Initializing
~5 KB vs ~100 KB
Script size (gzipped)
20x lighter
0 vs 5+
Cookies set
No consent banner needed
Free plan
vs $40+/mo
Hotjar free is very limited
Hotjar focuses on heatmaps and recordings. Pixli matches those and adds everything else you'd need a separate analytics tool for.
| Feature | Pixli | Hotjar |
|---|---|---|
| Script size (gzipped) | ~5 KB | ~100 KB |
| Cookies | None | Yes (multiple) |
| GDPR-friendly by default | ||
| Heatmaps | ||
| Session recordings | ||
| Traffic analytics | ||
| Real-time visitors | ||
| Funnels | ||
| Custom events | ||
| A/B split testing | ||
| Traffic quality scoring (TQS) | ||
| Click-level analytics | ||
| Financial / ROI analytics | ||
| Frustration detection | ||
| Content intelligence | ||
| Web Vitals monitoring | ||
| Automated alerts | ||
| Crypto payment | ||
| Data ownership | You own | Hotjar owns |
| Free plan | Very limited |
Every kilobyte costs load time, especially on mobile. Here's the actual gzipped size each script adds.
Hotjar loads a substantial script plus additional resources for heatmaps and recordings. Pixli lazy-loads each module (~2 KB each) only when enabled, keeping initial load light.
How each platform handles visitor data and cookies.
Pixli
Cookieless by design
Hotjar
Cookie-based tracking
Hotjar only covers heatmaps and recordings. You still need separate tools for analytics, testing, and fraud detection.
Traffic analytics
Heatmaps & recordings
A/B testing
Pixli
Everything in one ~5 KB script
Hotjar is a behavior analytics tool, not a full analytics platform. These features fill the gaps.
Visitors, pageviews, bounce rate, sources, geo, devices — all real-time. With Hotjar you still need Google Analytics for this.
Five sub-scores to detect bot traffic and fraud. Auto-generate blacklists. Hotjar has no concept of traffic quality.
Every click with sub_id, click_id, and full journey tracking. Build click flows for affiliate and performance campaigns.
Built-in experiments with statistical significance via chi-squared test. No need for a third A/B testing subscription.
Revenue, cost, profit, and ROI by source. S2S postback processing and CSV cost import — Hotjar has nothing like this.
Pay with cryptocurrency for full anonymity. No credit card, no identity linking — true privacy from checkout to analytics.
No migration tool needed. Just swap the script.
Paste one line of code into your site's <head>. Works with any framework or CMS.
Delete the Hotjar tracking code. Your page instantly gets ~100 KB lighter and loses several tracking cookies.
Traffic analytics, heatmaps, and recordings start collecting right away. No setup wizard.
Pixli offers click, scroll, and movement heatmaps tied to CSS selectors. They work on responsive sites and use the same general approach. Hotjar has had more time to polish the UX, but the data quality is comparable.
Pixli doesn't include feedback widgets or surveys. If those are critical to your workflow, you'd need a separate tool for that. Pixli focuses on analytics, behavior, and performance marketing.
Both use DOM-based recording (Pixli via rrweb). Pixli adds automatic PII masking for passwords, emails, phone numbers, and credit cards — without manual configuration.
No. Pixli includes full traffic analytics (visitors, pageviews, sources, geo, devices, real-time). That's the main advantage over Hotjar — you don't need a separate analytics tool.
On EU-based infrastructure that you control. Your data is never shared with third parties or advertising platforms.
TQS, click-level analytics with sub_id tracking, blacklist generation, postback processing, and ROI tracking. Hotjar is built for UX teams; Pixli also serves affiliate and ecommerce use cases.