--- title: "Hotjar Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra" description: "Is Hotjar the right Heatmap solution for you? Explore 543 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice." source_url: "https://bx-capterra-9jkl9g9y3-g2dm.vercel.app/p/163516/Hotjar/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- Hotjar 4.6 (543) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/163516/Hotjar/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated July 21st, 2026 # Reviews of Hotjar Ease of use 4.6 Customer Service 4.5 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Peter C Regional Director of Business DevelopmentInformation Technology and Services, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “Hotjar has provided us with such incredible insights about how prospects and customers actually interact with our website, which enable us to tailor our approach to them.“ June 26, 2026 Peter C Regional Director of Business DevelopmentInformation Technology and Services, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “It does not operate as well when managing multiple websites as it does with a small number.“ June 26, 2026 Dandu M AnalystMarketing and Advertising, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “I am a CRO analyst and I liked this tool very much since it allows us to analyze user behavior with each and filter any specific category of users with each and accuracy.“ February 15, 2026 SC Sean C MarketerMarketing and Advertising, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “The freemium runs out pretty quickly, and I don't know how accurate the data is (it's hard to verify qualitative data)“ November 22, 2025 Sarah F Marketing TechnologistEducation Management, 5,001 - 10,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “The feedback tab function was handy and helpful for users to provide immediate feedback and actually helped us discover bugs and issues in our ecommerce site.“ May 15, 2026 ZG Zohreh G Senior Product ResearcherHospitality, 201 - 500 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “I find integrating with google analytics to interpret users' behaviour a bit confusing. and also I don't see a specific merit in using Hotjar's survey tool instead of other products built specifically for surveys.“ October 21, 2024 RC Radek C board memberEntertainment, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “Hotjar offers strong Data Analysis and Monitoring tools like heatmaps and recordings.“ May 20, 2026 MI Mihail I Senior Product ManagerFinancial Services, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “After the product was acquired the price was instantly increased while the pricing tiers became extremely hard to follow which added additional friction and made me move to other tools and services.“ October 25, 2024 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 543 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Peter C. Regional Director of Business Development Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "A user friendly analytics platform" June 26, 2026 4.0 My overall experience has been interestingly good. We have gained much better insights about customer behaviour, identifying web friction points, and enhancing lead generation and retention strategies. Pros Hotjar has provided us with such incredible insights about how prospects and customers actually interact with our website, which enable us to tailor our approach to them. I like the Funnels feature more as it helps me to understand where potential clients step back during the conversion process. Cons It does not operate as well when managing multiple websites as it does with a small number. Moreover, it is working perfectly. Review Source RC Radek C. board member Entertainment Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Powerful Behavior Analytics Tool for Websites" May 20, 2026 4.0 Overall, Hotjar provides excellent Security and powerful Monitoring features. It is great for Data Analysis and understanding Conversion Funnels, despite some initial Learning Curve. Pros Hotjar offers strong Data Analysis and Monitoring tools like heatmaps and recordings. Survey Creation is easy, and it gives great insight into Conversion Funnels and user behavior. Cons Hotjar has a Learning Curve for beginners and can feel complex at first. Pricing is not ideal for small teams, affecting Value for Money at higher usage levels. Switched from [Google Optimize](https://www.capterra.com/p/246659/Google-Optimize/) Its no longer supported, it was best app for such things but it was disabled. Review Source AG Annie G. Marketing Manager Alternative Medicine Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Useful Heatmapping Tool" June 4, 2025 3.0 Overall, hotjar was a useful tool in gathering information and analysis of website performance, and perhaps there are more features I don't know about. Pros It gave fairly accurate heat mapping and information regarding user behavior on our website. It was also easy to use. Cons Limits on how many pages it would scan, would love more comprehensive data and analytics, as well as reporting. Review Source Sarah F. Marketing Technologist Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Hotjar worked great for us until the pricing model changed" May 15, 2026 4.0 Hotjar was easy to set up on our domains and to get running right away. Key features were heatmaps and clickmaps. We also utilized the recording feature which helped us uncover at least one bug in the checkout process. They assign a user frustration score to the recordings, allowing you to sort the most negative experience first and see the user's recording to investigate issues. We were disappointed when their pricing model changed to require more investment to cover the same number of domains. Pros We used hotjar for several years for our web performance tracking, on-page quick NPS surveys, and to measure user