Hotjar 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
Quote on request
Quote onlyFree
FreeWhat drives the bill
The metric that actually scales your invoice.
Hotjar's own plans are no longer sold. New buyers are quoted on Contentsquare's three product lines, which are billed separately, so budget for the line you need rather than one Hotjar-style bill. Existing customers are being migrated through 2026.
Free with no traffic cap. Microsoft uses aggregated data to improve its products, which is the trade you are making.
Free tier
Not available to new users. Contentsquare's free tier is the successor and is more generous than Hotjar's old 35-sessions-a-day limit.
Everything, unlimited, at any traffic level.
Open source
Self-hostable
No-code authoring
Languages
Platforms
Fits teams
Adoption
Category standard
Contentsquare · since 2014
Category standard
Microsoft · since 2020
Strengths
- Non-technical teams adopt it without training, which is why it spread inside organisations.
- Surveys and recordings together let you ask a user about the behaviour you just watched.
- Simple installation and good default privacy masking.
- 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
- You cannot buy it: new accounts are closed and you are really evaluating Contentsquare.
- Existing customers face a migration onto separately billed product lines, which can change the total.
- Weak for engineering debugging compared to LogRocket or FullStory.
- 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
Nobody new — start with Contentsquare or Microsoft Clarity instead. Existing Hotjar customers should plan the Contentsquare migration.
Almost anyone starting with session replay, and anyone whose paid tool is mainly used for basic replay.
All of these integrate with: Google Analytics, Shopify.
Pricing last reviewed August 2026 and is indicative only — confirm on each vendor’s own page.