Hotjar Alternatives: 9 Heatmap and Replay Tools for 2026
Hotjar Alternatives: 9 Options Compared for 2026
Short answer: Microsoft Clarity is the best free Hotjar alternative, with no traffic limits and no paid tier at all. PostHog is the best all-in-one pick if you want replay, heatmaps, and surveys next to your product data. Mouseflow is the easiest privacy-first swap, since it keeps EU customer data in the EU. And OpenReplay is the best open-source option if you want session replay running on your own servers.
Hotjar doesn't really exist as a separate product anymore. Type hotjar.com/pricing into a browser and you land on contentsquare.com/pricing. The old Observe, Ask, and Engage split is gone too. Observe became Experience Analytics, Ask became Voice of Customer, and Engage (user interviews) is marked end-of-life on the pricing page.
Here's what that looks like for a site doing 20,000 sessions a month, on monthly billing:
- Experience Analytics Free: 200,000 monthly sessions, but only 10,000 session replays, 1 project, and 1 month of data access.
- Experience Analytics Growth: starts at $49/month for 7,000 sessions. The 20,000-session tier is $119/month, with 20,000 replays and 13 months of data (replays kept for 2 months).
- Voice of Customer Growth: $99/month for 500 survey responses. Free gives you 100.
So recording every visit plus running real surveys costs $218/month, or $2,616 a year. Paying yearly takes 20% off (about $2,093), but only if you pay by card or PayPal, not by invoice. And past 20,000 sessions, replay coverage mostly stops growing: the 45,000-session tier costs $219/month and still includes 20,000 replays.
That's not outrageous. But Clarity does most of the same job for $0, and a few tools below give you far more replay per dollar. Every price here comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked in September 2026.
TL;DR: Quick Picks for 2026
| Need | Top pick | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Free heatmaps and replay, no limits | Microsoft Clarity | Free |
| Replay + product analytics + surveys | PostHog | 5,000 free recordings/mo, then usage |
| Big free replay allowance | FullStory | Free up to 30,000 sessions/mo |
| EU data residency, funnels, forms | Mouseflow | Free (500 sessions), paid tiers |
| Replay plus live chat and surveys | Lucky Orange | From $32/mo billed yearly |
| Heatmaps and A/B tests for marketers | Crazy Egg | From $29/mo billed yearly |
| Heatmaps plus SEO audits | Plerdy | Free, paid from $32/mo |
| Replay tied to errors and performance | LogRocket | From $176/mo |
| Open source, self-hosted replay | OpenReplay | Free self-hosted |
What Hotjar Actually Does Well
Hotjar made qualitative UX research something a marketer could set up in ten minutes. Paste a script, and by lunch you've got heatmaps, recordings, and a feedback widget. The UI is still one of the friendliest in the category, and the combination of "watch what they did" with "ask them why" in one tool is genuinely useful.
The Contentsquare version adds zone-based heatmaps, journey analysis, and AI summaries on Growth. The free tier's 200,000 sessions is generous too. The catch is everything around it: 10,000 replays, one project, and a month of history.
When to Leave Hotjar
Three signals:
- You only look at heatmaps and a handful of replays. If nobody on the team runs surveys or journey analysis, you're paying for features Clarity gives away.
- You need more than 20,000 replays. Growth caps replays at 20,000 on most tiers above that point, so heavy-traffic sites pay more without seeing more.
- Legal wants EU hosting or self-hosting. Contentsquare bills European customers in euros, but if your DPO wants the data on your own servers, you need a different tool.
1. Microsoft Clarity
The free default, and for many teams the whole answer.
Strengths:
- Free forever with no traffic limits and no cap on the number of sites, per Microsoft's own FAQ
- Heatmaps, session recordings, rage-click and dead-click detection, plus AI summaries and chat
- Mobile app analytics included
Weaknesses:
- Recordings are retained for up to 30 days, so you'll need to export anything you want to keep
- No surveys or feedback widgets
- Explicit consent is required for visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland; without it, sessions fragment and full replays aren't available
- Data sits in Microsoft's Azure cloud, and there's no self-hosted option
Pricing: Free.
Best for: Marketing sites, SMBs, and anyone who used Hotjar mainly for heatmaps and a weekly replay binge.
2. PostHog
An all-in-one product toolkit where session replay, heatmaps, and surveys live next to event analytics and feature flags.
Strengths:
- 5,000 free web recordings a month, 1,500 free survey responses, and 1 million free analytics events
- Replays link straight to funnels, errors, and feature flags, so you can see why a conversion dropped
- EU cloud hosted in Frankfurt, or self-host it on your own infrastructure
- Open-source codebase; you can read exactly what the script collects
Weaknesses:
- Built for product and engineering teams. Marketers used to Hotjar's simplicity will find it busier
- Usage-based billing takes some forecasting
- PostHog doesn't support self-hosted instances, so you're on your own there
Pricing: 5,000 recordings/month free. Then $0.005 per recording up to 15,000, $0.0035 from 15,000-50,000, and cheaper past that. Mobile recordings have a separate 2,500 free allowance and cost more.
