Hotjar Versus Userfeel

Hotjar vs Userfeel

One of the most popular tools for helping to improve websites is Hotjar. You have probably heard about it or maybe you are even using it already. Just like Userfeel, it helps you gain feedback from your visitors and customers. But just how different are they?

In this guide you will learn the differences between the tools, and why you really need them both to get the best results for improving your website or app.

What is Hotjar?

It offers several tools to help you analyze and gain feedback from your users. It offers:

  • Heatmaps: For discovering what your visitors are clicking on on your website
  • Session recording: For watching your visitors move around your website
  • Surveys: For asking written questions to your customers and website visitors
  • Incoming feedback: For gaining quick feedback and bug fixes from your visitors

As you can see, it’s got some very useful features for helping to understand your users, and Userfeel doesn’t actually offer any of these exact features.

What Hotjar doesn’t have that UserFeel offers

We recommend that anyone who is serious about improving their website should use Hotjar. It’s really a fantastic tool. But there are several essential user feedback features it is missing that are vital for gaining a better and more detailed understanding of your users main issues and needs.

1: Hotjar doesn’t offer user testing

With Hotjar you can’t do user testing which is a very important part of user research, therefore you can’t actually listen to someone using your website and ask them questions while they do so.

This user testing is essential for discovering their issues, doubts, frustrations, needs and desires. Once you know that it’s like a goldmine of website improvement ideas.

And if you do moderated user testing, you can take this a step further by actually seeing and talking live with your target audience which is ideal for getting really detailed insights and feedback.

2: Hotjar surveys have no demographic filters to find your target audience

Hotjar lets you survey your customers or visitors, but it doesn’t help you find and survey people who have never seen your website and products before. Even their visitor surveys could be answered by people who have already seen your website before, and give biased feedback.

You really need first impression feedback from your target audience who haven’t seen your website before, particularly because visitors can judge your whole website in just 10 seconds. So this is something important that Hotjar doesn’t offer that Userfeel does.

3: Hotjar session recordings give no audio or feedback

With Userfeel you get recordings with audio of your target audience using your website, answering questions and tasks you want them to complete.

On Hotjar you only get recordings of users moving through your website and no audio feedback. That is useful for finding bugs, but you are left guessing why they left your website or why they couldn’t find the product they wanted. And you certainly can’t ask them what their issues or doubts are, and what their needs and desires are. That’s why you need user testing that Userfeel offers.

And there is also one other difference.

Hotjar requires a monthly subscription. Userfeel doesn’t.

They offer a free plan, but to get enough results to analyze on your website you really need one of their premium plans. Userfeel is simpler - you just pay for user tests as you go, and we don’t force you to pay a subscription or monthly fee. Other user testing tools like UserTesting.com also require you to pay expensive monthly fees, so Hotjar isn't the only one who makes it more difficult for you.

Wrapping up

 
Userfeel
Hotjar
User feedback tools
Heatmaps
Surveys
Incoming feedback
User testing
User recordings
Audio in recordings
Get visitor feedback during recordings
Demographic targeting
Screener questions
No subscription needed

So as you can now hopefully understand, Hotjar and Userfeel are website feedback tools that complement each other very well. You really need both to maximize the amount and the quality of feedback you are getting from your visitors and customers. This feedback will give you much better website improvement ideas that will quickly increase your conversion rates and revenue.

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