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Rating
5/5
5/5
4/5
Summary
A free analytics suite with a focus on user privacy and data security. Optimize the customer journey where it was previously impossible.
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.
Open Web Analytics is the free and open source web analytics framework that lets you stay in control of how you instrument and analyze the use of your websites and application
Pros
  • Ease of use
  • Great authorisation management
  • Packed with features
  • Community forum
  • Intergrated tag & consent management
  • Lightweight
  • Open-source
  • Cookieless
  • EU cloud infrastructure
  • Comes with great heatmaps
  • Includes session recordings
  • Good polling function
  • Hotjar features exit surveys
  • The software is open source
  • It is very customizable
  • Ecommerce reporting
  • Privacy friendly
  • The script is lightweight
Cons
  • No progressive payment plan
  • Ecommerce reporting can be improved
  • Limited features
  • No audience reporting features
  • Hotjar is not available for mobile
  • Steep pricing for large organisations
  • Hard to exclude URLs from reports
  • Limited reporting features
  • Technical skill required
  • Comply with data privacy regulations
  • You need a secure server

Pricing information

Starting Price
Core - 500k€35 p/m
Enterprise€366 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
30 days
Free plan
Free plan

Account Management

Trackable Items
10 sites or apps (free) Unlimited (Enterprise)
1-10+ depending on plan
Unlimited
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
1-10+ depending on plan
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 States
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • United States
  • Not applicable
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
You
You
Hotjar
You
Data Freshness
30 min
Realtime
30 minutes
Realtime
Data Retention
Up to 25 months
3-5+ years depending on plan
12 months
Unlimited
Data Sampling
By default Piwik does not sample data
Limited data sampling in reports with over 20M pageviews
Data Import
Import cost data, search keywords, user/client ID and audience data
e.g. import GA data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
by means of the REST API
Data Export
As CSV, XML, JSON, or via an API
Export your data to CSV
Export recording meta data
by means of the REST API
Compliance
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • HIPAA
  • LGPD
  • ePrivacy
  • PECR
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • PECR
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
Cookieless
Piwik features a cookieless tracking option
Plausible is cookieless by default.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Sets first-party cookies (owa_v, owa_c, session). Lifetimes can be shortened or made session-only.

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Email alerts based on thresholds
Traffic spike notifications through Slack or email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Daily, weekly or monthly reports
Weekly or monthly email reporting
e.g. daily survey responses reports

Reporting

Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser & OS
See on which device the user was
Funnel Reporting
Detailed funnel report up to 5 steps
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Standard, transition & reverse Sankey charts
Basic reporting by looking at Entry & Exit pages
Segmentation
Unlimited segments
Use filters to segment your audience
Create custom filters for recordings
Cohort Reports
Retention Reporting
Customer loyalty eCommerce report
Attribution Reporting
Multi-channel attribution with 98% accuracy
Ecommerce Reporting
Overview, order list, product, days and sessions to purchase & customer loyalty
Ecommerce revenue tracking

User Experience Features

Heatmaps
Create an overlay with the site inspector Chrome extension
Unlimited
Session Recordings
Record all interaction with your site
Domstream
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
200 slots for each scope and they can't be removed
Custom Properties (Business plan and above)
Custom Metrics
Also called Calculated metrics
Custom Reports
Custom Events
Include category, action, and optionally name and value
By means of adding CSS classes
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
Add to any graph or include them in scheduled reports or alerts
Hotjar does not have annotations

Support

Support description
Piwik Pro offers extensive documentation and video tutorials. They have support offices for different regions which can be contacted by email and phone.
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.
Because Open Web Analytics is open source, all documentation is found on GitHub. Apart from the community, there are no support options available.
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

Looking for more answers?

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

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