In-depth: PostHog vs Hotjar
Contents
PostHog and Hotjar both help you understand user behavior, including the ability to watch real user sessions, conduct user research, and book interviews, but there are some important differences:
How is PostHog different?
1. We're an all-in-one platform
PostHog goes beyond replays and user surveys by integrating them with product and web analytics, feature flags, A/B testing, and a data warehouse. It's everything you need from a single app with a single contract. A genuine single source of truth for your product and customer data.
2. We support both web and mobile apps
We offer integrations for all the most popular web and and mobile SDKs, including Next.js, React, React Native, Android, iOS, and Flutter. Unlike Hotjar, we also support session replay on mobile apps, so you can track all versions of your app using PostHog.
3. We're cheaper and have a generous free tier
Every customer gets 5,000 web recordings and 1 million events for free each month, no matter what plan they're on. Our generous free tier means more than 90% of companies use PostHog for free, and you'll pay less when you do use up your free credits. You also get 2,500 free recordings on mobile apps.
See the price comparison section for more.
Product comparison
The best way to imagine PostHog is as an alternative to Hotjar, Heap, and LaunchDarkly rolled into one.
Analytics
Product analytics isn't a core focus for Hotjar, but it does offer basic event tracking, funnels, and trend insights on its most expensive Scale plan.
Session replay
Session replays are an essential tool for understanding how people use your product, especially for early-stage companies searching for product-market fit.
Both Hotjar and PostHog are good options if you're looking for a Microsoft Clarity alternative, though Hotjar doesn't support replays on mobile apps and has no public plans to do so.
Note: Our mobile session replay is free while it's in development, and we're actively working on session replay support for React Native and Flutter, too. See our mobile replay docs for more info on development and how replay works on mobile apps.
Heatmaps
Heatmaps visualize where people click and navigate to on your app or website and, when combined with session replay, give a clearer overview of how users behave.
Surveys
Hotjar supports more survey types than PostHog, but fewer targeting options.
Using PostHog's product analytics and surveys together unlocks more precise targeting options for surveys, such as using feature flags and pre-defined cohorts.
Price comparison
Note: Prices correct as of Aug 21, 2024.
PostHog is cheaper than Hotjar for both session replay and user surveys, regardless of whether you choose Hotjar's most popular Business tier or the more expensive Scale tier that includes Hotjar's basic analytics features, and a dedicated account manager.
Session replay pricing
Hotjar charges based on 'sessions per day', whereas PostHog uses monthly recorded sessions. We've multiplied Hotjar's daily sessions by 30 to get a monthly equivalent.
| Monthly sessions | Hotjar Business | Hotjar Scale | PostHog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5k | $99 | $213 | $0 |
| 15k | $99 | $213 | $50 |
| 45k | $249 | $525 | $157 |
| 75k | $389 | $827 | $224 |
| 120k | $489 | Contact sales | $313 |
| 240k | $789 | Contact sales | $524 |
At 75k recorded sessions per month, PostHog is $1,980 cheaper over 12 months compared to Hotjar's Business tier, and $7,236 cheaper than Hotjar's Scale tier, when paying monthly.
PostHog also offers a more generous free tier that includes 5,000 replay sessions, 1 million analytics events, and 1500 survey responses for free every month.
Hotjar doesn't offer any free usage outside of its extremely limited Basic tier.
Surveys pricing
It's a similar story for user surveys, where PostHog is cheaper than both Hotjar's Business and Scale tiers. At 2,500 survey responses each month, PostHog is $324 per year cheaper than Hotjar's Business tier when paying monthly.
| Monthly survey responses | Hotjar Business | Hotjar Scale | PostHog |
|---|---|---|---|
| 250 | $79 | $159 | $0 |
| 500 | $79 | $159 | $51 |
| 1,000 | $99 | $259 | $99 |
| 2,500 | $179 | $479 | $152 |
| 5,000 | $289 | Contact sales | $240 |
| 7,500 | $399 | Contact sales | $330 |
| 10,000 | $479 | Contact sales | $418 |
You can see how much PostHog will cost you using the calculator on our pricing page.
Platform and integrations
Data sources
PostHog has a built-in data warehouse, so you can import, combine, and analyze data from multiple sources, and combine it with analytics events. This means you can monitor deal counts using data from Hubspot, analyze gross revenue using Stripe data, and track support ticket SLAs using Zendesk data, all from within PostHog.
Data destinations
Hotjar and PostHog support a similar range of data destinations, though PostHog can send more data because it collects more actionable data via product analytics. Hotjar is limited to sending basic event data, session replay, and survey responses.
Privacy, compliance, and security
Regulatory compliance can be a critical need for many teams, especially if they operate in financial or healthcare industries. Regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR can require teams to store data in certain locations or protect it in certain ways.
Frequently asked questions
Can PostHog replace Google Analytics?
Absolutely. We include an easy-to-use web analytics dashboard for tracking marketing and content performance, and you can use our product analytics to do more in-depth analysis as well. See our PostHog vs Google Analytics comparison for more.
Can PostHog replace Mixpanel, Amplitude and Heap?
It's what PostHog's designed to do. The beauty of PostHog is that it replaces multiple tools in your analytics and product stack, so you can stop juggling data between multiple tools, and save money by consolidating everything. See our comparisons with Mixpanel, Amplitude, and Heap for more.
Can I choose which sessions are recorded?
Yes. You can choose to only record sessions on specific pages, or sessions with a minimum duration that you set. You can also set a sampling rate – i.e. only record 20% of sessions – or trigger recordings based on a feature flag. See How to only record the sessions you want for more.
Does PostHog offer discounts for paying annually?
Yes. You get a 20% discount by default for paying annually upfront. Hotjar also offers a 20% discount for paying annually.
Can I use PostHog with a customer data platform like Segment?
Yes. See our guide to using PostHog with a CDP for more on that, though many of our customers use PostHog as their CDP and utilize our data pipelines and data warehouse for moving data in and out of PostHog.
Got another question? You can ask the PostHog team anything you want!