vs Hotjar
Hotjar watches. We refuse to.
Hotjar (and similar UX suites) sell recordings, heatmaps, and surveys. They need consent in the EU because they are doing something to the person, not just counting a GET.
| Cookie Free Analytics | Hotjar | |
|---|---|---|
| Job | Pageviews + sources + goals | Replay, heatmaps, surveys |
| Cookies | No | Yes |
| EU banner | Not for this script | Yes, for replay |
| Hosted | Frankfurt + Ireland | Hotjar / Contentsquare |
| Price | from €4 | Free tier, then session caps |
What they actually are
Qualitative UX research in a productized form. Useful when you are redesigning a checkout. A poor GA replacement, though people search it that way because both have a script in the footer.
When to pick them
You have a question only a recording or a survey answers, and you have a banner that can carry that purpose. Then Hotjar, Clarity, FullStory — not us.
When to pick us
You installed Hotjar to “see traffic” and inherited cookies you did not want. Swap the count to Cookie Free Analytics. Keep Hotjar only for research you can defend.
The honest bit
A heatmap can teach you more about a broken form than 10,000 pageviews. We will not fake that with a rage-click metric.
Questions
- Is Cookie Free Analytics a Hotjar alternative?
- Not for recordings or surveys. Yes if Hotjar was your only “analytics” and you wanted traffic numbers without watching people.
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