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Userpilot vs Hotjar - Comparison 2025

Userpilot vs. Hotjar

Last updated on

Reviewed by Camin McCluskey

Stackfix Co-Founder & CTO

CM

Hotjar and Userpilot serve different needs in the product analytics space. Hotjar excels as a specialized visual analytics tool with industry-leading heatmaps and session recordings, making it ideal for UX-focused teams needing quick, intuitive insights into user behavior. Its clean interface and rapid implementation make it perfect for smaller teams prioritizing ease of use.

Conversely, Userpilot stands out as a more comprehensive solution with broader functionality, superior customer support, and robust data export capabilities, making it better suited for larger organizations needing an all-in-one product analytics platform with both quantitative and qualitative insights.

Userpilot Product Logo

Advantages of Userpilot

Userpilot offers more comprehensive functionality than Hotjar
Unlike Hotjar's focused approach on visual analytics, Userpilot provides a broader suite of features combining both event-driven analysis and visual tools, making it more suitable for teams needing all-in-one product analytics solution.
Userpilot provides superior customer support compared to Hotjar
While Hotjar's support is middle-of-the-road with 24-48 hour response times, Userpilot offers quick live chat support with response times under 30 seconds and comprehensive self-help resources, making it better for teams requiring responsive support.
Userpilot has better data export capabilities than Hotjar
Compared to Hotjar's basic export options, Userpilot offers more comprehensive export capabilities including CSV exports, direct integration with analytics tools, and bulk data export API, making it more suitable for teams needing flexible data access.
Hotjar Product Logo

Advantages of Hotjar

Hotjar is significantly better at visual interface design than Userpilot
While Userpilot's interface looks dated, Hotjar offers a clean, visually appealing, and purpose-built interface that prioritizes visual understanding. This makes it particularly valuable for UX teams and designers who need to quickly interpret and share user behavior data.
Hotjar offers superior heatmap functionality compared to Userpilot
While Userpilot has temporarily removed their heatmap feature for improvements, Hotjar excels with industry-leading heatmaps that provide clear visualization of user behavior through click, move, and scroll maps with device-type filtering capabilities.
Hotjar provides exceptionally fast implementation compared to Userpilot
With just a single JavaScript snippet installation, Hotjar begins delivering valuable insights immediately with no additional configuration required, making it ideal for teams wanting rapid deployment of analytics.

Userpilot is best for

  • Businesses seeking comprehensive product analytics with both event-tracking and visual UX analysis
  • Businesses with quick deployment needs and non-technical teams with a an easy and efficient setup process.
  • Who need powerful session replay capabilities with team collaboration
  • And/or who need automatic event capture with immediate data insights

Hotjar is best for

  • Businesses with strong emphasis on understanding user behavior through visual insights
  • Who need an intuitive, fast-loading platform requiring minimal technical expertise
  • And/or who need intelligent session replay categorization for efficient UX research

Userpilot is less good for

  • Businesses with strict requirements for granular dashboard control and customization at lower price tiers
  • Who need offline data capture and syncing capabilities for intermittent connectivity scenarios
  • And/or who need 24/7 live customer support coverage across all time zones

Hotjar is less good for

  • Businesses with complex quantitative analytics needs who require deep event tracking and cohort analysis
  • Who need comprehensive data warehouse integration with platforms like BigQuery or Snowflake
  • And/or who need advanced quantitative features like cohort analysis and A/B testing capabilities

Gallery

Userpilot logoUserpilot
Userpilot screenshot
Hotjar logoHotjar
Hotjar screenshot

Pricing, features & ratings

Userpilot logo

Userpilot

Starting at

$299

Billed monthly

Pricing calculatorVisit Website
Hotjar logo

Hotjar

Starting at

$0

Billed monthly

Pricing calculatorVisit Website
Stackfix Verdict
Functionality
8

Functionality

8/10

<p>Userpilot offers an all-in-one solution that typically requires multiple separate tools to achieve the same capabilities. While competitors like Mixpanel specialize in event tracking and data analysis, and others like Hotjar focus on visual feedback tools (heatmaps, session replays), Userpilot combines these diverse functionalities in a single platform. This integration allows teams to handle multiple product analytics and user experience tasks without switching between different software solutions.</p><p>Note: As of March 18, 2025, heatmap functionality in Userpilot is temporarily unavailable (deprecated). According to Userpilot representatives, this feature is expected to return later this year.</p>
6

