16 Best Hotjar Alternatives & Competitors in 2025

Hotjar is a web analytics tool that reveals how users interact with websites. It combines both analytics and user feedback tools into one platform, offering several key features such as heatmaps, session recordings, etc. 

However, Hotjar is not always the right pick. Some people believe it slows down the site and that the pricing is too high for small businesses that need advanced features.

For more complex user research, you will certainly need to invest in additional software to cover features Hotjar doesn’t have.

That’s why we have prepared the top 16 Hotjar alternatives, so you can choose the best software for your needs!

Top 16 Hotjar alternatives

1. UXtweak

UXtweak is a robust Hotjar alternative that provides comprehensive insights into users’ behavior.

The software provides not only heatmap analysis and session recording features but also includes professional UX research tools for card sorting and prototype testing.

With UXtweak you can test every step of your product’s life cycle – from architecture to product testing.

Features:

• Session Recording, Heatmaps, Survey tool: Emphasize with users by seeing exactly how they interact with your product.
• Card Sorting, Tree Testing: Organize content based on how users naturally group and find particular products or information.
• Mobile Testing, Usability Testing (for prototypes, websites and applications): Test usability to identify how users interact with your designs and where they struggle.
• Live Interviews: Freeform Interviews, Study Interviews – conduct real-time feedback sessions to gain deeper insights into user behavior and preferences.
• User Panel, On-site recruiting, Own Database: Recruit participants to build a reliable pool of testers for your UX research.

Pros:

• Advanced analytics features provide deep insights into user behavior patterns and help teams of all sizes optimize their websites and apps efficiently.
• A vast variety of features offered – apart from session recordings and heatmaps, UXtweak also provides great tools for usability testing, IA optimization, and user behavior analysis. With UXtweak, you can conduct all your research in one platform, without having to invest in multiple tools.
• A comprehensive free plan  – UXtweak allows you to try all features, so you can make a well-informed decision on whether this software fits your needs. 

Cons:

• Complex Feature Additions: The platform’s frequent addition of complex features may pose a challenge for some users.
• Learning curve: Some users may require additional time to master the platform’s advanced features due to its comprehensive nature. 

UXtweak note: To address this, new tutorial videos are being produced.

Reviews:

Based on the information provided by Capterra, the overall score of UXtweak is 4.8 out of 5.
Here is what users think about UXtweak:

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

Plans

• Free plan to test UXtweak out.
• Basic plan – 113€/month (annual billing),
• Custom solution upon request.

There is also a Free trial available.

2. Survicate

Survicate stands out as an intuitive yet powerful survey software, great for collecting continuous customer insights at scale and across multiple channels.

It supports various use cases, from measuring customer satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) to collecting website, product, and mobile app feedback.

With an AI-assisted survey creator, advanced targeting, and a wide range of customization options, Survicate makes creating and running on-brand surveys quick and effortless.

Features:

• Advanced survey targeting 
• AI-powered survey creator  
• Many third-party integrations (including Hubspot, Salesforce and FullStory)

Pros: 

• An intuitive and simple-to-use tool – makes collecting and analyzing customer feedback quick and easy
• Advanced logic and targeting – ensure you get the most relevant feedback
• Easy customization 

Cons:

• Primarily focused on customer insights – not ideal for other survey types

Reviews:

Users rated Survicate at 4.6 out of 5 points on Capterra.

Here is what users think about Survicate:

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans start at €99/month (annual billing) and are limited to 250 responses/month.
• Free trial / freemium available

3. Mouseflow

Mouseflow is another great customer feedback tool if you are considering substituting Hotjar.

The platform is used by many clients to optimize conversions of digital products and allows users to automatically build different types of heat maps so they can be adjusted to every requirement of the client.

Mouseflow also offers a more diverse toolkit that can facilitate the creation of conversion funnels and forms.

Features:

• Session Replay 
• Heatmaps 
• Conversion Funnels 
• User Feedback 
• Forms 

Pros: 

• Iframe functionality – which has been praised by many Mouseflow clients who switched from Hotjar 
• Intuitive user interface 
• Shallow learning curve 

Cons:

• No A/B testing 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of Mouseflow is 4.7 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing: 

• Plans start at €31/month (annual billing) and are calculated according to the number of recordings/month.
• Free trial / freemium available for 14 days.

4. Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is another one of the more well-known alternatives to Hotjar to help you observe user interaction and gauge customer engagement.

But apart from heatmaps and session recordings, this tool can also be utilized to create scroll maps and A/B tests, which is a great addition to the toolkit and facilitates better, more in-depth product usability research. 

Features:

• Snapshot reporting 
• Heatmaps and scroll maps 
• Session recordings 
• A/B testing
• Surveys
• Demo dashboard

Pros:

• Very sophisticated A/B testing feature 
• Excellent customer service – Customers have liked this Hotjar alternative for the responsiveness of the support team. 

Cons:

• No possibility of monthly subscription/payments 
• Poor UX of the platform  – Clients often struggle to navigate through the platform and have complained about Crazy Egg having too complicated a UI.

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of Crazy Egg is 4.4 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans start at $99/month with annual billing only.
• Free trial / freemium – free 30 days trial available.

5. Smartlook

Smartlook is an analytics platform best suitable for qualitative research, especially for actionable insights into customer behavior and user trends related to your product.

With this platform, you will get a chance not only to record user sessions and create heatmaps but also to track mobile and cross-platform analytics, which will give you a deeper understanding of your app’s usability and issues linked to it. 

Features: 

• Session Recordings 
• Heatmaps 
• Event Analysis 
• Funnels 
• Cross-platform Analysis 
• Mobile App Analytics 

Pros: 

• Decent straightforward UI
• Bugs tracker feature – This tool has been particularly useful to many customers when it comes to discovering bugs on the website. 

Cons: 

• The very limited period of data storage – varies between 1 to 3 months. 
• Failed heatmap recordings – especially SPA web pages. 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of Smartlook is 4.7 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – Pricing is starting at €55/month. 
• Free trial / freemium available. 

6. WatchThemLive

WatchThemLive is another Hotjar substitution that is worth a mention and it can greatly help in bettering your customer experience.

This platform is a great tool for those who wish to analyze every single detail of current user trends and customer engagement on their digital products.

WatchThemLive can also help you note any inconsistencies or bugs that might lead to poorer usability of your website/application. 

Features: 

• Session Recording
• User Tracking
• Heatmaps
• Detailed Analytics
• Conversion & Goal Tracking
• Page Optimization

Pros: 

• Competitive pricing 

Cons: 

• Very limited toolkit –Compared to our other alternatives, this Hotjar substitution offers limited possibilities to conduct tests apart from usability testing.
• No unique links for each test – Even though this might seem like a small drawback, unique test links make participant recruitment and results usage easier. 
• No A/B testing feature 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of Smartlook is 4.5 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – The annual pricing starts at $58/month approximately. 
• Free trial / freemium – Yes, a free plan is available.

7. Userfeel

Userfeel is a company that provides advanced features for both unmoderated and moderated testing, which will greatly help you extend the scope of your research beyond session recordings and heatmaps.

Product teams will benefit from detailed insights gained from observing real users in session recording as well as 1:1 researcher-user interaction.

At the same time, this software does not require specific skills and is quite easy to implement in the working process even for people with no previous experience in the field of UX research. 

Features: 

• Unmoderated Testing 
• Moderated Testing
• SUS questionnaire 

Pros: 

• Voice transcription 
• Participants panel with testers from over 40 countries 

Cons: 

• Poor quality of testers panel – some users have complained about issues with testers not having specific qualities defined before the conduction of the study, which made the research ineffective. Having a proper user panel is definitely vital for the quality of the study. 
• High pricing compared to competitors

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of Userfeel is 4.5 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software:

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – Pricing depends on the number of sessions/month and is from $60/credit.
• Discounts – 25% off for NGOs and educational institutions. 
• Free trial/ freemium – No information available, most likely there is not.

8. FullStory

FullStory is a powerful software that helps improve the digital experience of your virtual products by collecting usage data and visitor behavior patterns.

It transforms this data into comprehensive insights through advanced analytics and marketing dashboards functionality.

