Hotjar is a powerful tool that provides insights into user behavior on your website. It offers heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys to understand how users interact with your site. Hotjar helps identify your site's strengths and weaknesses, enabling you to optimize user experience and engagement. It's an invaluable resource for improving website performance and conversion rates.

  • 01Pros and cons from reviewers
  • 02Main features
  • 03What is Hotjar?
  • 04How Hotjar compare to similar software?
  • 05Who is Hotjar best for according to our reviewers?
  • 06Hotjar Reviews

What is Hotjar?

Hotjar is an advanced analysis tool that aids startups in enhancing their marketing strategies by analyzing website visitor behavior. Unlike other platforms that focus on numerical data, Hotjar generates heatmaps showing areas users interact with most on your site. This information helps identify friction points and improve user experience. The tool also allows for user surveys to continually refine services. It integrates with third-party software for seamless incorporation into business workflows. Used by over a million sites worldwide, including brands like Nintendo and Adobe, Hotjar is available for testing at a discounted rate through the Secret platform.

Pros from reviewers

  • Suitable for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses: Given its price, Hotjar provides a variety of impressive features for initiating user testing and CRO. It is easy to set up and use, even for marketers with no technical inclination, and serves perfectly as a value-based beginner UX/CRO tool.

  • Simplified User Studies: Hotjar simplifies user studies by providing invaluable insights into customer interactions with a website, easing the process of streamlining UI and buying processes

  • Powerful and Easy to Use: Hotjar is straightforward, easy to set up, and incredibly powerful, eliminating guesswork in conversion rate optimization by allowing the study of user behavior and their response to designs, UI/UX, and interfaces

  • Valuable Feedback and Insights: Hotjar enables the creation, personalization, and delivery of surveys and polls for customer feedback, which is quickly updated for immediate analysis. Its heatmap feature displays where users scroll and click on a website, offering valuable insights for marketing teams

  • Easy Integration and Monitoring: Hotjar is easy to integrate using Google Manager or by directly pasting the code, allowing for the monitoring of user activity on a website. Its heatmap feature indicates which areas of a website are performing well

Cons from reviewers

  • Incompatibility issues: Hotjar's form tracking system is incompatible with Angular-Js websites and it doesn't display data from text fields due to GDPR guidelines

  • Limited session recording: Hotjar seems to miss recording organic traffic - those visitors who find the website through search engines, which can be a significant drawback for understanding user navigation

  • Poor customer service: Some users have reported issues with Hotjar's customer service, including slow response times and difficulty resolving technical issues.

  • Limited heatmap creation: Users on smaller Hotjar plans can only create three heatmaps at a time, which can feel restrictive for those who wish to set up more heatmaps and use fewer of the other available features

  • High cost: Hotjar has been criticized for its high pricing, especially after recent price increases, which can be a deterrent for small businesses or beginners

1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar

Get 1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar and up to $99 savings with Secret.

Get Hotjar deal

Main features

Starting Price

$41

/ month

Free Plan

No

Incoming feedback

Surveys

Visitor recordings

Feedback polls

Visitor segmentation

1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar

Get 1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar and up to $99 savings with Secret.

Get Hotjar deal

Hotjar and Google Analytics stand as formidable web analytics tools, each possessing its own set of strengths and distinct features. Delving deeper into their functionalities reveals differences that cater to varying analytical needs.


Hotjar shines in its qualitative approach to data visualization, offering a dynamic insight into user behavior. Through its innovative features like heatmaps and visitor recordings, Hotjar paints a vivid picture of user interactions. Heatmaps display color-coded patterns highlighting where users click, move their mouse, and scroll. Visitor recordings provide a play-by-play video of user sessions, allowing you to see firsthand how users navigate your website.


In contrast, Google Analytics takes a quantitative route, presenting a wealth of metrics and data related to website performance, user demographics, behavior, and conversions. It offers an extensive array of reports and visualizations that provide a comprehensive overview of website traffic and...

logo hotjar

Hotjar

Easily improve user experience on your website

1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar

Save up to $99

Get Hotjar deal
Google Analytics 360 Logo

Google Analytics

Unlock the power of your data with Google Analytics

Hotjar and Smartlook are robust and adaptable analytical solutions that can help you gain more insights into user behavior on your website or mobile application. While they have a lot of similarities, there are also differences that set them apart. 


