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Rating
5/5
4/5
Summary
A free privacy focussed open-source web analytics tool, which gives you 100% data-ownership. You can even use Matomo without needing to ask for consent.
The only digital insights platform that gives you complete understanding of your customers’ digital journeys, so you can quickly improve conversion, retention, and customer delight.
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.
Open Web Analytics is the free and open source web analytics framework that lets you stay in control of how you instrument and analyze the use of your websites and application
Pros
  • Data display
  • Flexible data visualisation
  • Engagement reporting
  • Privacy oriented
  • It is easy to implement
  • It has data science capabilities
  • Reports are easy to build
  • Interface is user-friendly
  • Comes with great heatmaps
  • Includes session recordings
  • Good polling function
  • Hotjar features exit surveys
  • The software is open source
  • It is very customizable
  • Ecommerce reporting
  • Privacy friendly
  • The script is lightweight
Cons
  • Integrations
  • Branding method
  • Tech support is quite basic
  • Difficult to share dasboards
  • Onboarding could be improved
  • Hotjar is not available for mobile
  • Steep pricing for large organisations
  • Hard to exclude URLs from reports
  • Limited reporting features
  • Technical skill required
  • Comply with data privacy regulations
  • You need a secure server

Pricing information

Starting Price
On-PremiseFree
Cloud€19+ p/m
FreeFree
GrowthOn req.
ProOn req.
PremierOn req.
BasicFree
Plus$49+ p/m
BusinessOn req.
ScaleOn req.
Free trial period
21 days
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan

Account Management

Trackable Items
30
1
Unlimited
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited
1
Unlimited
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)
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • United States
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • United States
  • Not applicable
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
You
You
Hotjar
You
Data Freshness
15 minutes or more
Realtime
30 minutes
Realtime
Data Retention
Unlimited and customizable
12 months
12 months
Unlimited
Data Sampling
Matomo doesn’t use data sampling
Data Import
Import Google Analytics data, search keywords & server logs
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
by means of the REST API
Data Export
to CSV, XML, Json or Looker Studio or via HTTP API
Via CSV or API
Export recording meta data
by means of the REST API
Compliance
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • ePrivacy
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • HIPAA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
Cookieless
Matomo offers cookieless tracking.
Heap relies on first-party cookies
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Sets first-party cookies (owa_v, owa_c, session). Lifetimes can be shortened or made session-only.

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Receive alerts from every report by email or SMS
Via Slack or email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Detailed daily, weekly and monthly reports
Schedule regular emails for important charts
e.g. daily survey responses reports

Reporting

Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
See on which device the user was
Funnel Reporting
Basic funnel reporting
With quantitative measurement of user friction & step suggestions
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
With flexible Sankey chart
Sankey chart with path comparison
Segmentation
Based on visit, interaction, campaign, ecommerce, demographics & device
Quickly identify patterns in user behavior
Create custom filters for recordings
Cohort Reports
Analyse and segment by cohort
Retention Reporting
Attribution Reporting
Model comparison report
Track UTM parameters or initial referrer sources
Ecommerce Reporting
Easy setup with eCommerce Activation Kit

User Experience Features

Heatmaps
Filter specific pages or hide elements on the page
Unlimited
Session Recordings
Record specific pages or only after activity or duration
Automatically filters relevant replays
Record all interaction with your site
Domstream
A/B Testing
A/B Testing Platform (premium feature)
No A/B testing tool only integrations
User Feedback
Track NPS score events in surveys
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page

Customizability

Custom Properties
5-15 for each scope and can't delete them
Custom Metrics
Custom Reports
Flexible report design
Custom Events
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
On any graph or via API
Hotjar does not have annotations

Support

Support description
Matomo offers extensive documentation and video tutorials. Because Matomo is an open source product, you can also get help from a large community. Do you need personal help? Contact Matomo's support team for general issues or contact Innocraft for Matomo Cloud-hosted services.
Heap offers extensive documentation and access to their in-depth collection of Heap University courses to get up and running. Need more help? Join the community or contact their knowledgable support staff through email.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
Because Open Web Analytics is open source, all documentation is found on GitHub. Apart from the community, there are no support options available.
Support Options
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community

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