Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Rating
4.5/5
4/5
5/5
Summary
A customisable and free web analytics tool. Get insights into user behavior with an event-based tracking model, and know what drives sales and traffic with extensive attribution methods.
Hotjar provides Product Experience Insights about your website that show how users behave and what they feel strongly about, so product teams can deliver real value to them.
Pirsch is a simple, cookie-free, open-source web analytics solution that integrates easily into your website or backend.
Fullstory is a digital experience analytics platform that combines session replay, product analytics and AI-generated insights, with a permanent free plan.
Pros
- GA4 is free to use
- Many functionalities
- The reports are customisable
- Large community
- Extensive documentation
- GA4 is easily scalable
- Comes with great heatmaps
- Includes session recordings
- Good polling function
- Hotjar features exit surveys
- Lightweight, cookie-free and open-source
- Pirsch's backend integration requires no client-side scripts and delivers the same accurate results without the interference of adblockers
- Extensive API
- Fully-fledged access management
- Comprehensive filtering by any metric including event metadata
- Permanent free plan with session replay
- Choice of EU or US data center
- SOC 2 and ISO 27001, 27701 and 42001 certifications
- Warehouse sync to BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Implementation can be hard
- Inaccurate data sampling
- UI is not easy to use
- Hotjar is not available for mobile
- Steep pricing for large organisations
- Hard to exclude URLs from reports
- Visitors are only recognized for up to 24 hours to comply with the privacy policy
- Heatmaps and session recordings are not available
- Paid prices not published
- Dashboards and StoryAI not in the free plan
- Alerts and retention reports need an Advanced or Enterprise plan
- Moving to the EU data center means opening a new account
Pricing information
Starting Price
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
| FullstoryFree | Free |
| Business | On req. |
| Advanced | On req. |
| Enterprise | On req. |
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
30 days
Free plan
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
Unlimited
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
1
Unlimited
10 on FullstoryFree, paid plans not published
Account Security
- Single Sign-on
- Two-factor Authentication
- Single Sign-on
- Two-factor Authentication
- Single Sign-on
- Two-factor Authentication
- Single Sign-on
- Two-factor Authentication
Data Processing
Data Center Locations
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United Kingdom
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United States
Software Hosting
- Public Cloud
- Private Cloud
- On-Premise
- Public Cloud
- Private Cloud
- On-Premise
- Public Cloud
- Private Cloud
- On-Premise
- Public Cloud
- Private Cloud
- On-Premise
Data Ownership
Google Analytics 4
Hotjar
You
You
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
30 minutes
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
12 months
Unlimited
12 months on FullstoryFree, paid plans not published
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Import from Plausible, Fathom or Google Analytics
Browser and Server APIs, Segment and Tealium integrations
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
Export recording meta data
via API or CSV
Anywhere Warehouse (hourly sync to BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake), add-on
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- PECR
- GDPR
- CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Pirsch Analytics does not use cookies
Capture needs the first-party fs_uid cookie
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Metric, segment and opportunity alerts by email, in-app, Slack, Teams; Advanced and Enterprise
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Metric trends
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
See on which device the user was
Device type, OS, Browser, Browser version, Screen size
Device breakdown
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Discover why users drop off
Analyze Funnels
Funnels and conversions
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Entry and exit pages
Journey maps, page flows
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Create custom filters for recordings
Extensive filtering by any metric
User segments
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Advanced and Enterprise
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Possible with custom events and goals
Order Completed and Product Purchased events
User Experience Features
Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Unlimited
Click and scroll maps
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record all interaction with your site
Session replay, included in FullstoryFree
A/B Testing
No A/B testing tool only integrations
Tag-based A/B testing and segmentation
A/B experiments in Guides and Surveys add-on; Optimizely integration
User Feedback
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page
Guides and Surveys add-on
Customizability
Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
As part of custom events
Custom event and user properties
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom calculations
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Dashboards, paid plans
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
With additional metadata fields (key-value pairs).
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Hotjar does not have annotations
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
Email support, public Discord server
Support is by email and support ticket during regional weekday business hours, with a help center and community forum. Free plan tickets have a 2 business day response target, paying customers 1 business day. A Premium Support add-on gives 24/7 critical support. The FullstoryFree help article lists email support as a paid plan feature, while the support hours article lists a response target for free plan customers.
Support Options
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community