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Rating
4.5/5
5/5
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.
Product Analytics For Product, Marketing, Sales & Support teams. Full-funnel attribution, onboarding optimization, feature usage trends, subscription growth, cohort analysis and more.
A free analytics suite with a focus on user privacy and data security. Optimize the customer journey where it was previously impossible.
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
  • User / account segmentation
  • Realtime
  • Integrations
  • Feature revenue reporting
  • Simple implementation
  • Ease of use
  • Great authorisation management
  • Packed with features
  • Community forum
  • Intergrated tag & consent management
  • 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
  • Customisability
  • Limited free version
  • No progressive payment plan
  • Ecommerce reporting can be improved
  • Hotjar is not available for mobile
  • Steep pricing for large organisations
  • Hard to exclude URLs from reports

Pricing information

Starting Price
StandardFree
GA4 360$50k+ per year
Pro$999+ p/m
EnterpriseOn req.
Core - 500k€35 p/m
Enterprise€366 p/m
BasicFree
Plus$49+ p/m
BusinessOn req.
ScaleOn req.
Free trial period
Free plan
14 days
Free plan
Free plan

Account Management

Trackable Items
100
1
10 sites or apps (free) Unlimited (Enterprise)
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
50+
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
  • 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
Woopra
You
Hotjar
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
Realtime
30 min
30 minutes
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
24 months
Up to 25 months
12 months
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Woopra never uses any kind of sampling
By default Piwik does not sample data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Import raw visit data with actions and visitor properties via API
Import cost data, search keywords, user/client ID and audience data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
Export raw daily visit data via API
As CSV, XML, JSON, or via an API
Export recording meta data
Compliance
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • HIPAA
  • LGPD
  • ePrivacy
  • PECR
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Woopra relies on first-party cookies.
Piwik features a cookieless tracking option
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Automatically trigger emails, slack messages or update Salesforce fields
Email alerts based on thresholds
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Daily, weekly or monthly reports
e.g. daily survey responses reports

Reporting

Trend Reporting
Measure by feature, subscription changes by location, campaign performance by source & more
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
See on which device the user was
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Detailed funnel report up to 5 steps
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Combine any set of actions or attributes in Sankey charts
Standard, transition & reverse Sankey charts
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Create dynamic segments based on any combination of criteria
Unlimited segments
Create custom filters for recordings
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Breakdown acquisition date, signup date, first purchase date & more
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Uncover at-risk users and discover engaged users
Customer loyalty eCommerce report
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Multi-channel attribution with 98% accuracy
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Overview, order list, product, days and sessions to purchase & customer loyalty

User Experience Features

Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Create an overlay with the site inspector Chrome extension
Unlimited
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record all interaction with your site
A/B Testing
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
200 slots for each scope and they can't be removed
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Available from the pro plan
Also called Calculated metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Via HTTP API or Javascript API
Include category, action, and optionally name and value
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Add to any graph or include them in scheduled reports or alerts
Hotjar does not have annotations

Support

Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Woopra offers support by phone, email, and an extensive knowledge base.
Piwik Pro offers extensive documentation and video tutorials. They have support offices for different regions which can be contacted by email and phone.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
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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