If you want to know how customers experience your website or mobile app, an online user feedback tool is ideal. These have the ability to collect customer experience in various ways, including via surveys, heatmaps, behaviour-triggered feedback forms and much more. However, there is one tool in particular which combines various user experience (UX) tools in one and that tool is Hotjar.
TL;DR – Article summary
This article highlights 10 alternatives to Hotjar, some focused on user feedback such as Mopinion and Medallia, and others on behaviour tracking and session replay such as Mouseflow, Lucky Orange and FullStory. The right choice depends on whether you need feedback tools, behavioural insights, or both.
Hotjar has the ability to show you how your online users are really experiencing your website through various feedback collection methods. Users can visualise visitor behaviour using the click, cursor movement and scroll heatmaps. On the other hand, users can also collect visitor recordings (by tracking sessions on the page) and carry out feedback polls or send out surveys and forms to receive feedback directly from the website visitors.
However, as with many user feedback tools, there are some disadvantages to working with Hotjar. Because Hotjar combines multiple UX tools in one, it lacks a solid CX solution. Users can visualise behaviour, but there is no real feedback analysis and reporting system available. Additionally, there is a certain privacy issue with recording sessions without users’ being aware of it.
So what’s the alternative? We’ve compiled a list of the best alternatives and competitors of Hotjar, including both feedback-oriented tools and visitor recording tools. Check it out:
1. Mopinion: Part of Netigate
Mopinion, part of the experience platform Netigate, is a digital feedback software that collects and analyses website, mobile app and email feedback in real-time.
Users can target highly customisable feedback forms, with the option to include visual feedback, to specific groups of online visitors. This is done using advanced triggers that are set off based on digital visitor behaviour, or set conditions like URL.
Upon collection, feedback items can be visualised in customisable or automatically generated dashboards and charts for advanced analyses.
Notable features:
- Advanced form design customisations
- Visual feedback
- Advanced targeting options
- Strong AI-powered analysis, complete with sentiment analysis, summaries, filtering and more
- Version control for website feedback form triggers
- Test mode for website feedback form triggers
- Advanced data analysis
- Fully customisable dashboard and data visualisation
Website: www.mopinion.com
2. MouseFlow
MouseFlow is similar to Hotjar. You can visualise website visitor behaviour using the click, scroll, movement and attention heatmaps. User activities can also be recorded and it has a form analytics feature, which allows you to see and understand why website visitors are abandoning your forms. You can also track different funnels and see how visitors from various traffic sources behave on your website. Unfortunately, however, Mouseflow does not offer anything in terms of surveying or polling visitors.
Website: www.mouseflow.com
3. Lucky Orange
Lucky Orange is a website behaviour and conversion optimisation tool. You can visualise how visitors interact with your site using dynamic heatmaps that update in real-time to show clicks, scrolls and mouse movement, even on sliders, pop-ups and other dynamic elements. It also offers session recordings and a live view so you can replay individual user journeys or watch visitors interact with your pages as it happens, helping you spot friction or usability issues you might otherwise miss. Lucky Orange also has a somewhat lightweight solution for website surveys.
Website: www.luckyorange.com
4. Smartlook
Smartlook, now part of CISCO, is a qualitative analytics solution for websites and mobile apps. They offer an always-on visitor recording solution that allows you to see what your visitors do on your digital channels. Automatic event tracking lets you know how (and how often) your visitors do specific things, and you can build conversion funnels to uncover why people are churning. Heatmaps for websites give you mass data about where most people click, scroll, hover and otherwise interact with your pages. Unlike Hotjar, however, Smartlook doesn’t offer any solution for website feedback.
Website: www.smartlook.com
5. Feedbackify
If you are looking at an alternativ to collect simple website feedback, Feedbackify might be the way to go. This is an easy-to-setup online feedback tool for your website. With Feedbackify, you can create feedback forms with a drag-and-drop editor. Website visitors can leave ratings and comments, including compliments and suggestions. A real-time dashboard can be used to see and analyse all received feedback. Unfortunately, however, this tool doesn’t offer advanced reporting, visitor recordings, heatmaps or text analysis capabilities, but if you’re going for cheap and simple, this is a great tool for you.
Website: www.feedbackify.com
6. CrazyEgg
Similar to Hotjar, CrazyEgg offers multiple types of heatmaps that shed some light on visitor behaviour, including where they click, how far they scroll, what they’re looking at on any given page, etc. Additionally, users can view traffic segments and how the behaviour of these segments differ from one another. This growth hacking tool is also very easy to implement. Keep in mind, however, that CrazyEgg is a fairly expensive alternative and users are required to pay on an annual basis rather than monthly.
Website: www.crazyegg.com
7. Usersnap
Usersnap allows users (typically web designers) to collect visual feedback through a JavaScript tag on their website. Often, this feedback is used to determine if a new design is suitable for the website. By means of a feedback button, you start a screen in which the user can make notes, add comments and circle certain elements. All visual feedback is sent as a screenshot.
Website: www.usersnap.com
8. Glassbox’ SessionCam
SessionCam is a tool that enables users to watch recordings of live customer sessions. This tool’s real-time API feed can be used for basket abandonment campaigns or passing on customer data to other parts of your business. To save time, SessionCam uses an advanced algorithm to detect struggle, and from that algorithm it creates a Customer Struggle Score for each recording.
Website: www.sessioncam.com
9. Medallia
Medallia for Digital is an enterprise-grade software and key component of Medallia Experience Cloud. This software, which recently acquired Kampyle (VoC platform), captures customer feedback on websites, mobile websites and in-app and integrates it with offline data from contact centers, retail stores and several other touchpoints. The software also makes use of powerful AI-based text analytics, role-based reporting and real-time alerts.
10. Fullstory
FullStory is a digital experience analytics platform focused on deep behavioural insight rather than lightweight optimisation. It automatically captures every user interaction and reconstructs full sessions so teams can replay journeys in detail and understand why and where users struggle. Beyond session replay, FullStory surfaces frustration signals like rage clicks, dead clicks and errors. It then connects them to funnels, journeys and retention data for impact analysis. Unlike tools that rely on direct user feedback, FullStory does not offer built-in surveys or polls.
Website: www.fullstory.com
Take your pick…
I hope this article helps you to find a good alternative to Hotjar, whether you choose the visual feedback or visitor recording route.
Keep in mind. Sometimes it can be very difficult to find or to choose (alternative) tools that suit your wishes. This is mainly because there are so many different tools out there to choose from. In fact, it can be a seemingly overwhelming process. Our advice? Just focus on the various techniques they offer for collecting, reporting or analysing online user feedback from your websites or mobile apps and go from there!
Ready to see Mopinion in action?
Want to learn more about Mopinion’s all-in-1 user feedback platform? Don’t be shy and take our software for a spin! Do you prefer it a bit more personal? Just book a demo. One of our feedback pro’s will guide you through the software and answer any questions you may have.
