Marketing is comparable to a strategic chess game, requiring intelligent and well-thought moves to stay ahead. Marketers must continuously analyze their website's performance to outperform competitors, just as a chess player examines their opponent's every move.

And web analytics tools help marketers to identify their scope of improvement, best-performing areas and optimize the website accordingly.

While Hotjar has been a popular choice for web analytics, numerous alternatives are now available. This article explores seven top-notch Hotjar alternatives that will take your web analytics game to the next level.

But before we delve into the alternatives, let's take a moment to understand Hotjar as a web analytics tool.

Hotjar: Web Analytics Tool

Hotjar is a powerful web analytics tool that provides insights into user behavior through features like heatmaps, session recordings, conversion funnels, customer feedback polls, and more. It is renowned for its usability and effectiveness in helping businesses optimize their websites and understand user interactions.

Key Features of Hotjar

• Heatmaps: Visual representations showcasing how users interact with different website sections.
• Session Recordings: Recordings of user sessions allow you to observe their actions and behavior on your site.
• Conversion Funnels: Track user journeys and identify conversion bottlenecks.
• Feedback Polls: Collect structured user feedback through custom surveys.
• Pros User-friendly interface: Hotjar is known for its intuitive interface, making it accessible to non-technical users.
• Wide range of features: Hotjar offers various features to help businesses optimize their websites and enhance user experience.
• Integrations with popular platforms: Hotjar seamlessly integrates with platforms like WordPress and Shopify, ensuring convenience for many users.

Why do We Need Hotjar Alternatives?

Though Hotjar is an amazing analytics tool, there are a few aspects that Hotjar needs to include, and businesses need some good alternatives for Hotjar.

Here are some drawbacks of Hotjar:

• Potential data accuracy issues: Hotjar relies on tracking codes and cookies for data collection, which may only sometimes capture user behavior accurately, especially if users disable cookies.
• Storage limitations for session recordings: Hotjar has storage limits for session recordings, potentially requiring users to upgrade for additional storage.
• User privacy concerns: Hotjar collects user data for analysis, raising privacy and compliance concerns. Creating and tracking events in Hotjar requires a paid plan and technical know-how, which can be challenging for non-technical users.

How to Select the Best Web Analytics Tool?

When selecting a web analytics tool, several essential factors must be considered, including:

• User Interface and Ease of Setup: Look for a user-friendly interface and tools that can be easily set up or require minimal technical knowledge.
• Features: Opt for a tool that offers a wide range of data points, including advanced features like heat mapping, A/B testing, surveys, session recordings, and funnel analysis.
• Pricing: Consider your budget and choose a tool that fits your financial constraints.
• Integrations: Ensure the tool seamlessly integrates with your existing marketing and website management platforms.
• Reporting: Look for a tool with a robust reporting system that provides relevant and actionable insights, customizable reports, and easy-to-understand metrics.
• Customization: Seek a tool that allows customization to align with your specific business needs.
• Customer Support: Evaluate the availability of comprehensive support systems, including documentation, knowledge bases, and direct support from the customer service team.

7 Best Hotjar Alternatives to Consider

1. Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg helps website owners analyze user behavior through heatmaps, scroll maps, A/B testing, and user recordings. Crazy Egg's heatmaps are color-coded and track where web users are and are not clicking on your website. This data eliminates irrelevant information not bringing in clicks and provides suggestions for website revisions for a better user experience.

2. Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange provides website and user analysis software, such as heatmaps, visitor recordings, form analytics, live chat, and more. Lucky Orange's main focus is on conversions. It is an important aspect of analyzing user behavior. Understanding how users interact with a website and why they left is vital for making necessary changes to increase conversion rates.

3. riyo.ai

riyo.ai stands out in the competition league with its out-of-the-box features, incorporating everything for a successful marketing strategy in a single platform. riyo.ai includes outperforming features like:

• Website Heatmap Tool: Allows to visually analyze the user behavioral data of the website through click, scroll, and move heatmap.
• Session Recording: Records complete user journey from when visitors land on the page to where they drop off. This will help analyze the improvement scope and understand the user behavior in detail.
• Form Auto-Capture: No need to worry about managing the lead form data, as riyo.ai automatically captures and stores the form data.
• Visitor Journey: It displays even the slightest possible detail of the visitor, including source, time spent, device used, the company they are associated with, and more.

4. VWO

VWO, or Visual Website Optimizer, is an all-in-one optimization platform. It includes features such as A/B testing, heatmaps, session replay, and surveys to help you better understand user behavior and improve website performance. VWO aims to empower you to create data-driven experiences that optimize user interactions and increase conversions. It also offers integrations with various marketing and analytics tools to streamline your optimization process.

5. FullStory

FullStory allows website owners to analyze user behavior through session replay, heatmaps, and user interactions. FullStory's unique feature is the ability to replay user experience in real-time but at a speed at which the website owner can assess everything that occurred in a session replay. FullStory is designed for large e-commerce brands and targets optimization for the entire user experience to increase websites' conversion rates.

6. Mouseflow

Mouseflow records and tracks user behavior like click heatmaps, scroll maps, and user sessions. With a few clicks, Mouseflow offers session replay, showing how the user interacted with the webpage. Mouseflow also includes a section for web behavior analytics which allows for further studies into user engagement, how to optimize the page and improve conversion rates.

7. Smartlook

Smartlook is a qualitative analytics platform for websites and mobile apps. It provides insights into user behavior through session replay, funnels, and retroactive event tracking, with advanced analysis features to help businesses make informed decisions. The platform has a simple, easy-to-use interface and can be used to gather data on user interactions across all devices.

These Hotjar alternatives provide unique features and focus to help website owners better understand user behavior and optimize their websites. Give them a try and find which one suits your business needs the best.

Ending Note!

In conclusion, each alternative offers unique features and capabilities, allowing you to choose the tool that best aligns with your needs and goals. Consider factors like affordability, advanced features, flexible pricing options, and comprehensive analysis to make an informed decision. Most of these tools also integrate with Google Analytics, providing additional insights into site performance. Deciding which features are most crucial for your business and whether they fit your budget would be best.