Best for: SaaS teams that want replay and surveys in the same tool as their product analytics.
3. FullStory
The enterprise digital experience platform, now with a free tier big enough for most small sites.
Strengths:
- FullstoryFree includes 30,000 sessions a month with 12 months of data retention and up to 10 users
- Excellent search: find every session where someone clicked a specific button and then left
- Strong frustration signals, and an AI agent add-on (StoryAI)
Weaknesses:
- Paid plans (Business, Advanced, Enterprise) are quote-only
- Surveys are a paid add-on
- Jumping from free to paid is a big step, and you won't know how big until you talk to sales
Pricing: Free up to 30,000 sessions/month. Paid plans: see pricing page (demo required).
Best for: Teams that want deep replay search now and can stomach a sales process later.
4. Mouseflow
The closest like-for-like Hotjar replacement, with stronger funnels and form analytics.
Strengths:
- Heatmaps, recordings, funnels, form analytics, and friction scoring in one tool
- EU customer data is stored within the EU, per its GDPR page
- Unlimited users on every plan
- Sessions are counted per month, not per day
Weaknesses:
- Free plan is tiny: 500 sessions, 1 website, 1 month of retention
- Data retention on paid plans runs 3 to 12 months depending on tier
- Surveys are lighter than Hotjar's
Pricing: Free for 500 sessions/month. Paid plans are Essential (5,000 sessions), Advanced (25,000), and Premium (100,000), with up to 35% off yearly. The page's price markup lists euros, so check the pricing page for your currency.
Best for: Ecommerce and lead-gen teams in Europe who want Hotjar's workflow with EU data residency.
5. Lucky Orange
Replay and heatmaps bundled with live chat, surveys, and announcements.
Strengths:
- Every plan includes recordings, dynamic heatmaps, unlimited surveys, live chat, funnels, and form analytics
- Discovery AI helps surface patterns across sessions
- Extra websites are $5 each
Weaknesses:
- No free plan, just a 7-day trial
- Data retention starts at 60 days; 90, 180, or 365 days cost extra
- Pricing jumps hard between tiers (10,000 sessions to 50,000)
Pricing: Build $32/month billed yearly (3,500 sessions), Grow $72 (10,000), Expand $199 (50,000), Scale $839 (300,000). On monthly billing it's Build $39, Expand $249, and Scale $1,049.
Best for: Small ecommerce stores that want chat and on-site feedback in the same tool as replay.
6. Crazy Egg
The original heatmap tool, still aimed squarely at marketers.
Strengths:
- Heatmaps, scroll maps, and confetti reports that segment clicks by traffic source
- Built-in A/B testing
- Unlimited website domains on every plan, and no overages
Weaknesses:
- Recordings are the weak spot: 50 a month on Starter, 1,000 on Plus
- Billed annually only
- Less useful for product teams debugging an app
Pricing: Starter $29/month (5,000 pageviews, 50 recordings), Plus $99 (150,000 pageviews, 1,000 recordings), Pro $249 (500,000 pageviews, 5,000 recordings), Enterprise $599. All billed annually.
Best for: Landing-page optimizers who care about heatmaps and tests more than replay.
7. Plerdy
Heatmaps and replay bolted onto an SEO audit and conversion toolkit.
Strengths:
- Real free plan: 100 heatmap pageviews a day and 500 video sessions
- Unlimited A/B testing, pop-ups, and ecommerce tracking on paid plans
- SEO audits included, which is unusual in this category
Weaknesses:
- Heatmaps are limited per day, so traffic spikes eat your allowance
- The interface tries to do a lot and feels busy
- Storage is 1 month on free and 3 months on the lower paid tiers
Pricing: Startup $32/month monthly or $21 billed yearly (5,000 video sessions), Scale $64/$42 (10,000), Thrive $108/$70 (30,000), with Enterprise tiers up to 250,000 sessions.
Best for: Marketers and SEO folks who want heatmaps and page audits from one login.
8. LogRocket
Session replay built for engineers, tied to console logs, network requests, and errors.
Strengths:
- Replay shows the exact error and network call behind a broken checkout
- Analytics, error events, and logs are unlimited; you pay for sessions captured
- Galileo AI summarizes sessions and flags issues on Pro
- Self-hosted deployment on Enterprise for regulated industries
Weaknesses:
- Expensive for a marketing site. It's a debugging tool first
- No free plan, just a 14-day trial
- No on-site surveys
Pricing: Core starts at $176/month, with a slider from 1,000 to 4M+ sessions. Pro and Enterprise: see pricing page.
