PostHog and Hotjar both help you understand how users interact with your product through session replay, heatmaps, and user surveys. They're popular choices for teams that want to go beyond pageview analytics and see what users actually do.

Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare (which also acquired Heap). It's still available as a focused user research tool built for UX teams, but pricing and plans now live under the Contentsquare umbrella.

PostHog combines replays and surveys with a full suite of developer tools designed to measure impact from one integrated platform.

In this comparison, we break down how PostHog and Hotjar stack up so you can decide which one is the right fit.

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, error tracking, LLM observability, workflows, a data warehouse, data pipelines, and more. 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. It's a platform built for developers

This means you get support from the engineers who actually build the product, extensively documented APIs, and a SQL query builder, so you can analyze data how you want. Our code, culture, and strategy are public on GitHub and in our public handbook.

And as your needs grow, PostHog grows with you – advanced capabilities such as a CDP or data warehouse are ready to switch on whenever you need them.

Development teams at Supabase, Lovable, and ElevenLabs, and many more trust PostHog as they scale.

3. We're cheaper and have a generous free tier

Every customer gets 5,000 web recordings, 1,500 survey responses, 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.

The best way to imagine PostHog is as an alternative to Hotjar, Heap, and LaunchDarkly rolled into one.

Analytics

Since Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, the analytics picture has changed.

Hotjar already offered funnels, but since the merge, broader product analytics features – like retention, user paths, and custom dashboards – are now available through Contentsquare's plans.

Contentsquare splits analytics across two products: Experience Analytics (funnels, heatmaps, dashboards – 200k free monthly sessions) and Product Analytics (trends, retention, journey analysis – 10k free monthly sessions). A significant number of features like user ID and custom variable filters, session summaries, and their AI assistant are all on their paid Growth tier or higher.

PostHog includes all of this and more in a single product, with 1 million free events every month.

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.

Since joining Contentsquare, Hotjar's session replay capabilities have expanded – recordings now include AI-powered summaries, error detection, and frustration signals. Mobile app session replay is also available through Contentsquare's Enterprise plan.

PostHog supports mobile session replay with 2,500 recordings free every month, including Android, iOS, React Native, and Flutter.

Both PostHog and Hotjar are good options if you're looking for a FullStory, LogRocket, or Microsoft Clarity alternative.

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's surveys are now part of Contentsquare's Voice of Customer product. They've added AI-generated surveys, AI summary reports with sentiment analysis, and increased free response limits.

Hotjar still supports more survey types than PostHog, including unmoderated user tests and interview scheduling, but PostHog offers more precise targeting options.

Hotjar's old pricing tiers (Business and Scale) no longer exist. Since the Contentsquare merger, Hotjar's tools are now sold under Contentsquare's pricing structure, which is split across three separate products – Experience Analytics (replays, heatmaps), Voice of Customer (surveys, interviews), and Product Analytics (powered by Heap). Each product has its own plan: Free, Growth, Pro, or Enterprise.

PostHog, by contrast, has fully transparent, usage-based pricing for every product on a single bill.

Free tier comparison

Contentsquare does offer 200,000 monthly sessions for its Experience Analytics free plan, which is generous for heatmaps and basic session data. But its Product Analytics free tier is limited to just 10,000 sessions with limited history, and surveys cap at 100 responses per month.

PostHog gives you 1 million analytics events, 5,000 web replays, 2,500 mobile replays, 1,500 survey responses, and 1 million feature flag requests – all on the same platform.

Paid pricing

PostHog uses usage-based pricing across all products. You only pay for what you use, and prices decrease at higher volumes. Here's what typical usage costs with PostHog:

Contentsquare's Growth plan starts at $40/month for Experience Analytics, $79/month for Voice of Customer (which includes surveys), and it's not disclosed for Product Analytics. Because replays, surveys, and analytics are billed as separate products, costs add up quickly once you need more than one tool. Pro and Enterprise pricing is custom and require a conversation with the sales team.

With PostHog, everything is on one bill with one pricing calculator. You can see exactly how much you'll pay using the calculator on our pricing page.

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

Contentsquare has improved its data export capabilities since the Hotjar days – its Data Connect feature now exports behavioral data to Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, S3, and Databricks. However, PostHog can still send richer data because it collects more actionable data via product analytics, feature flags, and experiments.

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.

When to choose PostHog vs Hotjar

Choosing between PostHog and Hotjar (now Contentsquare) depends on what you need beyond session replay and heatmaps. Here's a quick guide:

• Want an all-in-one developer platform that goes beyond user research with product analytics, feature flags, A/B testing, error tracking, and transparent pricing? Go with PostHog.

• Need a focused UX research tool with session replays, AI-powered surveys, user interviews, and unmoderated user testing? Hotjar/Contentsquare is a solid choice.

For engineering-led product teams

• PostHog – SQL access, open-source codebase, and SDKs for every major framework. Tightly integrated feature flags, experiments, error tracking, and LLM observability mean fewer tools to manage.

For UX research and design teams

• Hotjar / Contentsquare – Built for qualitative user research with AI-generated surveys, user interviews, unmoderated user tests, and feedback widgets. The Sense AI assistant surfaces insights from survey responses and session replays automatically.

For product managers who also run experiments

• PostHog – Run A/B tests, roll out features with flags, and measure impact on funnels and retention – all in one platform. Contentsquare doesn't include native feature flags or experimentation.

For e-commerce and CRO teams

• Hotjar / Contentsquare – Zone-based heatmaps, journey analysis, and impact quantification help identify and prioritize conversion improvements. Its enterprise tier adds mobile app replay and revenue attribution.

For teams building AI products

• PostHog – Native LLM observability for tracking model performance, token costs, and debugging AI interactions. Contentsquare doesn't offer AI observability.

For privacy-conscious and regulated organizations

• Both are SOC 2 certified, GDPR-ready, and CCPA-ready. PostHog is HIPAA-ready and offers EU hosting with raw data access via its data warehouse. Contentsquare/Hotjar is not HIPAA-compliant, but they do offer EU hosting.

For early-stage startups

• PostHog – A single platform that scales from MVP to growth stage. The generous free tier includes 1 million analytics events, 5,000 replays, and 250 survey responses per month. Startups can also qualify for $50k in free credits.