Hotjar is more user-centric, with a focus on the user experience segment. Hotjar offers tools like heatmaps, on-site feedback mechanisms, and session recordings. With such tools, you will be able to see what pain points users experience and thus improve your offering. Furthermore, Hotjar offers feedback and survey tools through which you can collect valuable insights from your user base.  


On the other hand, Smartlook offers a package of tools that focuses on website analytics through heatmaps and user behavior analysis. Its main feature is its adaptability by being deployable on both a website and on a mobile application, making it cross-platform in a sense. To streamline user behavior, Smartlook provides insights into how...

logo hotjar

Hotjar

Easily improve user experience on your website

1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar

Save up to $99

Get Hotjar deal
logo smartlook

Smartlook

Unleash the insights hidden within your data.

Hotjar and FullStory are known web analytics tools that provide insights into user behavior and website interactions. Although they share objectives, there are distinctions between these two platforms, particularly in terms of their data collection and analysis approaches.


Hotjar is designed with a user interface focusing on offering an array of tools to optimize websites. It provides features such as heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys to help businesses gain an understanding of how users navigate through their websites and engage with the content. By visualizing data and identifying areas where users encounter difficulties, Hotjar enables businesses to make decisions based on data-driven insights for enhancing user experience. Moreover, real-time data synchronization empowers businesses to track user behavior instantly, allowing them to adapt quickly and optimize their websites accordingly.


On the other hand, FullStory specializes in session replay and detailed user analytics....

logo hotjar

Hotjar

Easily improve user experience on your website

1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar

Save up to $99

Get Hotjar deal
logo fullstory

FullStory

Complete insight, one digital experience story

Who is Hotjar best for according to our reviewers?

  • Data Analysts: Hotjar is a useful tool for creating, personalizing, and delivering surveys and polls. It also offers a Form Analysis feature that provides valuable data on user interaction with forms, helping to reduce unsuccessful attempts to complete them

  • Website Optimizers: Hotjar's recording feature is highly recommended for website optimization. It provides context to issues seen in GA and allows for a deeper understanding of the user's mindset

  • Website Designers: These professionals can use Hotjar to streamline their UI and buying process. The software provides invaluable insights into customer interactions with their websites, making it easier to optimize conversion rates

  • Small to Medium-sized Businesses: Hotjar is an excellent tool for these businesses, providing a variety of impressive features for initiating user testing and CRO. It is easy to set up and use, even for marketers with no technical inclination.

  • Marketers: Hotjar is a straightforward and simple tool that marketers can use for basic research. It offers features like scrollmaps and polls, which can provide valuable insights into user behavior

  • 1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar

    Get 1 month free on Business plan on Hotjar and up to $99 savings with Secret.

    Get Hotjar deal

    Hotjar Reviews

    4.5

    Hotjar rating

    27 Hotjar Reviews

    4.5 (27 reviews)
    Leave a review
    • Sandra

      Comparing Hotjar with FullStory: A Review

      Compared to Fullstory, Hotjar offers a superior user experience and more features. However, I find its pricing quite high, particularly for beginners. I wish it could provide more recordings during the trial period.

      October 5, 2024

    • Lawrence A

      Excellent Value UX/CRO Solution for Small to Medium Businesses

      I believe that Hotjar is an excellent tool for small to medium-sized businesses. Given its price, it provides a variety of impressive features for initiating user testing and CRO. As a marketer with no technical inclination, I find it easy to set up and use. We primarily use the surveys to gain insights into our users' needs, potential problems they may be encountering, and to generate content ideas. I don't have any complaints as it serves perfectly as a value-based beginner UX/CRO tool. For the price, it does exactly what I need it to do. We initially used VWO for all CRO related tasks, but later decided to diversify as different products were better suited for different tasks.

      September 29, 2024

    • Betty A

      Essential Tool for In-Depth User Behavior Analysis

      Hotjar perfectly suits my needs by providing context to the issues I see in GA and allowing me to understand the user's mindset more deeply. Its heatmapping feature adds a new dimension to user behavior analysis, and Hotjar makes this accessible to all. The installation process is simple, setting up heatmaps is straightforward, and analyzing results is easy with the Hotjar interface. This saves me a lot of time for actual analysis, rather than setup and configuration. However, on the smaller Hotjar plans, the limit of creating only 3 heatmaps at a time feels restrictive. I would prefer to set up more heatmaps and use fewer of the other available features like surveys and polls. If there were plans that only included the services suitable for my clients, such as heatmaps only for smaller clients and full stack for larger ones, I would definitely recommend them. Crazy Egg also has a great Chrome plugin that Hotjar doesn't match. I chose Hotjar because, at the time of decision.

