Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Rating
4.5/5
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.
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.
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.
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
- 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
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
- 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
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 |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
Free trial period
Free plan
30 days
Free plan
30 days
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
50
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)
- United Kingdom
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
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
Hotjar
You
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
Realtime
30 minutes
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
Unlimited
12 months
Unlimited
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Google Analytics importer
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Import from Plausible, Fathom or Google Analytics
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
One-click CSV export
Export recording meta data
via API or CSV
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- COPPA
- PECR
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- PECR
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Fathom is cookieless by default.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Pirsch Analytics does not use cookies
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Weekly or monthly reporting
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device type, browser & OS
See on which device the user was
Device type, OS, Browser, Browser version, Screen size
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Discover why users drop off
Analyze Funnels
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Entry and exit pages
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Instant filters on any data point
Create custom filters for recordings
Extensive filtering by any metric
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
By means of custom events
Possible with custom events and goals
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
No A/B testing tool only integrations
Tag-based A/B testing and segmentation
User Feedback
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page
Customizability
Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
As part of custom events
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Can include: name, ID & value
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.
Fathom offers extensive support and video walk-throughs. For issues you can always contact their knowledgable email support.
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 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