| Functionality | 3 <p>Simple Analytics is a very lightweight web analytics product. As such it lacks many complex features you might want such as heatmaps or session replay. However, it does the basics well - page views, live visitor counts, referral source tracking etc.</p> | 6 <p>Hotjar dominates in visual analytics with industry-leading heatmaps and session recordings. While purposely narrower than full-spectrum analytics platforms, its specialized tools for click/tap tracking, scroll depth, mouse movement, and rage clicks provide unmatched visual behavior insights. It's best used alongside a more quantitative, events centric tool.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 7 <p>Thanks to its relatively limited feature set - nearly all of Simple Analytics' features are accessible on one main dashboard. As such it would take an average SMB employee less than 20 mins to master its use.</p> | 8 <p>Hotjar excels in user experience with an exceptionally intuitive interface that makes complex behavioral data accessible through visual representations. The tool requires virtually no training even for non-technical users, with self-explanatory visualizations and intelligent filtering options that simplify analysis.</p> |
| Look and feel | 5 <p>Simple Analytics' design aesthetic is dark and fairly developer oriented. That being said, its core dashboard will feel very familiar and its data visualizations and graphs are easy to read. Our main complaint is that we faced delays on page load of up to 4 seconds in some instances.</p> | 8 <p>Hotjar's interface is clean, visually appealing and purpose-built for clarity. The design prioritizes visual understanding with intuitive heat overlays and user recordings that require minimal interpretation. Navigation is straightforward and focused, with remarkably fast load times (<1s) for heatmaps and smooth playback for session recordings.</p> |
| Customisability | 4 <p>Beyond custom events, Simple Analytics offers limited scope for customization. We would like to have seen more options to tweak the dashboard itself and change how data is visualized.</p> | 3 <p>While less customizable than comprehensive analytics platforms, its focused approach means most needed adjustments are readily available without overwhelming complexity.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 7 <p>Simple Analytics stays true to its name as it offers a very intuitive setup process - only requiring a simple script. We appreciated the offer of a self-serve free trial as well as a live demo to get a feel for the tool before installation.</p> | 8 <p>Hotjar offers remarkably simple implementation requiring only a single JavaScript snippet installation. The platform begins delivering valuable insights immediately after installation with no additional configuration required. Given the lack of functionality depth, there's little additional configuration needed.</p> |
| Customer Support | 3 <p>Simple Analytics' developer documentation is not well presented. We specifically missed the presence of any kind of search bar at all meaning you'll need to trudge through dozens of pages if you're looking for something specific.</p> | 5 <p>Hotjar's documentation is middle-of-the-road. We would have preferred a more developer centric layout instead of providing articles in a help centre format which can be harder to navigate. Beyond this, email support replies take 24-48 hours in our testing.</p> |
| Integratability | 3 <p>Simple Analytics offers a fairly robust API through which you can interact with data as well as make platform changes. However, it offers little to no integrations beyond this.</p> | 6 <p>Hotjar offers a number of native integrations with popular ticketing tools such as Jira/Linear, automation platforms like Zapier and analytics tools like Google Analytics/Mixpanel. It's integration range is somewhat limited when compared to larger, all-in-one product analytics tools though.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 7 <p>Simple Analytics offers self-serve export functionality for key datapoints via its web app. Additionally, its API is robust and allows business to access datapoints programatically.</p> | 6 <p>Hotjar provides straightforward exports for heatmaps, recordings, and feedback data. Users can download recordings, export heatmap data as CSV files, and access feedback responses through the dashboard or API. While not as extensive as enterprise analytics platforms, the export capabilities align well with the qualitative nature of the data collected.</p> |