engagement on pages. It's a lighweight web experience tools that complies easy to understand scroll maps and click maps. The feedback tab function was handy and helpful for users to provide immediate feedback and actually helped us discover bugs and issues in our ecommerce site. Cons The cost is way too high to scale up for an enterprise company. We were grandfathered in to a lower price point that eventually expired, so we moved away to a more scalable solution (VWO insights). Otherwise we probably would have stuck with Hotjar as it fulfilled all of our needs. Alternatives considered [Contentsquare](https://www.capterra.com/p/161591/ContentSquare/)[Crazy Egg](https://www.capterra.com/p/163520/Crazy-Egg/)[Fullstory](https://www.capterra.com/p/153721/FullStory/)[Mouseflow](https://www.capterra.com/p/163517/Mouseflow/)[VWO Insights](https://www.capterra.com/p/181518/VWO/) Reason for choosing Hotjar Hotjar had the best features for cost, but when their pricing model changed, it was too much of an investment so we switched to VWO which scaled better for our enterprise company. Review Source NF Niccolo F. Cofounder, CTO Automotive Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Our go-to tool for heatmaps, and User behaviour recording, but it is very expensive to get all the features" May 2, 2025 4.0 We use Hotjar mainly for user experience analysis. Heatmaps and user recordings is our go to tool. We've used it on all projects, different websites etc. recordings are good, but we sometimes get overwhelmend by "useless" recordings, where users just idle on a page. Always sort by relevance. Also, free version is very limited, and first paid tier is already very expensive. Pros Hotjar is a great tool for insights on user behaviour. It makes you understand where's the biggest blockers in your UX, where the customers are going, what they're reading, where they're clicking etc. You can easily understand if some parts of your website are useless, or if they're good and grab attention. It also gives you insights on how much time users stay on each page, so that you know what's driving them around and for how long. Cons There's no real big cons in the product itself. However, we use the free version and it does the job in a fantastic way, but it's very limited: -The basic price above free is quite expensive. -You cannot see trends and data for free. just heatmaps and recordings -You're very limited to 35 recording/day on free plan Also, in the recording sections, you can easily get overwhelmed by not-relevant recordings, where users just idle. Alternatives considered [Mixpanel](https://www.capterra.com/p/158740/Mixpanel/) Reason for choosing Hotjar We use mixpanel for our apps, but hotjar is much easier and quicker to implement on normal websites Review Source Theresa F. CRO Program Manager Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good tool to include in your CRO toolbox" February 28, 2025 4.0 I've used hotjar for many years, along with a few of their competitors. I like that this is one more data point for creating hypotheses for A/B tests. However, I don't make changes to the website based on the Hotjar findings alone since I don't totally trust the maps. I use judgment and combine these findings with data from other other tools as well as best practices and theory. Pros Hotjar helps to identify patterns in user behavior to uncover problems with UX and conversions. I use scrollmaps and heatmaps the most, and compare them by device since Hotjar will show the different maps on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Other features that I don't use as much but my clients and colleagues do are session recordings and polls. I rarely use session recordings as I find them time consuming, even after narrowing my choices with filters. And I use the polls sparingly when I have a specific question I need to dig into. A lot of clients don't want the intrusion to distract their site's users on a regular basis though. Cons I sometimes question the accuracy of the reports. And if the page has a popup, modal, overlay, etc, that can be problematic. Mega menus also appear to be a blindspot. Switched from [Crazy Egg](https://www.capterra.com/p/163520/Crazy-Egg/)[Microsoft Clarity](https://www.capterra.com/p/236349/Microsoft-Clarity/)[Lucky Orange](https://www.capterra.com/p/150695/Lucky-Orange/) My employer has an agency account. But I sometimes have clients who have Microsoft Clarity, so I still use that too. Review Source BJ Bartosz J. Head of Technology Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "High quality assistant to make data-driven decisions" December 18, 2024 4.0 Very wide known tool in an advertising & marketing market. Used as a one source of truth in our company as well. We use it almost every day to check traffic quality and make data-driven changes Pros \- easy to set up surveys to rate & get feedback from users - weekly stats in email notifications - very helpful insights to A/B test websites! (the most important to me, when launching mvp version of a web based application was: top pages and recordings from them; top console errors; av. session duration; top exit pages (to see when users drop off) Cons pricing. Clarity from Microsoft has most of the high priority features & it's for free (but doesn't have this awesome surveys!) Alternatives considered [Microsoft Clarity](https://www.capterra.com/p/236349/Microsoft-Clarity/) Reason for choosing Hotjar We use both, HotJar and Clarity used in different areas (surveys in HotJar, and traffic analisys in Clarity) Review Source Dandu M. Analyst Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Hotjar is very helpful and easy to use tool." February 15, 2026 4.0 I am a CRO analyst and I liked this tool very much since it allows us to analyze user behavior with each and filter any specific category of users with each and accuracy. Pros User behaviour analysis and security while showing PII, And also I like the features to filter based on any event and skip inactivity , speed, etc., feature, and save to a collection any specific scenario . Cons I would like to have an automated data analysis bot which if we teach something to look it will look that behaviour and give us a report. Review Source Response from ContentSquare March 3, 2026 Hey Dandu! Thank you so much for your thoughtful review. We’re so glad to hear that Hotjar is helping you analyse user behaviour effectively and that you find it easy to use and secure. We also really appreciate your suggestion about an automated data analysis bot. Feedback like this is incredibly valuable and helps inform how we continue to improve the product. Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience! OQ Orion Q. Head of Marketing Telecommunications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good first step to website insight" June 3, 2026 4.0 I have used this for years and always found it to be a useful and insightful tool but is not as smooth as others. Pros Easy to access information. Heat maps and session videos are very insightful. This gives even a beginner a quick idea as to what is and isn’t working on their sight and possible ‘sticking points’. But there is the ability to drill down further. Cons Although easy to use it is a bit ‘clunky’ and feels not up to date with other packages. I have used many iterations of hot jar over the years and I like to use it (my initial go to for website behaviour review) but it still feels less smooth to use than one would expect. Review Source SC Sean C. Marketer Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Qualitative and quantitive website data in one dashboard" November 22, 2025 4.0 Pros It was the first heat map tool I used, and I never switched. It has a lot of data and analytics options Cons The freemium runs out pretty quickly, and I don't know how accurate the data is (it's hard to verify qualitative data) Review Source DJ Derek J. Owner Recreational Facilities and Services Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Great information gathering tool with some drawbacks." November 19, 2024 4.0 Hotjar is a useful tool to use in bursts in order to get really useful data, but it's not a "set it, and forget it" type of tool. There are downsides to leaving it turned on. Pros Hotjar lets us really see where our customers are going and doing on our website instead of just following the trail after the fact with typical analytics. We've gotten so much great insight into the flow of our site and even identified some issues on some mobile phones. Cons Hotjar adds a lot of overhead to the website. Load times slowed a little bit, and ad blockers started making our site respond weirdly. Users of our website didn't really know what the feedback button was for and started using it as a review of our services, not the site itself. Additionally, javascript makes the viewing of a page obscured, so we don't know what the user is doing within a dynamic piece of content. Review Source AD Alberto D. Head of Marketing Information Technology and Services Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Good option for in-app surveys" March 7, 2025 5.0 I've used HotJar for a long time for heatmaps and user recordings, but only more recently for surveys. The experience is good, although just like other platforms there are some limits to what you can customize. Pros Lots of features, feels like a modern platform, and pricing is very reasonable. Cons There are some limits to customization in survey creation, for example when it comes to having two separate thank you pages based on user's answers or different formats for the steps of the survey. Review Source MG Mathieu G. CEO Accounting Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Really interesting to see what user really do" September 12, 2024 4.0 We use hotjar when we launch a new feature or when we need improve some interface. It's really fun to see user action. Pros Easy to set up. Useful to see what our user do on website or application. Possibility to start hotjar on event. The heatmap allow us to see some unclickable zone. Possibility to add notes on recording. Cons It's not a problem with hotjar, but when we start to recording user action, we have a lot of recording to analyse. But always intersting to see what our users really do. Review Source MC Maria C. Owner Apparel & Fashion Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Hotjar review" October 10, 2024 4.0 Overall would recommend for the average user that likes to fill out surveys for minor rewards or gift cards, but it could take some time to earn some money Pros This is an easy to use app that most people could easily figure out and use without a problem. Cons I don't know if this happens for everybody but I get phased out of a lot of surveys for some reason. Review Source AM Atul M. Author Arts and Crafts Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Most Recommended Product" January 1, 2023 5.0 Pros User experience insights: Hotjar provides a range of tools for understanding user behavior and experience on your website, including heatmaps, session recordings, and polls.Easy to use: Hotjar has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to set up and use, even for users who are new to web analytics.Customization: Hotjar allows you to customize your tracking and feedback tools to suit your specific needs and goals.Integration: Hotjar can be easily integrated with a range of other tools and platforms, including Google Analytics.Affordability: Hotjar offers a range of pricing plans to suit different budgets and needs, including a free plan for small websites. Cons Data privacy: Some users may be concerned about the data that Hotjar collects and how it is used.Limited functionality: Hotjar has a range of features, but it may not have all the advanced functionality that some users require.Limited support: While Hotjar