Visitor Analytics - compare to Hotjar

Hotjar is one of the most important competitors in the field of collecting insights from the user experience of your website. It also offers features in the area of user feedback tools, such as polls and surveys. Data such as the Hotjar heatmap shows valuable information that enables website owners to better understand their users. 

While Hotjar has been a reliable provider of these services for many years, it hasn’t expanded to a fully-featured website analytics solution. In this sense, Hotjar does not show website statistics like the number of unique visitors, referral traffic sources, page views, etc. 

At this time, Visitor Analytics and Hotjar only share three features: visitor recordings (also known as session replays), heatmaps and funnels. 

Visitor Analytics is also known for providing a full website analytics package, with visitor stats, page stats, device, OS and browser statistics and more along these lines. 

Hotjar does not have this analytics cluster. Instead, it offers features for generating and operating polls and surveys, form analytics, plus the possibility for instant feedback from users, on any website element. Visitor Analytics has the polls, surveys and form analytics in development.

Similarities: 

• Both apps give the option to either record all visits to the website (regardless of the visited website pages) or visits to a specific page. Also available, selecting a set of pages that are similar (the same URL path).
• With both Hotjar and Visitor Analytics, you can apply conditions to record. You can choose to record only click & scroll sessions, as well as select only visits with a certain minimum duration.
• The overview of the recordings is similar. You can see a list of recordings, with an identifier about the user (respecting privacy), when he/she visited, the referrer URL (telling us where the user is coming from), the entry and exit page, nr of pages visited, duration of the session 
• Both have filters for country, OS, browser, devices, page count, favorite/starred videos, entry url, exit url

Visitor Analytics Extras: 

• Hotjar allows you to apply a filter to only record visits with more than 30 seconds. Visitor Analytics lets the website owner set the minimum duration him-/her-self. 
• The recordings overview gives more detail about the recorded session. See each URL the visitor accessed (in addition to the entry and exit pages). Check if the session is from a returning or a new visitor. See the browser, the OS and device used.
• Directly from the overview, you can manage your recordings by marking them as favorites, as seen or unseen 

Hotjar Extras:

Some extra filters are available, but only for the Business plan: 

• rage clicks (identifies when a user repeatedly clicks, clicks, clicks)
• u-turns (identifies when a user turns back before taking an action)
• referrer URL
• incoming feedback (connected to another Hotjar feature)
• Net Promoter Score (connected to another Hotjar feature)

Other differences:

Other differences have to do with the number of visitor recordings available for each package. Hotjar has limits to the number of recordings only in the free plan. For the rest, the limit is only based on number of pageviews/day. 

Visitor Analytics has some limits for the maximum number of recordings. Yet, from the Advanced plan upwards, the limit is very high (25,000 recordings) and is unlikely to be reached quickly by most users. When not needed anymore, recordings can be deleted, in order to stay within the limits of the plan.

Conclusion: 

There is almost no difference between the two apps, in terms of Visitor Recordings. Visitor Analytics displays a bit more options directly in the overview.

However, Hotjar is a more advanced tool when it comes to the Business plan, which costs at least 89 EURO/month. If you don’t need any of the extra filters, getting Visitor Analytics at a much lower price (between $6.99 and $34.99, when paid monthly) is a sensible choice. 

Similarities: 

• The heatmap technology is the same. Both apps overlay heatmaps on top of a page screenshot taken at the first visit after the setup.
• Both show heatmaps for clicks, taps, mouse movement and scroll depth, and they generate a similar-looking heatmap report. 
• Options to view the heatmap based on device (desktop, tablet, smartphone).
• Heatmaps can be reset in both apps, in a similar way. 
• A table of the data that the visuals are based on is available. 
• You can generate heatmaps for a specific page or for similar pages (e.g.product pages).

Visitor Analytics Extras: 

• Visitor Analytics also shows the map of the countries where page-views came from when generating the heatmap. 

Hotjar Extras:

• In Hotjar, there is the extra option to track users who trigger a JavaScript snippet
• In Hotjar, you can set up the heatmap to exclude elements like pop-ups or iframes from the data visualization  

Other differences:

Other differences have to do with the limitations to the number of pageviews gathered in order to generate a heatmap. 

Visitor Analytics has options up to 8,000 page-views per heatmap. Beyond that, the heatmap can no longer gather new data. 

Hotjar has similar limitations, based on the plan the user has chosen: max. 1,000 page-views for the Basic plan, max. 2,000 for the Plus plan, max. 10,000 for Business 

Conclusion:

All in all, the functionality and ease of use are very similar. Hotjar has some very specific extras, that will most likely be needed only by very advanced users. Also taking into account the pricing packages available, Visitor Analytics can be seen as a viable Hotjar alternative for heatmaps. 

Similarities: 

• The entire technology and display are practically the same. 
• Both show conversion rates and drop-outs at every step of the funnel.
• Both link to video recordings to find out more about the reasons for the dropouts in the funnel.

Visitor Analytics Extras: -

Hotjar Extras:

• Hotjar has an unlimited number of steps in the setup of the funnel, while Visitor Analytics has a maximum of 8 steps per funnel. However, a funnel with more than 8 steps probably relies on a complicated path to a conversion. It would not be recommended.

Other differences:

To get unlimited funnels (but keeping in mind the maximum number of page-views per day), you can choose any Hotjar plan upward of 29 EURO/month. 

Visitor Analytics doesn’t offer unlimited funnels, but even starting at $9.16/month you get 8 funnels. If users don’t want to track more than 8 different conversions at the same time, there is no need to spend more. The highest plan goes to 25 funnels, which should be more than enough for most users. 

In conclusion, if you are interested in Visitor Recordings, Heatmaps or Funnels, Visitor Analytics offers almost the same functionality as Hotjar, at a much lower price. The package limitations are only relevant if the customer is a high-end company, with a website that receives hundreds of thousands of visits per day. In this case, Hotjar would be a more suitable tool. Visitor Analytics is an affordable alternative to Hotjar, that most users should take into consideration.