Heap vs Microsoft Clarity
Feature checklists rarely decide anything. What decides it is the pricing metric, who has to write the tests, and which limitation you can live with.
Entry price
Free tier available
Free tierFree
FreeWhat drives the bill
The metric that actually scales your invoice.
Paid tiers are quote-based by session volume.
Free with no traffic cap. Microsoft uses aggregated data to improve its products, which is the trade you are making.
Free tier
Free plan with a monthly session limit.
Everything, unlimited, at any traffic level.
Open source
Self-hostable
No-code authoring
Languages
Platforms
Fits teams
Adoption
Widely used
Contentsquare · since 2013
Category standard
Microsoft · since 2020
Strengths
- Retroactive event definition eliminates 'we didn't track that' entirely.
- Very fast time to first insight — no instrumentation project required.
- Warehouse sync for teams that want the raw data.
- No cost and no sampling at any volume — nothing else in the category comes close on price.
- Rage-click and dead-click detection surfaces real usability problems immediately.
- Easy to install and reasonable default masking of sensitive fields.
Limitations
- Autocaptured data needs governance or the event list becomes unusable noise.
- Session-based pricing on high-traffic products.
- Acquisition means overlap with Contentsquare's own products.
- Data goes to Microsoft, which is a real consideration for GDPR-sensitive deployments.
- Filtering and segmentation are shallower than paid tools.
- Support is community-based and the roadmap is not yours to influence.
Best for
Product teams that want analytics without an instrumentation backlog.
Almost anyone starting with session replay, and anyone whose paid tool is mainly used for basic replay.
Pricing last reviewed August 2026 and is indicative only — confirm on each vendor’s own page.