offers online resources and a knowledge base for users, it may not provide as much personal support as some users would like.Dependence on cookies: Hotjar relies on cookies to track website visitors, which means it may not accurately track users who have disabled cookies in their web browsers.Resource-intensive: Hotjar's tracking and feedback tools can be resource-intensive, which may impact the performance of your website. Review Source Pedro A. Marketing & Growth Ops Financial Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best tool to find bugs and pain points in your site" October 14, 2023 5.0 Pros \- Session Recordings - This really lets us know what are bugs and pain points in your site and having the timeline displaying tips were those actions were made is awsome (F.e, you can see in the timeline when the prospect is frustrated);- Heatmaps - This is very important to get an overall page knowing about what your prospects are clicking and looking Cons The analysis can be very qualitative. I wanted to see more numbers, especially with the revolution of AI Review Source BT Benjamin T. Head of Marketing Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The best heatmap software" March 11, 2024 5.0 Pros The best parts of Hotjar are the intuitive heatmaps, and visitor recordings, that offer deep insights into user behavior and user interaction based on real visitor data. Once you've implemented the tool - it's easy to of use to get all the data information from your users and visitors, to do research or to improve your website experience. Cons The only issue besides the learning curve could include the sampling limits on larger sites, which may prevent you from getting a complete picture of visitor behavior. Alternatives considered [Mouseflow](https://www.capterra.com/p/163517/Mouseflow/) Review Source Mithil P. Digital Marketing Director Consumer Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "An effective tool for monitor your website's content and more!" February 14, 2022 4.0 I have been using HotJar in all my website projects to monitor user browsing activity. Pros I like the fact that this platform is easy to use and has a freemium offering. This provides a great ROI for us. Cons Customer support and implementation guidebooks are not that great and can be better highlighted. Also, I don't see any notifications about product updates and the latest trends. Switched from [UserTesting](https://www.capterra.com/p/173755/UserTesting/) Price Review Source Lucas P. Creative Director Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Freemium level features offer great visitor insights" April 27, 2020 5.0 My primary use of HotJar is the click tracking and scroll depth features. I'll occasionally use the visitor recording feature. These reports alone provide invaluable information for my web clients to get an idea of how effective their sites are in generating conversions. The surprise benefits of the click tracking is that we can see where people are clicking on spots that are not actually intended to be and I can adjust the UI design to downplay those areas to create a better user experience. The scroll depth gives me a better handle on what important information is not being reached by visitors and helps me decide how to best move that information further up the page stack to ensure that visitors see what we need them to see. Pros Easy to deploy tracking script to sites Async loading doesn't impact user experience Reports are easy to read and can be shared with clients Free tier provides more-than-adequate reporting for most small businesses Cons I can't actually say anything bad about the pricing structure, the admin panel, or the product quality they deliver. If you're a small business looking to get insights about your visitors' habits, this is an awesome free tool. Review Source Response from ContentSquare May 1, 2020 Hi Lucas, Thanks very much for the comprehensive review. It's great to hear that you find Hotjar easy-to-use and you're getting valuable insights about your visitors' habits. I'd like to offer you a small thank you from Hotjar for taking the time to review our software - please reach out to me at mike.cullen@hotjar.com. Cheers, Mike from Hotjar VR Verified Reviewer Full Stack Engineer Real Estate Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Sheer brilliance at work" December 3, 2019 5.0 It is an amazing thing to watch the recordings of the user's that Hotjar captures and consolidates. Pros \- Can actually record user's sessions and accurately identify the same user who is using the site/app after a certain duration - The dashboard is seamless. - Allows categorization based on events and tags. Cons \- Sometimes, when trying to hide the private information of a customer, it went overboard and aggressively hid a lot of information which was part of the app itself and not the customer's data. This led us to not have an accurate depiction of the app state for the customer. Alternatives considered [Mixpanel](https://www.capterra.com/p/158740/Mixpanel/) Review Source Response from ContentSquare December 12, 2019 Hey there, thanks for the review! Super to hear you're getting a lot of value from Hotjar :) Following up your feedback on suppressing page elements... have you already checked this resource on suppression? https://help.hotjar.