This platform is a nice alternative to Hotjar if the main goal of your studies is to be focused on usability testing. 

Features: 

• Journey Mapping 
• Heatmap Feature
• Session Replays 
• Click Testing
• User Segments

Pros: 

• Effortless implementation 
• Robust feature for user journey mapping
• Possibility for powerful integrations with other tools

Cons: 

• Ineffective limited toolkit –  FullStory’s users have complained about some features being useless or hard to implement. 
• Poor customer service 
• Limited timeframe for result evaluation  – This Hotjar alternative only stores your data for a limited period. Moreover, the extraction of the data can also be a burden. 

Reviews

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall performance of Fullstory is rated at 4.6 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – Information on demand. 
• No Free plan, but a 14-day free trial for Business Plan is available

9. UXcam

UXCam is yet another platform that can be employed to substitute Hotjar and observe every user’s digital interaction.

The focus of this tool is mostly on session recording and heatmap analysis, so it will be a great fit if you want to focus your research on website usability issues.

However, for complex user research, it is best used in combination with a detailed analytics platform and other tools. 

Features:

• Session replays
• User and heatmap analytics
• Funnel, event, and issue analytics
• 3rd-party integrations

Pros:

• Highly detailed session recording – which makes your research more effective.
• Responsive customer service – including issue resolutions. 

Cons:

• Confusing pricing plans
• The limited number of tools provided – UXCam you might fail to cover all your research needs. 
• Problems with longer video recordings – Longer sessions often don’t get recorded, so you might lose essential data. 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of UXcam is 4.6 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – on demand. 
• Discounts – up to 50% discount on an annual premium contract over 50K.
• Free trial/ freemium available.

10. Contentsquare

Contentsquare is another powerful Hotjar competitor in our list to provide insights into user interactions.

This software is used for digital experience analytics and through some very extensive features helps customers reveal any hidden behavioral patterns that might impact users’ interactions with digital products such as apps or websites.

Using this platform will aid you in creating better customer experiences, as well as having faster business growth and better product agility. 

Features: 

• Form Analysis
• Customer Journey Analysis 
• Session Replay 
• Zone-based Heatmaps

Pros:

• Responsive customer support 
• Eye-catching visual design – This will give you an upper hand when it comes to presenting the outcomes to shareholders. 

Cons:

• Regular glitches and bugs – However, Contentsquare’s support team has been praised by the clients for its responsiveness. 
• Steep learning curve 

Reviews: 

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall core of the software is 4.8 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing: 

• Plans – on demand. 
• Free trial/ freemium – no information is available.

11. LogRocket

Combining session replay, product analytics, and error tracking, LogRocket is an efficient platform designed for software and marketing teams to help create better digital experiences for users of their digital products. 

Features: 

• Session Replay 
• Frontend Performance Monitoring 
• Product Analytics
• Error Tracking 
• UX Analytics 

Pros: 

• Provides powerful integrations – with tools such as Sentry. 
• Customizability
• Effortless set-up and SDK documentation which is easy to follow

Cons: 

• Higher pricing compared to other alternatives – Especially if you want to test both an app and a website, as for that you will have to invest in two separate subscriptions 
• Steep learning curve 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of LogRocket is 4.9 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing: 

• Plans – a Free plan is available, and pricing starts at $199 per month for mobile analytics and  $99 per month for website analytics. 
• Free trial available.

12. VWO Insights

VWO Insights uses a behavior analysis engine to help companies identify obstructions that weaken customers’ user experience and highlight areas that can be used for further development opportunities.

Features: 

• Cross-Device Heatmap and Visitor recording
• Clickmap
• Heatmap Comparison
• Funnels
• Page and Session Level Recordings
• Scrollmap
• White-labeled Surveys

Pros: 

• Seamless UX 
• Helpful supporting materials – clients have often mentioned the good quality of tutorials for separate features and customer support.

