A great website not only attracts users but also piques them to stick around. An effective website analytics tool helps you do just that. It sheds off the curtain between you and your users by giving you a sneak peek into how they interact with your website, what they like or dislike about it, and whether any potential issues may arise. 

The market is flooded with tons of analytical tools, however, the most popular ones are Microsoft Clarity and Hotjar, leaving several website owners like you confused as to which one they should go for!

About Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity is a free analytics tool exclusively designed to enable website owners to interpret user behaviour and enhance site performance accordingly. While it was originally mentioned by Microsoft in 2018, the full public release took place in late October 2020. The tool serves as one of the few Hotjar alternatives, due to its plethora of useful features.

Microsoft Clarity provides in-depth information on how users interact with websites with the help of features such as session replays, heatmaps, and much more. It also exhibits different user engagement patterns, enabling website owners to identify the existing and potential issues concerning the website’s usability and overall performance. The owners can utilise these insights to fix the blockades and optimise their site to provide an unbeatable user experience.

Following are some of the features of Microsoft Clarity –

• Session Replays

This feature allows you to watch and re-watch recordings of user interactions like mouse movements, click, page visits, tapping or scrolling, enabling you to pinpoint any issues on your site.

• Heatmaps

Heatmaps help visualise user clicks, scrolls, and interactions to help website owners gauge the engagement levels of different parts of a webpage. It also reveals web page elements where people are (or aren’t) clicking.

• Insights Dashboard

The insights dashboard serves as a one-stop-shop showcasing all the information about critical metrics, such as-

• Time spent by a user navigating your site.
• Visitors who were clicking on non-existent links.
• Users who scrolled through the page searching for something, but failed.
• JavaScript errors that occur across your clients.

About Hotjar

Launched in 2014, Hotjar is a website visualization software that lets you gain data-driven insights and quality feedback about your users’ behavioural patterns on your website. Such data enables website owners to empathise with the customers and take the next steps likewise for a better user experience improving website branding. 

Reports suggest that the tool is used on over 900,000 sites worldwide. The tool functions with a host of advanced features, such as heatmaps, conversion funnels, session recordings, user surveys, etc to provide users with up-to-the-mark data.

In addition to session replays, heatmaps, and insights dashboards Hotjar also possesses the following features.

• Conversion Funnels

The Hotjar conversion funnel allows you to identify bottlenecks and drop-off points in the user journey. It assists you in mapping the flow of website visitors to a set of particular funnel steps that lead to conversions or signups.

• Form Analysis

Form analysis leverages data to understand how users are behaving while completing a web form. It helps you understand the reason behind form abandonment, so you can optimise your forms for enhanced user experiences and higher conversion rates.

• Feedback and Surveys

Hotjar also allows you to collect user feedback directly from your website or by using targeted surveys to fathom user satisfaction and needs. An on-site survey or on-page survey is a set of questions used to collect feedback when people visit a specific website page.

In a Nutshell: Microsoft Clarity or Hotjar?

Trying to pick one tool over another is like struggling to spot the first among equals. Microsoft Clarity and Hotjar are both insightful and intuitive tools when it comes to analysing user-related observations and your website’s performance. 

However, your choice should ultimately boil down to your business requirements and of course, budgetary preferences. If you are seeking a basic user behaviour analytics tool with unlimited access, Microsoft Clarity with its free offering can prove to be a great Hotjar alternative. You might gradually switch to Hotjar once you feel the need for extra features, such as conversion funnels, form analysis, user feedback and surveys over time.

The point is to keep an eye on how your users interact and make improvements to your website from time to time using the available options.