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012439167-How-to-Suppress-Elements-and-Images-from-Data Hope that's helpful - it shouldn't be the case that the stuff you want to be able to see gets suppressed as well. If we can help please let us know! The team is available at support@hotjar.com. Thanks again, Alex from the Hotjar team Joseph B. Founder Entertainment Used the software for: 2+ years ### "I recommend." November 14, 2019 5.0 Great for the most part. I've recommended it to many people. Easy to use, offers great info. It does make it hard to filter your own traffic from the data - my only qualm. Pros Great analytics tool. It records the sessions of people who visit your site - great information if you're looking to improve e-commerce conversions or design behavior. Cons I don't have much to suggest. It was easy to install the script onto my site. I do wish they'd make it easy to filter out my own device though - you have to manually filter out your own devices, which clouds the data. Review Source Response from ContentSquare November 20, 2019 Hey Joseph, Wow, what a review! Thanks so much for taking the time, and it's great to hear you're finding Hotjar useful to improve conversions. Following up your issue with filtering out your devices - I'd love to follow up with you on this to hear your feedback in more detail. What would your suggestion be to make this easier? All the best, Alex from the Hotjar marketing team. VR Verified Reviewer Digital Marketing Specialist Airlines/Aviation Used the software for: 2+ years ### "If you need help understanding your users, this is the app! " February 20, 2020 5.0 I LOVE IT! Helped us find how users are looking at our website and what they find important. Super useful too. Pros Detailed heat maps and scroll maps that allow us to know what is working and what users are focusing on on our website. I also love the ability to view recordings and segment them by UTM. Makes it easier for us to see what's working and not working per marketing channel as well as how to fix inherent UX issues. Cons I wish they made heat maps that segment by marketing channel like Crazy Egg. We have both and it's kinda a lot of money for both. I also dislike how it's hard to get iframes to be seen in recordings and remove HTML elements that we don't want to see in maps such as cookie banners. Review Source Response from ContentSquare February 21, 2020 Hi there anon! Thank you so much for your kind words and your lovely review. So happy to see you are loving HJ generally and that it is helping you to fix issues for UX. This is great news! Heatmaps = segment by marketing channel. This would be great (i.e. If you could segment by referral/UTM URL you mean?). Likewise on your idea regarding removing HTML elements, very valid. I will put your ideas to the product team. Thanks again for your kind words and please do feel free to follow up with any issues or worries you might have via support@hotjar.com. Kind regards Bee @ Hotjar Valentin B. Physicist engineer E-Learning Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Hotjar a good heatmap " July 28, 2020 5.0 I have made some heatmaps for my website show-my-homework. I used these heatmaps to improve the website for the readers. Pros Years ago I had a website (show-my-homework) that was taken from me with force. I am Romanian and in Romania no matter what you work, the authorities will force you to surrender your wealth and work to those that use the muscles and not the brain. I worked to this website for 5 years and 2 years I had on this website hotjar. Hotjar was saying to me who comes to my website, who reads my website, who wanted to learn, who clicks etc. Hotjar is very good and I love Hotjar for this. Cons To make a heatmap with hotjar you have to wait for 1 day. This is not good, but after 1 day you will have a very good heat map. I do not love hotjar because you have to pay good money if you use it for 2 weeks :) Review Source Response from ContentSquare August 18, 2020 Hi Valentin, Thanks for taking the time to review Hotjar. I'm sorry to hear about the problem with your website, but glad that you had a good experience using Hotjar to understand your users. I'd like to send you a small thank-you from us for your review. You can reach me at mike.cullen@hotjar.com and I'll share the details. Cheers, Mike Carlos M. Desarrollador web Design Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "The eyes you should have on your website" April 25, 2019 5.0 As a web designer this tool allowed me to track activity of the first users and detect things like: resposive problems, image problems, where the users are lost, where the users dont click and why, where the use leaves my website and why and what the user experience was overall. My experience with this tool has been almost fantastic, I would recomend it to every webmaster. Pros Hotjar is a very useful app, integrated with websites will allow you to track the heatmaps and every action the user made, divided by device and showing every data you can need and even more. It also has the hability to record every action of the user or track a funnel performance, I recommend this tool specially to optimize websites, because it will allow you to know where exactly the user is lost. Cons What I dont like if this software is that I would like to advice users that they are going to be recorded somehow but it doesnt have that option. I would also make a simpler design for admin the websites, right now it can be a little messy for new users. Review Source Noemí M. Brand Manager Food & Beverages Used the software for: 2+ years ### "One of the best" December 12, 2022 5.0 Pros Perfect for understanding how visitors are interacting with your website in real-time. You can see what pages they visit, where they click, and even record their mouse movements. Invaluable insights for improving the user experience and increase the CR. Cons There no intrinsic con to the platform but time itself. Time to analyze all the data and insights that you could extract. Usually we over estimate the time dedicated and the efforts that we will put in tools like this one. So, usually they went under-used. Alternatives considered [Google Analytics 360](https://www.capterra.com/p/177042/Google-Analytics/)[Smartlook](https://www.capterra.com/p/164713/Smartlook/)[Mouseflow](https://www.capterra.com/p/163517/Mouseflow/)[VWO Insights](https://www.capterra.com/p/181518/VWO/) Review Source Similar Products Featured ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.