The best Smartlook alternatives & competitors, compared

Mar 11, 2024

1. PostHog

• Founded: 2020
• Similar to: LogRocket, Mixpanel
• Typical users: Engineers and product teams
• Typical customers: Mid-size B2B/B2C companies and startups

What is PostHog?

PostHog (that's us 👋) is an all-in-one platform for session replay, product analytics, feature flags, A/B testing, and user surveys – everything you need to understand your users. This means it's not just an alternative to Smartlook, but also tools like Hotjar and LaunchDarkly.

According to BuiltWith, as of February 2024, PostHog is used on 5,169 (0.52%) of the top 1 million websites. Smartlook is used by 3,099 of the top 1 million websites (0.31%). Typical PostHog users are engineers and product managers at startups and mid-size companies, such as Webshare, AssemblyAI, and Purplewave.

Key features

• Session replays: Including event timelines, console logs, network activity.
• Heatmaps: Visualize user and rage clicks anywhere on your site.
• Product analytics: Analyze funnels, user paths, retention, and trends.
• Feature flags & A/B testing: Rollout features safely, run multivariate A/B tests.
• Surveys: Run customer satisfaction, NPS, and PMF surveys.

How does PostHog compare to Smartlook?

PostHog has more features than Smartlook. Both have key features like single snippet installation, user segmentation, and user privacy options, but PostHog has A/B testing, feature flags, and surveys.

Why do companies use PostHog?

According to reviews on G2, companies use PostHog because:

1. It replaces multiple tools: PostHog can replace Smartlook (session replay and surveys), Google Analytics, and LaunchDarkly (feature flags and A/B testing). This simplifies workflows and ensures all their data is in one place.

2. Pricing is transparent and scalable: Reviewers appreciate how PostHog's pricing scales as they grow. There's a generous free tier. Companies eligible for PostHog for Startups also get an additional $50k in credits.

3. They need a complete picture of users: PostHog includes every tool necessary to understand users and improve products. This means creating funnels to track conversion, watching replays to see where users get stuck, testing solutions with A/B tests, and gathering feedback with user surveys.

Bottom line

PostHog has more features and more powerful tools than Smartlink. And being self-serve with a generous free tier makes it an ideal alternative to try out. Sure, there’s some extra complexity, but having all your data in one place, with powerful analytics tools, is a major advantage.

2. Amplitude

• Founded: 2012
• Most similar to: PostHog, LogRocket
• Typical users: Product managers, data analysts, marketing teams
• Typical customers: Mid-size and large enterprises

What is Amplitude?

Amplitude was one of the original product analytics tools. Many large enterprise customers, like Ford, NBCUniversal, and Walmart rely on it. In recent years, it’s also added A/B testing, feature flags, session replays, and a customer data platform.

According to BuiltWith, as of March 2024, 10,591 of the top million sites use Amplitude. 3,099 of the top 1 million websites use Smartlook.

Key features

• Product analytics: Funnel and retention analysis, user paths, behavioral cohorts, custom dashboards, and more.
• A/B testing: Test new features on specific targets and analyze with primary, secondary, and counter metrics.
• Customer data platform: Combine analytics data with third-party tools for data governance, identity resolution, and data federation.
• AI insight builder: Generate insights based on natural language requests, like "What is my purchase conversion rate?"

How does Amplitude compare to Smartlook?

One of the biggest downsides of Amplitude is its lack of autocapture. It also doesn’t have heatmaps, though it recently added session replay.

Why do companies use Amplitude?

According to G2 reviews, people like Amplitude because:

1. Simple to use: Amplitude makes it easy for non-technical users to get insights about their product and make improvements. Amplitude is built for users like product managers and marketers, making it a popular choice for them.

2. Built-in A/B testing: Unlike FullStory, Amplitude offers integrated experimentation features. This enables companies to run experiments on existing cohorts, and then analyze the data in a single place.

3. Become data-driven: Amplitude users appreciate it helps them become data-driven. It becomes easy to add data, visualize it, and make decisions. It makes data accessible to them.

Bottom line

Amplitude is popular, mature alternative, especially among large enterprise customers, but it lacks some key features Smartlook users might want, such as autocapture and heatmaps.

3. Heap

• Founded: 2013
• Most similar to: FullStory, PostHog
• Typical users: Product and marketing teams
• Typical customers: B2C SaaS and ecommerce companies who want to monitor and improve user experience.

What is Heap?

Heap describes itself as a digital insights platform. This means Heap offers both product analytics and session replay, and supports marketing use cases with multi-touch attribution.

According to BuiltWith, as of March 2024, 4,016 of the top million websites use Heap. 3,099 use Smartlook.

Contentsquare, a marketing and ecommerce analytics firm, acquired Heap in September 2023 and announced plans to integrate the two products.

