✓ 100% independent✓ Most complete overview✓ Free expert advice
New MetricsTake the quiz

Compare

Compare Analytics Tools

Visit website ↗
Visit website ↗
Visit website ↗
Visit website ↗
Rating
4.5/5
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.
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.
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
  • Data display
  • Flexible data visualisation
  • Engagement reporting
  • Privacy oriented
  • 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
  • Integrations
  • Branding method
  • 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
On-PremiseFree
Cloud€19+ p/m
10k page views$9 p/m
EnterpriseOn req.
200k page views$29 p/m
100k page views$19 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
BasicFree
Plus$49+ p/m
BusinessOn req.
ScaleOn req.
Free trial period
Free plan
21 days
30 days
Free plan

Account Management

Trackable Items
100
30
1-10+ depending on plan
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited
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)
  • 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
15 minutes or more
Realtime
30 minutes
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
Unlimited and customizable
3-5+ years depending on plan
12 months
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Matomo doesn’t use data sampling
Limited data sampling in reports with over 20M pageviews
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Import Google Analytics data, search keywords & server logs
e.g. import GA data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
to CSV, XML, Json or Looker Studio or via HTTP API
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.
Matomo offers cookieless tracking.
Plausible is cookieless by default.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Receive alerts from every report by email or SMS
Traffic spike notifications through Slack or email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Detailed daily, weekly and monthly 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
Basic funnel reporting
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
With flexible Sankey chart
Basic reporting by looking at Entry & Exit pages
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Based on visit, interaction, campaign, ecommerce, demographics & device
Use filters to segment your audience
Create custom filters for recordings
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Analyse and segment by cohort
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Model comparison report
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Ecommerce revenue tracking

User Experience Features

Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Filter specific pages or hide elements on the page
Unlimited
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record specific pages or only after activity or duration
Record all interaction with your site
A/B Testing
A/B Testing Platform (premium feature)
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
5-15 for each scope and can't delete them
Custom Properties (Business plan and above)
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Flexible report design
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
By means of adding CSS classes
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
On any graph or via API
Hotjar does not have annotations

Support

Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
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.
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
  • 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
Visit website ↗
Visit website ↗
Visit website ↗
Visit website ↗

Looking for more answers?

Check out our knowledge base for more articles on analytics, tracking and privacy.

Go to the knowledge base