Compare
Compare Analytics Tools
Rating
4.5/5
5/5
4/5
5/5
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.
Pirsch is a simple, cookie-free, open-source web analytics solution that integrates easily into your website or backend.
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
- Lightweight, cookie-free and open-source
- Pirsch's backend integration requires no client-side scripts and delivers the same accurate results without the interference of adblockers
- Extensive API
- Fully-fledged access management
- Comprehensive filtering by any metric including event metadata
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
- Visitors are only recognized for up to 24 hours to comply with the privacy policy
- Heatmaps and session recordings are not available
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 trial period
Free plan
21 days
Free plan
30 days
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
30
Unlimited
Unlimited
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
You
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 from Plausible, Fathom or Google Analytics
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
to CSV, XML, Json or Looker Studio or via HTTP API
Export recording meta data
via API or CSV
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- ePrivacy
- PECR
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Matomo offers cookieless tracking.
Hotjar relies on first-party cookies.
Pirsch Analytics does not use 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
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Detailed daily, weekly and monthly reports
e.g. daily survey responses reports
Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
See on which device the user was
Device type, OS, Browser, Browser version, Screen size
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Basic funnel reporting
Discover why users drop off
Analyze Funnels
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
With flexible Sankey chart
Entry and exit pages
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Based on visit, interaction, campaign, ecommerce, demographics & device
Create custom filters for recordings
Extensive filtering by any metric
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Analyse and segment by cohort
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Model comparison report
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Possible with custom events and goals
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
A/B Testing
A/B Testing Platform (premium feature)
No A/B testing tool only integrations
Tag-based A/B testing and segmentation
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
As part of custom events
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
With additional metadata fields (key-value pairs).
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.
Email support, public Discord server
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