Compare
Hotjar vs Plausible
Plausible focuses on privacy-friendly web analytics without session replay or AI features.
HotjarHeatmaps, session recordings and user feedback
PlausiblePrivacy-friendly, open-source web analyticsWhich to pick
Pick Hotjar if you want…
- Free behavior analytics with AI summaries
- Integrations with Slack, Jira or Unbounce (on Hotjar's list, not Plausible's)
Pick Plausible if you want…
- Simple, privacy-friendly web analytics
- Open-source code (plausible/analytics on GitHub, AGPL-3.0 license)
- Integrations with Data Studio Connector or NPM package (on Plausible's list, not Hotjar's)
Side by side
- What it is
- Hotjar:Hotjar, now part of Contentsquare, provides free heatmaps, session recordings, surveys and expanded analytics like attention maps and AI insights.
- Plausible:Plausible is a lightweight, privacy-first web analytics service that provides simple, real-time insights without cookies.
- Best for
- Hotjar:Free behavior analytics with AI summaries
- Plausible:Simple, privacy-friendly web analytics
- Who it’s for
- Hotjar:Product, UX, and growth teams needing user behavior insights.
- Plausible:Website owners, marketers and developers who need easy, GDPR-compliant analytics.
- Pricing
- Hotjar:Freemium
- Plausible:Freemium
- Plans
- Hotjar:Free $0 · Growth $49 per month (discounted $39 year
- Plausible:—
- Open source
- Hotjar:—
- Plausible:Yes, 29,274 GitHub stars
- Works with
- Hotjar:Slack, Jira, Unbounce, HubSpot, Zapier, Microsoft Teams
- Plausible:Data Studio Connector, NPM package
Hotjar features
- Heatmaps & Attention Maps. Visualize clicks, hovers, scrolls and true engagement with attention overlays.
- Session Replay. Watch real user sessions to spot errors and moments of delight.
- Surveys & Feedback. Collect up to 100 survey responses per month and 5 user interviews.
- Error & Performance Monitoring. Capture JavaScript errors and load-time issues across pages.
- Funnels. Analyse drop-off at each step of key user flows.
- AI Summaries & Sense Chat. Get instant AI-generated insights and ask natural-language questions about your data.
- LLM Connect (MCP). Query data directly from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and other LLMs.
- Integrations. Connect to 10+ tools such as Slack, Jira, Unbounce, HubSpot, Zapier, etc.
Plausible features
- Automatic scroll depth tracking. Tracks scroll depth from 1-100% on every page without any setup.
- AI traffic analytics. Identifies visits from AI assistants like ChatGPT and measures their conversions.
- SEO performance dashboard. Integrates Search Console data to show queries and organic traffic in the dashboard.
- Real-time dashboard. Updates traffic metrics every 30 seconds without needing a page refresh.
- Codeless goals & revenue tracking. Turns any page, download or link click into a goal and tracks revenue automatically.
- Built-in bot filtering. Excludes bots, referrer spam and data-center traffic out of the box.
Hotjar vs Plausible FAQ
Is Hotjar or Plausible free?+
Hotjar has a free plan and paid plans. Plausible has a free plan and paid plans.
Is Hotjar or Plausible open source?+
Plausible is open source (plausible/analytics on GitHub, AGPL-3.0 license). DevHunt has no public source repository on record for Hotjar.
Do Hotjar and Plausible integrate with the same tools?+
Their integration lists don't overlap: Hotjar lists Slack, Jira, Unbounce, HubSpot and 2 more; Plausible lists Data Studio Connector and NPM package.
On DevHunt
Based on each tool's website and DevHunt data. Details may change; check the official sites.