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.
One easy dashboard to see how many visitors are coming to your website, where they come from and what they do once they're there. Without cookies. Without stalking. Still lightweight.
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 website optimization tool to analyze visitor's behavior across email & ad campaigns. Investigate buyers' journeys, identify audience segments present across webpages, and spot issues.
Pros
- GA4 is free to use
- Many functionalities
- The reports are customisable
- Large community
- Extensive documentation
- GA4 is easily scalable
- Privacy focused
- Cookieless
- Lightweight script
- Good support
- Easy to use
- Comes with great heatmaps
- Includes session recordings
- Good polling function
- Hotjar features exit surveys
- Easy heatmaps
- Customer feedback surveys
- Simple but good A/B testing
- Easy to set up
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Implementation can be hard
- Inaccurate data sampling
- UI is not easy to use
- Limited features due to cookieless
- Not very customisable
- No free version
- Hotjar is not available for mobile
- Steep pricing for large organisations
- Hard to exclude URLs from reports
- Few intergrations with other tools
- Easy to hit the max number of snapshots
Pricing information
Starting Price
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| Starter | €15 p/m |
| Business | €40 p/m |
| Enterprise | On req. |
| Basic | Free |
| Plus | $49+ p/m |
| Business | On req. |
| Scale | On req. |
| Basic | $29 p/m |
| Plus | $99 p/m |
| Pro | $249 p/m |
| Enterprise | $599 p/m |
Free trial period
Free plan
14 days
Free plan
30 days
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
5-10+ 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 Kingdom
- United States
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- United States
- 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
Crazy Egg
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
Between 3 & 24 months depending on the plan
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
GA importer included
Send user data to Hotjar to enhance analysis
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
As CSV or via API
Export recording meta data
Download reports or snapshots as a zipfile or CSV
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- HIPAA
- ePrivacy
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Simple Analytics is cookieless by default.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Crazy Egg uses first-party cookies
Alerts & Automation
Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
in the interface, via e-mail or Slack
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Daily, weekly, monthly
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Receive reports or Snapshots by mail
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Curved and linear trend lines
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
See on which device the user was
See which device the user used
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Line up goals for simple funnel
Discover why users drop off
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Filter dashboard with visitor attributes
Create custom filters for recordings
Segment users by device, location, etc.
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
By means of referral tracking
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
User Experience Features
Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Unlimited
Heatmap, scrollmap, confetti report, overlay & list
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Record all interaction with your site
A/B Testing
No A/B testing tool only integrations
With realtime results
User Feedback
Place NPS ratings or a survey pop-up on every page
Surveys, NPS scores & ratings
Customizability
Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
Custom tagging for segmenting users
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom users variables
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Track and filter sessions & heatmaps
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Able to include links in annotations
Hotjar does not have annotations
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Simple Analytics offers knowledgable support through phone and email.
Hotjar offers extensive documentation and a ticketing support system. Most requests are answered within 1-2 business days, but often faster.
Crazy Egg offers an extensive knowledge base, a ticketing system, and email as their support options. For the plus, pro, and enterprise plans it offers priority 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