Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Rating
4.5/5
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.
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.
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.
Chartbeat is a suite of content analytics tools for publishers that lets you track reader engagement on your site, optimize your user experience in real-time, and share key metrics with your team.
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
- Comes with great heatmaps
- Includes session recordings
- Good polling function
- Hotjar features exit surveys
- Comes with headline testing tool
- Dashboards are easy to read
- Reporting is in realtime
- Good referral report
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
- Hotjar is not available for mobile
- Steep pricing for large organisations
- Hard to exclude URLs from reports
- Mainly designed for publishers
- Their pricing is untransparent
- Traffic sources could be improved
Pricing information
Starting Price
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| Starter | Free |
| Growth | $49+ p/m |
| Enterprise | On req. |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
| Basic | On req. |
| Plus | On req. |
| Premium | On req. |
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
14 days
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
Unlimited
Unlimited
1
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited for all plans
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)
- 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
Hotjar
Chartbeat
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
13 months
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Via SDK, API, GCS, AWS & more
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
To GCS, BigQuery, Redshift & more
Export recording meta data
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Amplitude relies on first-party cookies.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Uses first-party cookies by default. Cookieless mode is optional.
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Subscribe to dashboard for daily reports
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
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
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
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
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
Headline A/B testing tool
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 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
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.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
Chartbeat's support is accessible by email during regular office hours. Overall they provide extensive documentation, but their support staff is responsive and very knowledgable in case you face issues.
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