Best for: Product and engineering teams chasing bugs and performance problems.
9. OpenReplay
Open-source session replay you can run on your own servers.
Strengths:
- Self-host for free, so replay data never leaves your infrastructure
- Dev tools in the replay: network, console, and performance data
- Managed Dedicated option with no limits on users, recordings, or retention
Weaknesses:
- Self-hosting means you own upgrades, storage, and uptime
- Built for developers, with no on-site surveys
- Dedicated cloud pricing starts well above most SaaS tools here
Pricing: Open source self-hosted: free. Dedicated (managed, your choice of AWS, GCP, or Azure region): from $199/month, billed hourly. Enterprise: custom.
Best for: Regulated teams, and anyone whose legal team says "no third-party replay scripts."
Recommendation by Profile
| You | Pick |
|---|---|
| Marketing site, want free heatmaps | Microsoft Clarity |
| SaaS team, want replay next to product data | PostHog |
| Need deep replay search, small budget today | FullStory Free |
| EU company, want Hotjar's workflow | Mouseflow |
| Small store, want chat and surveys too | Lucky Orange |
| Landing pages and A/B tests | Crazy Egg |
| Heatmaps plus SEO audits | Plerdy |
| Engineers debugging real user issues | LogRocket |
| Data must stay on your servers | OpenReplay (self-hosted) or PostHog |
Pricing at a Glance (20,000 Sessions/Month, Monthly Billing)
| Product | Plan that fits | ~Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Hotjar / Contentsquare | Growth 20k (+ Voice of Customer Growth) | $119 ($218 with surveys) |
| Hotjar / Contentsquare | Free (10,000 replays, 1 month data) | $0 |
| Microsoft Clarity | Free | $0 |
| FullStory | Free (30,000 sessions) | $0 |
| PostHog | 20,000 recordings (5,000 free) | ~$67.50 |
| Plerdy | Thrive (30,000 video sessions) | $108 |
| Crazy Egg | Plus (1,000 recordings), annual only | $99/mo billed yearly |
| Lucky Orange | Expand (50,000 sessions) | $249 ($199 yearly) |
| Mouseflow | Advanced (25,000 sessions) | See pricing page |
| LogRocket | Core | From $176, see slider |
| OpenReplay | Self-hosted or Dedicated | Server costs, or from $199 |
Directional, as always. The PostHog figure is 10,000 recordings at $0.005 plus 5,000 at $0.0035, and assumes your event volume stays inside the 1 million free events. Lucky Orange's Grow plan tops out at 10,000 sessions, so a 20,000-session site lands on Expand. The takeaway: three tools cover this site for free, and PostHog records every session for about half the price of Hotjar Growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free Hotjar alternative?
Microsoft Clarity. It's free with no traffic limits, and it covers heatmaps, recordings, and AI summaries. If you need longer history or better replay search, FullStory's free plan gives you 30,000 sessions a month with 12 months of retention.
Is Microsoft Clarity really free?
Yes. Microsoft's FAQ says Clarity is free forever, with no traffic limits and no paid version to upgrade to. The trade-offs are 30-day recording retention, no surveys, and your data living in Microsoft's cloud.
Is there an open-source or self-hosted Hotjar alternative?
OpenReplay is the most complete open-source session replay tool, free to self-host. PostHog is also open source and can be self-hosted, though the company doesn't support self-hosted instances. LogRocket offers self-hosting only on Enterprise.
Which Hotjar alternative is best for GDPR?
For the least legal risk, self-host OpenReplay or PostHog so replay data never leaves your servers. For a hosted tool, PostHog's EU cloud runs in Frankfurt and Mouseflow stores EU customer data in the EU. Whatever you choose, mask form fields and get consent: Clarity, for example, requires explicit consent for visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland.
Hotjar vs Microsoft Clarity: which should I use?
Clarity if you mainly need heatmaps and recordings and don't want to pay. Hotjar (Contentsquare) if you also run on-site surveys, need more than 30 days of history, or want journey analysis and zone-based heatmaps. Plenty of teams run Clarity for behavior data and a separate survey tool for the "why."
The Honest Take
Hotjar is still pleasant to use, and the Contentsquare free tier is better than most people assume. But paying $119 to $218 a month for heatmaps, replays, and surveys is a hard sell when Clarity gives you most of it for nothing.
Start with Clarity. If you outgrow it, the next move depends on who's watching the replays. Marketers should look at Mouseflow, Lucky Orange, or Crazy Egg. Product teams should look at PostHog. Engineers want LogRocket. And if your legal team wants replay data on your own servers, OpenReplay is the answer.
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