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.
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.
An open-source product analytics for developers. It helps engineers understand their product usage, automate events, and user data collection.
AI-powered analytics and attribution platform that unifies website, product, and marketing data in one tool.
Pros
- GA4 is free to use
- Many functionalities
- The reports are customisable
- Large community
- Extensive documentation
- GA4 is easily scalable
- Comes with great heatmaps
- Includes session recordings
- Good polling function
- Hotjar features exit surveys
- Easy to set up
- Great interface design
- Reasonable pricing
- Good session recordings
- AI-powered attribution
- Combined web + product analytics
- Auto-capture without developers
- Privacy-friendly
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Implementation can be hard
- Inaccurate data sampling
- UI is not easy to use
- Hotjar is not available for mobile
- Steep pricing for large organisations
- Hard to exclude URLs from reports
- Feature flags are limited
- Limited amount of graph types
- Filtering could be improved
- Relatively new player
- No self-hosting option
Pricing information
Starting Price
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
| Cloud Lite | Free |
| Cloud | €0.005 per event / recording |
| Enterprise Cloud | €450 p/m minimum |
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
1
Unlimited
3+ depending on plan
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
- 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
Hotjar
You
You
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
30 minutes
Realtime
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
12 months
Unlimited
Unlimited
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Usermaven does not sample data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Historical data ingestion
Google Analytics importer
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
Export recording meta data
Via API or CSV
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- HIPAA
- PECR
- GDPR
- CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Posthog has the option to be used without cookies
Cookieless tracking available
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Receive alerts via Slack or email
Threshold-based alerts
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Subscribe to an Insight or dashboard
Scheduled email reports
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
See on which device the user was
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Discover why users drop off
AI-powered funnel analysis
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
User journey visualization
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Create custom filters for recordings
Segments & cohorts
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Retention analysis (Business plan)
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Multi-touch attribution with 7 models
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Revenue attribution
User Experience Features
Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Unlimited
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record all interaction with your site
A/B Testing
No A/B testing tool only integrations
Feature flags and A/B testing
User Feedback
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page
Surveys
Customizability
Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
Custom properties
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom dashboards
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Auto-captured events
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Hotjar does not have annotations
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
Posthogs' support consists of an extensive knowledge base and community on their website. For enterprise users, support is also available trough a dedicated Slack channel and via e-mail.
Usermaven offers documentation, live chat support, and email support.
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