      September 22, 2024

    • Heather Johnson

      Hotjar: Empowering Data-Driven Decisions with Visual Insights

      As a data analyst, I appreciate the depth of insights Hotjar provides. Its visual representation of data makes it easy to understand user behavior and make data-driven decisions

      September 14, 2024

    • Grace Williams

      Enjoying HotJar for User Tracking

      My overall rating for Hotjar is 9 out of 10. It's an incredibly useful tool and one of the best available. Hotjar allows me to monitor user activity on my website and it's very easy to integrate using Google Manager or by directly pasting the code. One of Hotjar's standout features is its Heatmaps, which indicate which areas of my website are performing well. However, due to GDPR guidelines, it doesn't display data from text fields and its form tracking system is incompatible with Angular-Js websites. I switched to Hotjar because unlike Hubstaff, it doesn't show data from input fields like text or text area.

      September 7, 2024

    • Roy M

      Hotjar's Form Analysis for E-commerce Checkout Process

      As an e-commerce business owner, I found Hotjar's form analysis extremely useful. It helped me understand which fields in our checkout process were causing customers to abandon their carts

      August 31, 2024

    • Frances W

      Boosting WebShop Performance with Hotjar

      I recently incorporated Hotjar into my WebShop and it's been an absolute game-changer! It's been instrumental in helping me pinpoint areas where customers might be facing challenges. For example, I discovered that the root element of the DropDown menu wasn't clickable, which was causing some customers to leave as they didn't realize they needed to click on the sub menu. But thanks to Hotjar, I was able to identify this issue and I'm confident that rectifying it will significantly boost my website's conversion rate. I've become a huge fan of this tool already!

      August 26, 2024

    • Judith M

      Excellent Starter Kit for UX Research

      I wouldn't be surprised if there's a CRO or UX team that hasn't heard of Hotjar. It's a great tool, especially considering its price, but it lacks the flexibility to be my main on-site research tool. It's perfect for beginners and basic research. It's straightforward and simple! I think marketers could benefit the most from this. I appreciate its price, ease of implementation, and good customer service. I primarily use the scrollmaps and polls features. However, it can potentially slow down the site and loads the entire JavaScript even when only running a poll, which unnecessarily burdens the page speed. The forms have almost never worked on any of the websites I've used it on. I don't really use the funnel - I don't see the point. Free GA is still far superior and more useful. The polls have very basic targeting methods. It would be great if they added one or two new targeting triggers, but they haven't released any new features in a long time.

      August 17, 2024

    • Eulalia

      Exemplary Customer Service Experience with Hotjar

      I had a unique experience with Hotjar where I encountered a technical glitch that wouldn't allow me to add my VAT number to my account. I reached out to their support team and was impressed by their commitment to resolving my issue. Over three consecutive days, we worked together to find a solution. As a paying customer, I felt valued and appreciated their dedication. Ultimately, they were able to fix the issue, and although it took a bit of time, I was thrilled with their perseverance and commitment to customer satisfaction.

      August 11, 2024

    • Steven S

      Superb for Monitoring Website Visitors and Guiding Future Decisions

      As a data analyst, I find HotJar incredibly helpful for creating, personalizing, and delivering surveys and polls to our customers. It enables them to give feedback on our business, which is quickly updated to our HotJar account for immediate analysis. The most valuable feature of this platform, and the one that has made it popular among our research teams, is the heatmaps. These display where users scroll and click on our website, offering valuable insights for our marketing teams. However, this feature is only beneficial if our website has a sign-up form or requires visitors to fill out forms. The Form Analysis feature informs me of how users interact with our forms, helping me reduce the number of unsuccessful attempts to complete them. Despite its benefits, there are areas where HotJar could improve, such as pricing customization and enhancing the heatmaps feature. I switched to HotJar because its Form Analysis provides valuable data on user interaction with our forms, helping me reduce failed attempts.

      August 4, 2024

    1 to 10 of 27 results

    Save on the best SaaS with Secret.

    Secret has already helped tens of thousands of startups save millions of dollars on the best SasS like Hotjar and 494 more. Join Secret now to buy SaaS the smart way.