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.
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.
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
- Data display
- Flexible data visualisation
- Engagement reporting
- Privacy oriented
- 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
- Integrations
- Branding method
- 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 |
| On-Premise | Free |
| Cloud | €19+ 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
21 days
Free plan
30 days
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
30
Unlimited
1
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited
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
15 minutes or more
30 minutes
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
Unlimited and customizable
12 months
Unlimited*
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Matomo doesn’t use data sampling
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Import Google Analytics data, search keywords & server logs
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Import Google keyword data
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
to CSV, XML, Json or Looker Studio or via HTTP API
Export recording meta data
To a spreadsheet or other third party software.
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Matomo offers cookieless tracking.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Statcounter uses cookies
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Receive alerts from every report by email or SMS
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Important visitor alerts
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Detailed daily, weekly and monthly reports
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Detailed, mobile-friendly reports
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
See on which device the user was
Device type, browser, OS & screen resolution
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Basic funnel reporting
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
With flexible Sankey chart
Simple ordered list of pages visited
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Based on visit, interaction, campaign, ecommerce, demographics & device
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
Simple referral & UTM sources
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
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
Recordings with many filtering options
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 Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Flexible report design
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Max 5 custom tags + values per page
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.
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