Key features

• Event autocapture: Frees product teams from relying on engineers to instrument all events. Heap also has a visual editor that lets teams tag on-page events for analysis.
• Session replay: This lacks the debugging tools typical in most replay tools, but Heap still lets you replay sessions for qualitative insights.
• Heatmaps: See where users click, what point they scroll to, and the areas that get the most attention.
• Analysis suggestions: Advanced data science tools help uncover hidden interactions, friction points, and paths.
• Managed ETL: Connect to data warehouses so you can combine your analytics with other sources and get a fuller picture of the entire user journey.

How does Heap compare to Smartlook?

Why do companies use Heap?

According to G2 reviews, this is what people like most about Heap:

1. Autocapture: Non-technical users love how easy autocapture makes tracking on their site. Along with the element data included, this provides loads of useful analytics data.

2. Simple setup: Heap does not take a big technical effort to set up. Users can add a single script, begin collecting data, and easily visualize that data through user paths, funnels, and session replays.

3. Streamlining analysis: By having analytics and session replay data in one place, Heap makes it easy to understand the app and site usage. This replaces interviews or user testing and makes the development cycle faster.

Bottom line

Heap and Smartlook have similar feature sets. Both are self-serve, though neither are open source. Heap’s acquisition by ContentSquare means its future is in doubt.

4. Glassbox

• Founded: 2010
• Most similar to: FullStory, PostHog
• Typical users: Business analysts, product support, marketers
• Typical customers: Enterprise B2C companies, retail, and financial services

What is Glassbox?

Glassbox is a session replay and analytics platform with a particular focus on mobile apps and ecommerce use cases, particularly for business analysts and support teams at large B2C companies. Customers include Danone, Air Canada, and UK retailer Sainsbury's.

As of March 2024, just 393 of the top 1 million websites use Glassbox according to BuiltWith, though the company’s focus on mobile apps isn’t reflected in this number. 3,099 use Smartlook.

Key features

• **Session replay: Watch and analyze user sessions on web and mobile apps.
• Product analytics: Understand user paths and pain points.
• Performance analytics: Track app performance and its impact on conversion rates.
• Click, scroll, and heatmaps: Understand where and how users interact with your app.
• User feedback: Collect satisfaction and user feedback on the app experience.

How does Glassbox compare to Smartlook?

Glassbox and Smartlook share many of the same features, but Glassbox is not self-serve and implementation isn’t as straightforward.

Why do companies use Glassbox?

According to G2 reviews, people use Glassbox for:

1. Session replay and error analysis: Glassbox is best known for its session replay features, so this is the most popular use case. Customers use Glassbox to analyze user journeys and identify app-breaking bugs.

2. Heatmap and funnel analysis: Users like the heatmaps feature, which lets them see user preferences on key pages. They combine this with paths and funnels to see the entire journey.

3. Fixing low conversion and abandonment: Glassbox is popular with online retailers, who use it to solve issues with conversion and basket abandonment.

Bottom line

Glassbox has many of the same features as Smartlook and has a deeper focus on mobile apps. The lack of self-serve might put some people off.

5. Pendo

• Founded: 2013
• Most similar to: PostHog, Hotjar
• Typical users: Product managers and customer success teams
• Typical customers: Small and mid-market B2C apps

What is Pendo?

Pendo describes itself as a product experience platform. In addition to product analytics, it has session replay, in-app guides, user feedback, and product validation tools.

According to data from BuiltWith, as of March 2024, 3,400 of the top million websites use Pendo. 3,099 use Smartlook.

Key features

• Product analytics: Funnels, trends, and retention analysis with event autocapture.
• In-app guides: Deliver personalized guidance to customers right inside your app.
• User feedback: Capture and analyze customer feedback at scale.
• Product validation and roadmaps: Plan your product improvements and roadmap using data from Pendo.

How does Pendo compare to Smartlook?

Pendo’s lack of autocapture is a major drawback, though its focus on qualitative feedback through in-app guides and product planning will appeal to many.

Why do companies use Pendo?

According to G2 reviews, people use Pendo for:

1. Customer support and feedback: Users value Pendo as a tool for customer support and feedback collection. They use Pendo's feedback features to gather qualitative data and feed that into Pendo's validation and roadmap features.

2. Improving onboarding: Combining Pendo's in-app guides and analytics features makes it easy for non-technical users to experiment with new onboarding flows, improving user adoption.

3.Product planning: Customers use Pendo's data tools, product validation, and roadmap features to align internal teams and stakeholders on product development.

Bottom line

Pedro and Smartlook have many of the same features, but the lack of autocapture is a big downside. Pendo might be a good alternative if you specifically want its customer feedback features.

6. LogRocket

• Founded: 2016
• Similar to: PostHog, Smartlook
• Typical users: Product managers, engineers, support teams
• Typical customers: B2B SaaS, B2C retailers

What is LogRocket?

LogRocket combines product analytics, error tracking, session replay, and performance monitoring into one platform. It focuses on helping product managers, engineers, and support teams identify and fix issues.

According to BuiltWith, as of March 2024, 1,132 of the top million sites use LogRocket. 3,099 use Smartlook.

