide the same insights with alternative research methods.

After scouring review sites and UX forums, we’ve put together a list of the top 11 Hotjar alternatives for you to choose from. It’s worth noting that your choice might be impacted by which Hotjar’s two main functionalities (surveys and product analytics) you use most.

Some tools on our list offer both features, while others delve more into product analytics alone—so you can pick your alternative based on what you plan to use it for.

The 11 tools we’re looking at are:

Maze is a comprehensive UX research tool that offers both moderated and unmoderated UX research methods. As a continuous product discovery platform, product teams of all sizes can use its interviews, UX research surveys, heatmaps and usability testing for every step of the design process.

Maze doesn’t yet offer the ability to host fully-integrated moderated tests. The current moderated research solutions include Interview Studies to help you gain insight from users faster. Maze also offers Clips, enabling you to get deeper insights into your tester’s pain points, feelings, and processes without the need for additional resources for a facilitator to be present.

The primary difference between Maze and Hotjar is the scope of research methods each product offers. Maze is a holistic UX research platform offering solutions for full-scale moderated and unmoderated user research. This makes it a great choice for UX teams grappling with anything from idea validation to usability testing.

Hotjar, on the other hand, is more focused on boosting conversion rates, offering features with a far narrower scope. You’ll get heatmaps and recording sessions, but you’ll miss out on essentials every UX researcher should have in their toolkit, such as website testing, prototype testing, card sorting, and more.

The verdict: If you need to perform in-depth UX research with both moderated and unmoderated testing, go with Maze. Its comprehensive set of tools allows you to easily uncover actionable customer insights. Maze also offers intuitive data representation that makes understanding insights simple.

UserTesting is a UX research tool that allows users to gain user insights via video feedback. UX teams can use the UserTesting panel to hire testers and delegate tasks to uncover how users interact with their product.

UserTesting doesn’t publicly share its prices but users state that they start at $30,000 per seat/year. Here’s what’s included in each package:

Hotjar primarily provides insights into how users interact with your live pages, while UserTesting enables you to collect direct customer feedback with set tasks.

UserTesting offers a wider range of user research methods than Hotjar, including card sorting and tree testing. However, it does so at a significantly higher price point—one that’s out of range for many businesses.

The verdict: UserTesting is the more well-rounded option, but Hotjar is a better option if heatmaps are an absolute must or you can’t stretch to the $30K cost. However, there are other options on our list that trump both of these tools by providing better value user research solutions.

Optimal Workshop is a UX research tool that primarily focuses on information architecture testing to help you gain both qualitative and quantitative insights. The platform can also helps map out website interaction indicators like clicks and mouse paths.

While both platforms have features for digital product interaction, Optimal Workshop also offers card sorting and tree testing for analyzing your product’s information architecture.

With click density grids, mouse paths, and heatmaps, Optimal Workshop gives you a more in-depth view of how users are interacting with your product—as well as the option to run other user research methods.

The verdict: If you need in-depth data on your product’s information architecture as well as a complete view of website interactions, Optimal Workshop is the better choice between the two. However, with customers complaining that OW doesn’t adequately screen user testers, consider some of the other tools on our list for quality insights every time.

Lyssna, formerly known as UsabilityHub, is a UX research platform that supports teams with moderated and unmoderated user testing. Lyssna also provides research participant recruitment for an additional cost.

Lyssna offers a wider range of unmoderated tests for uncovering user insights than Hotjar, however it is more expensive.

Hotjar does have certain interaction features that Lyssna misses, including interaction recordings and heat maps. This makes it a better option if you are looking for these specific features, or value improving your conversion rates above all else.

The verdict: If you want to conduct quick, unmoderated user testing, go with Lyssna. Its navigation, first clicks, and five-second testing make it easier to get insights. If you need insight on how users are spending time on your website, then go with Hotjar.

Crazy Egg is a product analysis tool that allows you to conduct A/B testing, get user heatmaps, and access user recordings on your website. It also offers research functionalities like surveys and ad-traffic analysis.

Crazy Egg provides similar product analysis features to Hotjar, as well as a number of additional solutions—such as A/B testing, error tracking, and traffic analysis. Given that Hotjar separates pricing by functionality, Crazy Egg is a more affordable option overall.

Neither solution provides a complete suite of user research methods, meaning you’ll need to consider the other options on our list for qualitative research and mixed methods like card sorting, tree testing, and usability testing.

The verdict: If you prioritize a tool with A/B testing and in-depth interaction features, Crazy Egg is a good option. You’ll have access to similar heatmaps and recorded sessions, with the addition of analyzing site traffic. For a comprehensive suite of user research methods, some of the other tools on our list are a better option.

FullStory focuses on digital experience intelligence with a wide range of advanced tools for measuring digital product interaction. Made for UX teams operating at enterprise level, FullStory also provides extensive data analysis filters, including segmentation and funnel analytics.

FullStory doesn’t share any of its pricing online, so you’ll have to get in touch for a quote. Their plans are as follows:

FullStory offers more product analytics and session insights than Hotjar, but seemingly at significantly higher price point. It’s a decent option for teams with large budgets, but out of reach for teams with smaller budgets, used to Hotjar’s pricing.