Functionality

6/10

<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
8

Ease of Use

8/10

<p>Day to day use of Userpilot is straightforward and efficient. With a straightforward and well labeled lefthand side panel controlling most navigation through different features, navigation remains easy and intuitive.</p><p>Each feature (ie user activity metrics) are immediately set up with a page and dashboard of what Userpilot deems to be the most typically important metrics for that feature. Clicking into each panel gives more granular controls, limited download options, and more.</p><p>Creating new dashboards and customising others are also relatively straightforward, often needing just several clicks to set up a New Users Activation dashboard in our testing. However, some features within a dashboard have been greyed out due to their restrictions to higher tiered subscriptions.</p><p>One great feature available to the higher tiered paid plans is the Visual Labeller, a Chrome Extension that allows users to label specific elements of their sites for event tracking without the need to engage the developer team though user reports have indicated slightly cumbersome usability.</p><p>Day-to-day setup of a functioning account also does not need developer involvement, with most employees able to navigate small changes like adding events etc.</p>
8

Ease of Use

8/10

<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

Look and feel

5/10

<p>Userpilot's interface is relatively straightforward and intuitive to use. One major comment however is that the design can look a bit dated compared to other similar solutions on the market. Whilst not tiring to look at, Userpilot's interface doesn't particularly impress visually either.</p><p>We particularly like the left side panel with clear labelling which opens up to show more options within that category. This allows users to efficiently move between various types of powerful analytics tools often within 2 menu clicks. Load times have been said to be average for such a powerful analytics product.</p><p>Different features like heatmaps, flow analysis, cohort analysis, and more each have slightly varying UIs, however we also liked the relative consistency Userpilot has across different features.</p>
8

Look and feel

8/10

<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 (&lt;1s) for heatmaps and smooth playback for session recordings.</p>
Customisability
5

Customisability

5/10

<p>Userpilot may be slightly more difficult to customise compared to other analytics tools in the category. The trade-off to the ease of onboarding and getting started is the lack of more granular control over dashboards and also the widgets and tiles within the dashboards at the lowest tier.</p><p>They do offer custom dashboards with up to 25 custom dashboards available at the higher paid tiers, with several templates available as well as the option to create one from scratch.</p><p>In testing, we found that tables had a certain level of customisability i.e. rearranging, adding and dropping, and excluding from exports. However, the interface which houses the table and the larger report dashboard was set with no ability to change further.</p><p>We also found that within certain dashboards, the tiles of metrics exclusive to higher paid tiers remained on-screen but greyed out, seemingly aimed at upselling to a higher tier with no option to remove these from dashboard view.</p>
3

Customisability

3/10

<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

Ease of Setup

7/10

<p>Userpilot has a relatively straightforward setup process to get from 0 to 1, with our testing showing just a simple javascript snippet from our website sufficient to start logging event data within the platform within an hour of sign up. We also liked seeing Userpilot's less intrusive setup and onboarding suggestions, allowing users to jump straight into the dashboard without needing to interact with too many tutorials.</p><p>The onboarding guides remained suggested even throughout setup of our first tracking events without creating visual clutter, giving confidence of being able to resume learning the software quickly.</p>
8

Ease of Setup

8/10

<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
8

Customer Support

8/10

<p>Userpilot has made it easy to access help, with a clearly labelled help section in the main panel that instantly pops up a whole suite of useful resources within the same window.</p><p>On top of their clearly labelled self-help resources, it was also very simple to get in touch with a live chat with a support member. In testing, we were in touch with somebody and keeping a live conversation within 30 seconds of raising an issue- and were given explanations, workthroughs, and resource links for the issue raised. They also handled additional questions within the same chat with ease.</p><p>Upon inquiry, their live chat line isn't 24/7, with live support active only from 0800-2400<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"> (GMT+3). </span></p>
5

Customer Support

5/10

<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
7

Integratability

7/10

<p>Great integrations are available for both import and export when paying for higher tiers, though its integration coverage is more than respectable even at its lowest tier.</p><p>Userpilot has a marketplace of native integration apps spanning a healthy amount of the most ubiquitous and industry standard products including Segment, MixPanel, Heap, and Amplitude, as well as access at the higher paid tiers to HubSpot and Salesforce.</p><p>Userpilot also has straightforward documentation for usage of its javascript SDK, as well as access to its bulk data export API at the higher paid tiers.</p>
6

Integratability

6/10

<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
8

Ease of Migration

8/10

<p>When paying for one of the higher tiers, Userpilot has a great suite of export options that should be more than sufficient for most use cases.</p><p>All plan tiers come with export data via CSV, with some controls such as excluding specific traffic available.</p><p>Several of the native integrations within Userpilot's integrations marketplace also allow for export of data direct to other analytics tools, including Heap, Segment, Hubspot, and more.</p><p>A bulk data export API is available at the enterprise plan level or as a paid add-on to the growth plan level.</p>
6

Ease of Migration

6/10

<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>
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