Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Rating
4.5/5
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.
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.
A simple but powerful real-time web analytics tool that helps you track, analyse and understand your visitors. It features click fraud detection and session playback.
Pros
- GA4 is free to use
- Many functionalities
- The reports are customisable
- Large community
- Extensive documentation
- GA4 is easily scalable
- Lightweight
- Open-source
- Cookieless
- EU cloud infrastructure
- Comes with great heatmaps
- Includes session recordings
- Good polling function
- Hotjar features exit surveys
- Easy to use
- Google Ads integration
- Great session playback
- Click fraud detection
- Visitor alerts
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Implementation can be hard
- Inaccurate data sampling
- UI is not easy to use
- Limited features
- No audience reporting features
- Hotjar is not available for mobile
- Steep pricing for large organisations
- Hard to exclude URLs from reports
- Limited free plan
Pricing information
Starting Price
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| 10k page views | $9 p/m |
| Enterprise | On 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 |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
| Free | Free |
| 100k Page Views | €9+ p/m |
| 250k Page Views | €19+ p/m |
Free trial period
Free plan
30 days
Free plan
30 days
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
1-10+ depending on plan
Unlimited
1
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 Kingdom
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
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
Statcounter
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
Realtime
30 minutes
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
3-5+ years depending on plan
12 months
Unlimited*
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
e.g. import GA data
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Import Google keyword data
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
Export your data to CSV
Export recording meta data
To a spreadsheet or other third party software.
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- PECR
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Plausible is cookieless by default.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Statcounter uses 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
Important visitor alerts
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Weekly or monthly email reporting
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Detailed, mobile-friendly reports
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device type, browser & OS
See on which device the user was
Device type, browser, OS & screen resolution
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Basic reporting by looking at Entry & Exit pages
Simple ordered list of pages visited
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
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Simple referral & UTM sources
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Ecommerce revenue tracking
User Experience Features
Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Unlimited
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record all interaction with your site
Recordings with many filtering options
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
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
Custom Properties (Business plan and above)
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
By means of adding CSS classes
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Max 5 custom tags + values per page
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Hotjar does not have annotations
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
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.
Statcounter offers various support options like phone, email, live chat, and an extensive knowledge base.
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