However, FullStory does lack the survey and interview capabilities offered by Hotjar. If those functionalities are crucial for your user research efforts, we suggest looking for a more well-rounded tool from the alternatives we’ve listed.

The verdict: FullStory offers a solid suite of product analytics tools. However, it lacks a number of crucial user research methods that Hotjar, and other tools on our list, do offer. It depends on your research focus (both now and in the future) and your budget.

Mouseflow is a product analysis tool that measures key elements of engagement on your website with features like session replays, heatmaps, and conversion funnels. With a wide range of analysis functions, it hones in on reasons why your website or product won’t convert or is struggling to retain users.

Both Mouseflow and Hotjar are similar in their core features, letting you assess user interactions through heatmaps and session recordings. However, Mouseflow has the additional benefit of conversion funnels and form analysis.

It’s also more suitable for a wide range of UX teams with various pricing plans, ranging from a starter option to the enterprise level.

The verdict: Mouseflow is the clear winner when it comes to measuring the way in which users interact with your product. It offers a selection of product analytics capabilities, but still lacks some of the user research methods you might need to understand the ‘why’ behind user frustration and drop-offs.

Smartlook is a product analysis tool that offers all the features you need to get a solid understanding of how users interact with your website. It generates heatmaps, facilitates user action and event tracking, analyzes user paths, and more for desktop and mobile sessions.

Both Smartlook and Hotjar offer session recordings and heatmaps for user interaction visualization. While Hotjar also offers surveys, Smartlook allows for product analytics across desktop and mobile.

Another key consideration is that Smartlook provides most of its features on the Pro plan, whereas Hotjar limits features by plan. For example, trend analysis is only available in the Scale plan—which starts at $171 per month. When using Smartlook, this functionality is available in all plans.

The verdict: Smartlook comes out on top, with broadly the same features at a lower pricepoint, and the option to conduct advanced product analysis on different devices.

ContentSquare is a UX research tool that provides product analytics including heatmaps, session replays, and customer journey analysis. It also provides other functionalities, such as retention analytics, speed analysis, and impact quantification.

ContentSquare list neither their prices nor plan details online, so you’ll need to contact their sales team for a demo in order to get a quote and learn what’s included.

When considering the range of features, ContentSquare has a clear advantage. It provides all the same tools Hotjar does, with the addition of advanced analytics.

However, Hotjar is more transparent with pricing and also offers surveys for in-depth user insights.

The verdict: If you’re part of an enterprise UX team with budget to spare, Contentsquare could be a good option for more advanced product analytics features. However, Hotjar is good for smaller teams who need product analytics and more user research methods. For a complete suite of user research tools, consider other options on our list.

Lucky Orange is a digital experience analytics platform that focuses on how teams can improve conversion rates and overall customer experience. Its suite of features is what you’d expect from this type of tool, including heatmap tools and session recordings. However, Lucky Orange also has some extensive data analysis features.

Lucky Orange and Hotjar have many overlapping features, like session recordings and heatmaps. It’s the analytics tools, like conversion funnel analysis, that give Lucky Orange the upper hand as a more complete tool.

In terms of pricing, Lucky Orange also brings more variety to the table. It offers all features in every pricing plan, meaning small businesses with smaller budgets are still able to access the complete suite of product analytics tools.

The verdict: Lucky Orange triumphs because of its value for money. You’re getting many of the features offered by Hotjar, plus others for a similar cost. However, if you’re looking for a comprehensive research tool, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

VWO is a conversion rate optimization (CRO) platform with a unique set of options for improving conversions. Beyond heatmaps and session recordings, VWO sports A/B testing, URL testing, and multivariate testing.

VWO pricing varies depending on what product you need. This is the pricing for the Web Testing product, but you’ll need to head to the pricing page for details on other plans, including mobile and server side plans.

VWO offers all the tools that Hotjar does, with the addition of various testing methods and some deployment options. This makes it a more well-rounded option.

However, pricing puts VWO out-of-budget for teams with smaller budgets. It can also get pretty confusing, with different pricing plans for different functionalities.

The verdict: If you’re looking for a tool that does more than just make heatmaps and record sessions, then VWO is the better of the two. With its A/B testing and URL tests, VWO is better primed for bulking up those conversion rates. However, Hotjar, or many of our other options, could be a more affordable option.

Finding the right tools for your needs and budget can get confusing. Here are some tips to help you make your decision:

Keeping these considerations in mind will help you find the perfect UX research tool—one that’s aligned with your long-term goals and makes research projects a breeze.

While conversion rates are a crucial factor for your digital product, they by no means provide the full story when it comes to user experience. You need a tool that can dive deeper into the why behind user interactions, to unveil their experience.

Maze helps you shed light on your user's perspectives with comprehensive moderated and unmoderated research methods. With in-depth surveys and interviews, you can uncover underlying themes and trends for any phase of the design process, whether its prototype testing, idea validation, or usability testing.