Key features

• Session replay: Understand exactly what people are doing on your site. See the screens they visit, places they click, as well as console and network logs, errors, and performance data.
• Error tracking: Identify and triage the most impactful issues with JavaScript and network errors as well as stack traces.
• Product analytics: Capture usage data and visualize it with conversion funnels, path analysis, and retention charts.
• Heatmaps: See what people are clicking on, where they are spending their time, and how far they scroll.
• Performance monitoring: Monitor frontend performance such as web vitals, CPU and memory usage, and network speed.

How does LogRocket compare to Smartlook?

LogRocket matches many of Smartlook's features and has a strong focus on error and performance tracking.

Why do companies use LogRocket?

According to G2 reviews, people use LogRocket for:

1. Identifying problems: LogRocket's combination of error tracking, performance monitoring, and session replay makes it uniquely powerful at finding bugs and issues. Unlike other tools, it uncovers both user and software issues.

2. Improves user experience: LogRocket seems to succeed at their goal of helping users fix issues. Reviewers find it provides all the tools to improve their user experience.

3. High usability: LogRocket provides a lot of functionality out of the box. It captures the details users need, provides useful visualizations, and automatically triages some issues.

Bottom line

LogRocket and Smartlook have very similar feature sets. Both offer self-serve and have a range of tools to try out. They’re both good choices for companies looking for comprehensive analytics tools.

7. Contentsquare

• Founded: 2012
• Most similar to: Heap, Glassbox
• Typical users: Product managers, ecommerce teams, and marketers
• Typical customers: Ecommerce, retail, and finance

What is Contentsquare?

Contentsquare is an analytics platform that combines heatmaps, customer journey analysis, and frustration scoring to help find and fix issues and friction points. According to BuiltWith, as of March 2024, Contentsquare is used by 2,171 of the top 1 million websites. 3,099 use Smartlook.

Key features

• Zone-based heatmaps: Visualize how well each page element is performing based on metrics like attractiveness, engagement, click rate, and conversion.
• Journey analysis: See how users move through your website page by page from start to finish and zero in on where people get lost and where drop-offs happen.
• Session replays: See how people experience your site or app by capturing every click and scroll.
• User segmentation: Segment users into different groups based on demographics and behaviors. Using this data you can then tailor what you're building for specific user groups.

How does Contentsquare compare to Smartlook?

Contentsquare is popular with large enterprises and has more advanced features, insluding AI-powered analytics reccomendations. Smartlook is a good choice for smaller businesses.

Why do companies use Contentsquare?

According to G2 reviews, people like Contentsquare because:

1. Data visualization and analysis: Users like that Contentsquare makes it easy to visualize and analyze large data sets. Advanced features make it easier to identify and fix problems big and small.

2. Improve your UI and UX: Contentsquare makes it easy to understand the impact of various design elements on a page. This helps developers understand the impact of elements on conversion rate, revenue, and user journeys.

3. Detailed session replays: Users appreciate being able to match quantitative data with qualitative data, giving them a better understanding of how best to solve problems.

Bottom line

From data visualizations, to behavior analysis, and detailed session replays, Contentsquare has a lot to offer, especially for larger companies. Smartlook has a more user-friendly interface, which might appeal to smaller organizations.

8. Hotjar

• Founded: 2014
• Most similar to: Pendo, PostHog
• Typical users: Product designers, researchers, and marketers
• Typical customers: Ecommerce and content-driven sites

What is Hotjar?

Hotjar is a tool for understanding user behavior. It provides heatmaps, replays, feedback, and interviews to capture and display the qualitative aspects of your site and app. Teams use it to discover and address pain points on their site and app, which helps them improve customer experiences. According to BuiltWith, as of March 2024, Hotjar is used by 72,048 of the top 1 million websites. 3,099 use Smartlook.

Key features

• Heatmaps: See what parts of your pages get attention and how far down the page users get.
• Recordings: Replay real user sessions and see what they see; discover hidden friction.
• Feedback: Learn what your users are thinking. Find out their likes, dislikes, and satisfaction.
• Surveys: Ask users questions to hear their opinions on features, flows, and what you should build next.
• Interviews: Talk to real users to share ideas, test designs, and get live feedback.

How does Hotjar compare to Smartlook?

Smartlook has a lot more features than Hotjar and, as it’s free to try, could be a great alternative to try out if you’re looking for more than Hotjar offers.

Why do companies use Hotjar?

According to G2 reviews, people like Hotjar because:

1. Insights on user behavior: Hotjar captures what people are doing, where their attention is going, and how they are spending their time. Users love the insights they get with Hotjar's tools.

2. Simple for non-technical users: Hotjar is easy to set up. Non-technical roles like designers, marketers, and product managers find it simple to use. The interface helps make data clear.

3. Heatmaps and scrollmaps: Seeing clicks and scroll depth works well and creates actionable insights for design, marketing, and content teams. Helps improve UX and page designs.

Bottom line

Hotjar is easy to use, and a good option for non-technical users, but lacks features that are commonplace amongst its competitors.