Hotjar alternatives: 12 heatmap and session replay tools compared
People look for a Hotjar alternative for a reason that is new this year: Hotjar's own site says Hotjar is now Contentsquare and that new accounts can no longer be created on it. Some want to stay with the owner, others want a free tool without a session ceiling, a self-hosted option, or product analytics rather than page-level behaviour.
Short answer: The first three alternatives to Hotjar in our heatmap and session replay tool ranking are Microsoft Clarity, Mouseflow and Crazy Egg. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Choose Microsoft Clarity if you want recordings and heatmaps with no session ceiling and no invoice. All 12 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Heatmap and Session Replay Tools in 2026, and each says where it differs from Hotjar.
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Pricing: No new accounts can be created; the pricing page redirects to Contentsquare pricing; existing free plan was 35 sessions a day
Established in: France (part of Contentsquare; contracting entity Content Square SAS, Paris)
Built for: Existing Hotjar customers who are content to continue until the move to Contentsquare
Not for: Anyone choosing a heatmap tool today, since sign-ups have closed
01
Why buyers look past Hotjar
01
New accounts have closed
The Hotjar home page states that it is no longer possible to create a new account on Hotjar and sends new users to Contentsquare. The Hotjar pricing address redirects to the Contentsquare pricing page. Anyone planning to adopt Hotjar today is therefore choosing a vendor that has pointed its own brand elsewhere.
02
The old free plan was small
The free Hotjar plan is shown as 35 sessions a day, 20 survey responses a month and 2 integrations. Against Microsoft Clarity, which states no traffic limits, or Contentsquare's own free plan of 200,000 sessions a month, that ceiling pushes small sites to compare options.
03
Terms and data now sit with the parent
The Hotjar terms page is the Contentsquare Master Service Agreement, with the contracting entity chosen by where the customer is domiciled. A team that chose Hotjar as an independent product has to reread that agreement and the data processing terms before renewing.
Free up to 10,000 sessions; Growth priced after installation; upper tiers on quote
Autocapture analytics where session replay is an add-on
the question is about funnels and retention more than page-level behaviour
#12
03
What each one does differently
1
Microsoft Clarity
United States · No charge, no traffic ceiling
Clarity charges nothing and states no traffic limits, with no cap on sites per account, where Hotjar's free plan was cut to 35 sessions a day. It covers recordings, heatmaps and AI summaries from Microsoft. The cost is that the tool is a free product line of a large vendor, with no paid tier or account manager to call.
Switch from Hotjar if you want recordings and heatmaps with no session ceiling and no invoice.
Denmark · Free up to 500 sessions monthly; four published paid tiers; 14-day trial
Mouseflow is the closest like-for-like replacement on features: recordings, click and scroll heatmaps, funnels, form analytics and feedback surveys, with unlimited users. Its free plan is 500 sessions a month, and Essential, Advanced and Premium tiers are listed from $25, $109 and $319. Retention runs from one month up to twelve.
Switch from Hotjar if you want the Hotjar toolset with funnels and form analytics, on published prices.
Not stated by the vendor · Four published plans on annual billing; 30-day trial; hard caps, no overage fees
Crazy Egg bills by tracked pageviews, not sessions. Plans run from $29 (5,000 pageviews and 50 recordings monthly) to $599 (1,000,000 pageviews), always billed yearly, and nothing is charged for overage. A/B testing starts on the $99 Plus plan. There is a 30-day trial but no permanent free plan.
Switch from Hotjar if you want a predictable annual figure and A/B testing next to heatmaps.
United States · Four published plans scaled by sessions, all features included; 7-day trial
Lucky Orange puts every feature on every plan and varies only the session volume: Build covers 3,500 sessions a month at $32 on annual billing. It adds live chat and a live visitor view, which Hotjar never centred on. Extra websites cost $5 each, and the trial lasts 7 days.
Switch from Hotjar if a small site wants live visitor view and chat bundled with recordings.
France · Free to 200,000 sessions; Growth listed by session band; Pro and Enterprise on quote
Contentsquare owns Hotjar and names itself its successor: the Hotjar site states that Hotjar is now Contentsquare and redirects new sign-ups. The Free plan allows 200,000 sessions a month with a month of data access, Growth begins at $39 a month on yearly billing, and Pro and Enterprise are by quote.
Switch from Hotjar if you want to stay with the same vendor and its migration path, with a far higher free ceiling.
Ukraine · Free plan with daily limits; monthly or yearly paid tiers listed; trial lasts 14 days
Plerdy bundles heatmaps with conversion and SEO tooling, and its free plan limits use by daily caps (100 heatmaps a day) rather than monthly sessions. Startup is listed at $32 monthly or $21 billed annually, with a 14-day trial. The tool set is broader than a pure behaviour product, and the interface carries many modules.
Switch from Hotjar if a marketing team wants heatmaps plus SEO and A/B testing modules on small budgets.
United States · Monthly free allowance with 5,000 recordings; usage billing after adding a card
PostHog is a product analytics platform where session replay is one product among several. Each month's free tier includes 5,000 recordings, 1 million analytics events and 1,500 survey responses, and billing limits can be set. It has an MIT-licensed open source product, but heatmap-first marketers will find it developer oriented.
Switch from Hotjar if developers want replay, flags and analytics under one login with a free tier.
