Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Google Analytics 4
Free plan
Only Google Analytics 4 has:
- Cohort Reports
Amplitude
Free plan
Only Amplitude has:
- A/B Testing
Plausible Analytics
From $9 p/m
Only Plausible Analytics has:
- Cookieless
Hotjar
Free plan
No feature only Hotjar has.
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.
Give your teams a self-service digital analytics platform to understand your users, drive conversions, and increase engagement, growth and revenue. Ideal for product or gowth teams.
Lightweight and open source web analytics. No cookies and fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR. Made and hosted in the EU, on European cloud infrastructure.
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
- Simple & Intuïtive
- User segmentation
- Data visualisations
- Feature Analytics
- Lightweight
- Open-source
- Cookieless
- EU cloud infrastructure
- 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
- Dashboard customisation
- Limited free plan
- User support access
- Pricing transparency
- Limited features
- No audience reporting features
- 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
- StarterFree
- Growth$49+ p/m
- EnterpriseOn req.
- 10k page views$9 p/m
- 100k page views$19 p/m
- 200k page views$29 p/m
- 500k page views$49 p/m
- 1M page views$69 p/m
- 2M page views$89 p/m
- 5M page views$129 p/m
- 10M page views$169 p/m
- EnterpriseOn req.
- BasicFree
- Plus$49+ p/m
- BusinessOn req.
- ScaleOn req.
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
30 days
Free plan
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
Unlimited
1-10+ depending on plan
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited for all plans
1-10+ depending on plan
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)
- 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
You
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
3-5+ years depending on plan
12 months
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Limited data sampling in reports with over 20M pageviews
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Via SDK, API, GCS, AWS & more
e.g. import GA data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
To GCS, BigQuery, Redshift & more
Export your data to CSV
Export recording meta data
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- GDPR
- CCPA
- PECR
- GDPR
- CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Amplitude relies on first-party cookies.
Plausible is cookieless by default.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Traffic spike notifications through Slack or email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Subscribe to dashboard for daily reports
Weekly or monthly email reporting
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
Flexible funnels to analyse conversion, time to convert & more
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Standard & reverse Sankey charts
Basic reporting by looking at Entry & Exit pages
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Use filters to segment your audience
Create custom filters for recordings
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Retention Analysis and Lifecycle charts
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Elaborate Ecommerce reporting
Ecommerce revenue tracking
User Experience Features
Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Unlimited
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Session Replay
Record all interaction with your site
A/B Testing
A/B testing & feature flagging with Amplitude Experiment
No A/B testing tool only integrations
User Feedback
Guides and Surveys
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page
Customizability
Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
Custom Properties (Business plan and above)
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
20 custom formulas to create the metric you need
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Create a custom event from existing events
By means of adding CSS classes
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Hotjar does not have annotations
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
The support of Amplitude consists of a ticketing system, an extensive knowledge base, a community and email support depending on your plan.
Plausible offers extensive documentation which is the first place to find answers. Still haven't found what you're looking for? Contact their email support for knowledgable support.
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