Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Rating
4.5/5
5/5
4/5
4/5
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.
Privacy-focused website analytics without compromise. Fathom doesn’t compromise visitor privacy for data. It made website analytics easy to use and respectful of privacy laws.
Powerful, self-serve product analytics to help you convert, engage, and retain more users. Build funnels, see top user flows, create cohorts, and more with just a few clicks.
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.
Pros
- GA4 is free to use
- Many functionalities
- The reports are customisable
- Large community
- Extensive documentation
- GA4 is easily scalable
- Privacy friendly
- Easy to use
- Customer support
- Ad-blocker bypassing
- Interface is easy to understand
- Great support options
- Reporting is in realtime
- Good community
- Comes with great heatmaps
- Includes session recordings
- Good polling function
- Hotjar features exit surveys
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Implementation can be hard
- Inaccurate data sampling
- UI is not easy to use
- No data import
- Short free trial
- Limited features
- Event setup requires tech skills
- Contains hard to discover features
- Has a steep learning curve
- Hotjar is not available for mobile
- Steep pricing for large organisations
- Hard to exclude URLs from reports
Pricing information
Starting Price
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| 100k page views | $15 p/m |
| 200k page views | $25 p/m |
| 500k page views | $45 p/m |
| 1 Million page views | $60 p/m |
| 2 Million page views | $100 p/m |
| Free | Free |
| Enterprise | On req. |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
Free trial period
Free plan
30 days
Free plan
Free plan
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
50
1
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
1
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)
- United States
- 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
You
Mixpanel
Hotjar
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
Realtime
Realtime
30 minutes
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
Unlimited
Unlimited
12 months
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Google Analytics importer
Via one-off script or Ingestion API
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
One-click CSV export
Via raw data export API
Export recording meta data
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- COPPA
- PECR
- GDPR
- CCPA
- HIPAA
- GDPR
- CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Fathom is cookieless by default.
Mixpanel relies on first-party cookies
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Hourly, daily, or weekly base on event threshold
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Weekly or monthly reporting
Same as custom alerts
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device type, browser & OS
See on which device the user was
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Funnel trend, time to convert & frequency visualisations
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Sankey chart with selected, immediate & drop off events
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Instant filters on any data point
Automatically find interesting segments & receive per email
Create custom filters for recordings
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
User cohorts of users to filter reports
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Retention curves, trends & user cohort buckets
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Simple UTM tracking with "first touch" attribution
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
By means of custom events
Option to track purchases but no special reporting
User Experience Features
Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Unlimited
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record all interaction with your site
A/B Testing
Experiments
No A/B testing tool only integrations
User Feedback
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page
Customizability
Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Max 255 properties per event
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Unlimited custom dahboards & reports
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Can include: name, ID & value
Combine events into a custom event
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Directly on the linechart in Insights
Hotjar does not have annotations
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Fathom offers extensive support and video walk-throughs. For issues you can always contact their knowledgable email support.
Mixpanel offer extensive documentation and knowledgable support through a ticketing system. They have a support email address but regular support requests are directed to the ticketing system. Join their Slack group for community access.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
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