France · Self-host without licence fee; hosted Dedicated instance billed by the hour; 7-day trial
OpenReplay can be hosted by yourself with no licence fee, something Hotjar never allowed, or run as a managed Dedicated instance from $199 a month, billed hourly. A usage-based Serverless option also exists. The contracting entity is Asayer SAS, with 50 data residency regions on Dedicated. Survey-style marketing tools are not its strength.
Switch from Hotjar if you need replay on your own infrastructure or in a chosen cloud region.
United States · A 2,500-session free plan that does not expire; paid plans billed monthly or yearly; Enterprise on quote
Inspectlet lists recordings, heatmaps, A/B testing, surveys, error logging and form analytics, and invites a free start. Its pricing page loads client-side, so we could not read its plan limits and do not quote any. Check the sessions per plan and retention before you commit.
Switch from Hotjar if you want a long-standing recording tool and will confirm the limits yourself.
United States · Session-based price shown in a calculator; card-free trial; Enterprise by quote
LogRocket bills on captured sessions via a calculator. Analytics events, error events and logs are unlimited on every plan, and the trial needs no card. Conditional Recording keeps roughly 40% of sessions to reduce spend. Aimed at engineers debugging with network logs, it gives marketers less.
Switch from Hotjar if developers need to replay the sessions that contain errors.
United States · 30,000 sessions a month on the free tier; Business, Advanced and Enterprise on quote
FullStory offers a free plan of 30,000 monthly sessions with 12 months of analytics retention. Business, Advanced and Enterprise plans are priced by quote, and mobile, guides and surveys are add-ons. Its Fullcapture records interactions automatically, but the quote model makes it harder to budget than Hotjar was.
Switch from Hotjar if a product team wants autocapture analytics and will talk to sales.
United States · Free up to 10,000 sessions; Growth priced after installation; upper tiers on quote
Heap starts with product analytics (funnels, journeys, retention) and sells heatmaps and session replay as add-ons to its Pro and Premier tiers. The Free plan allows 10,000 sessions a month with 6 months of history. Its pricing page now refers to Contentsquare's AI, so Heap and Hotjar share an owner.
Switch from Hotjar if the question is about funnels and retention more than page-level behaviour.
Staying with Hotjar is only sensible for an existing account that works today and has no pressing reason to move. The tool is still reachable by logging in with the same credentials, and Contentsquare says the Hotjar feature set (heatmaps, recordings, surveys) carries over into its platform. A new buyer has no such option, since sign-ups have closed.
05
What moving off Hotjar involves
01
Check what the migration path covers
Contentsquare presents its Free plan as the route for people who wanted Hotjar. It lists attention maps, funnels, error monitoring and 100 survey responses a month. Compare data access, since the Free plan holds one month and Growth 13 months, and ask whether existing Hotjar recordings and heatmaps can be carried over, because the pages we read do not say.
02
Replace the snippet and re-tag consent
Every alternative needs its own tracking snippet and its own consent banner entry. Remove the Hotjar script first, then install the new one, and confirm that masking of form fields and personal data is set up before recordings start. Run the old and new tools side by side for a week where the contract allows it.
06
Questions about replacing Hotjar
7 answers
Is Hotjar still available?
Existing users can log in, but the Hotjar site states that it is no longer possible to create a new account on Hotjar. New users are directed to sign up for Contentsquare.
Who owns Hotjar now?
The Hotjar site says Hotjar is now Contentsquare and that the two platforms have merged. Hotjar's terms are Contentsquare's Master Service Agreement. Contentsquare's contracting entity for Europe, the Middle East and Africa is Content Square SAS in Paris.
What is the cheapest alternative?
Microsoft Clarity costs nothing and states no traffic cap. PostHog includes 5,000 recordings in a monthly free tier, FullStory gives 30,000 sessions on a free plan, Contentsquare 200,000 and Mouseflow 500.
Can I keep my data on my own servers?
OpenReplay can be self-hosted at no licence cost, and PostHog has an MIT-licensed open source product. The other tools here are hosted services.
Which alternative is best for developers?
LogRocket and OpenReplay both give replay with developer tools such as logs and network data, and PostHog combines replay with analytics and feature flags. Check each against your stack.
Does Heap replace Hotjar?
Heap is mainly product analytics, with heatmaps and session replay as add-ons on its Pro and Premier tiers. It also appears to belong to the same owner as Hotjar, since its pricing page names Contentsquare's AI.
Do any alternatives have free trials rather than free plans?
Yes: Crazy Egg offers 30 days, Plerdy and Mouseflow 14 days, and Lucky Orange and OpenReplay 7 days.
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Sources
Checked 28 October 2026
Hotjar home page (Hotjar is now Contentsquare): Hotjar is now Contentsquare, new Hotjar accounts cannot be created, Hotjar Free limits of 35 sessions a day, 20 survey responses and 2 integrations.
Hotjar pricing URL: The Hotjar pricing page redirects (301) to the Contentsquare pricing page.
Contentsquare pricing: Free 200k sessions a month, Growth from $39 a month yearly ($49 monthly), data access 1 and 13 months, Pro and Enterprise by quote.
Contentsquare Hotjar page: What happened to Hotjar, 15-day Growth trial, Contentsquare free plan contents.
Contentsquare entity schedule: Content Square SAS, Paris, France as contracting entity for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed
28 October 2026. How we review.