Cons: 

• Separate plans for Mobile and Website testing 
• Limited features range – Although the platform provides many other features, such as A/B testing, split URL testing, and report customization, you will have to buy a different subscription for them and overall the platform is quite expensive. 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of the software is 5 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – on demand
• Free trial / freemium – no information available

13. Microsoft Clarity

Clarity is a great free tool developed by Microsoft that can substitute Hotjar and allow you to observe the basic behavioral patterns of your users.

Even though the usability and features it offers are quite few, this can be a great choice for someone who does not want to invest a lot of resources and does not require extensive user experience research. 

Features: 

• Heatmaps 
• Session Recordings 
• Insights 

Pros: 

• The software is free forever 
• Integration with Google Analytics

Cons: 

• No advanced features or analytics – compared to other alternatives in our list, Clarity offers the more basic features.
•  Confusing User Interface 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of the software is 4.8 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

The platform is absolutely free. 

14. Glassbox

Glassbox is our next alternative to Hotjar and it is a great substitute for the software indeed providing actionable insights into user interactions.

The company provides many analytics features such as funnel, mobile app, and performance analysis in addition to offering session replays and heatmapping which is quite helpful for a better understanding of your digital customers. 

Features: 

• Customer Journey Analytics 
• Mobile App Analytics 
• Session Replay 
• Performance Analytics 
• Product Analytics 
• Interaction & Detailed Heatmaps 
• Funnel Analysis 
• Struggle and Error Analysis 

Pros: 

• Intuitive User interface
• Fantastic customer support 

Cons: 

• Bugs and inconsistencies in the journey maps 
• No possibility to segment session recordings by IP address 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of the software is 4.9 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – information is available on demand. 
• Free trial / freemium – No information. 

15. Plerdy

Plerdy is a multifunctional SaaS solution that aids in conversion improvement and improving the UX of digital products based on usability research results.

As a great bonus, this tool facilitates pop-up forms’ creation and you can effortlessly implement them without having to consult developers and designers. 

Features: 

• Website Heatmap Tool 
• Session Replay 
• Pop-up Software 
• Net Promoter Score 
• Event Tracking Tool 
• Funnel Analysis 

Pros: 

• Extensive toolkit – Plerdy has many great additional features that have been praised by the customers 
• Detailed customization and personalization of pop-ups 

Cons: 

• A steeper learning curve due to the UI – some customers have found this platform to be confusing in the beginning due to the quality of the user interface. 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of software is 4.9 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans – a Free plan is available, and pricing starts at $32 per month 
• Discounts – 35% off when billed annually. 
• Free trial / freemium – 14-day trial is available. 

16. Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is our last (but not least!) alternative to Hotjar that can help you observe user behavioral patterns.

This tool is mostly focused on usability testing of the websites and helps clients analyze potential drawbacks that might lead to worse conversion rates through session recording and detailed heatmaps. 

Features: 

• Session Recordings 
• Surveys 
• Heatmaps 
• Live Chat 
• Conversion Funnels 
• Announcements
• Form Analysis 

Pros:

• Great and easily understandable UI
• Helpful additional features – such as conversion funnels and announcements
• Ability to track users’ activity in real-time 

Cons:

• Very limited data storage
• Lower quality of the dashboards 
• Limited integration possibilities with Shopify apps 

Reviews:

Based on the information by Capterra, the overall score of software is 4.7 out of 5.
Here’s what users think about the software: 

Source: Capterra

Pricing:

• Plans start at $39 per month 
• Discounts – a 20% discount for an annual subscription 
• Free plan / freemium – Yes, a 7-day trial is available 

List of Free Hotjar Alternatives

Here’s a list of our free forever Hotjar alternatives that you can make use of in your next UX research project. Some have been mentioned in this article, others are worth exploring:

1. UXtweak
2. Mouseflow
3. Full Story
4. Smartlook
5. LogRocket
6. Microsoft Clarity
7. WatchThemLive 
8. UXCam

Are you ready to make the decision?

We hope this list of heatmap tools helped you gather valuable insights into the possibilities each Hotjar alternative can provide and inspired you to make the right choice.

And if you are still unsure which software to choose, why not try our top alternative – UXtweak?

Schedule a demo call with the company or go ahead and create a free account and discover all the incredible ways it can help improve your digital product’s UX with our actionable insights!