Table of Contents
- Hotjar vs. FullStory vs. Bugpilot: key differences
- Features
- Pricing
- What is FullStory?
- Key features
- Heatmaps
- Session replays
- Frustration signals
- FullStory pricing
- Pros & cons
- Pros
- Cons
- What is Hotjar?
- Key Features
- Engagement zone heatmaps
- AI for Hotjar surveys
- Session recording
- Hotjar Pricing
- Best FullStory & Hotjar alternative: Bugpilot
- Key Features
- User frustration monitoring
- Bug reporting widget
- Technical bug reports
- Session replays
- Bugpilot Pricing
- Pros & Cons
- FullStory vs. Hotjar vs. Bugpilot: feature comparison
- Choose the Best Error Monitoring Tool Today!
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Your website is often the first point of contact between your business and potential clients, so your website must be fast, efficient, and bug-free.
Thanks to web analytics tools, you can achieve the best website experience for your users. Two popular tools are Hotjar and FullStory, each offering a unique set of features and functionalities to help you optimize your website’s performance.
Bugpilot is another tool that’s slowly capturing the attention of users with its specialty to identify and resolve pesky website bugs. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into the capabilities of these three tools and see which tool is right for you.
Let’s get started!
Hotjar vs. FullStory vs. Bugpilot: key differences
Hotjar, FullStory, and Bugpilot might share some similarities—but they’re very different tools under the hood. Here’s a quick summary of the key differences before we get started:
Features
Bugpilot, Hotjar, and FullStory are monitoring tools that offer distinct features for different purposes.
Hotjar combines user behavior data and feedback for website improvement, while FullStory focuses on funnel analysis to pinpoint drop-off areas. Hotjar provides an overview of user behavior and interface insights, while FullStory records every interaction and offers robust search functionality. FullStory extends its analysis to mobile apps, whereas Hotjar is limited to websites.
In contrast, Bugpilot is a specialized tool primarily designed for bug tracking and efficient issue management. Its core purpose is to assist in tracking, prioritizing, and resolving software bugs and issues, streamlining the software development process.
Pricing
FullStory, Hotjar, and Bugpilot offer different options and use different pricing models.
FullStory offers a personalized plan starting at $299/month for a personalized quote depending on the needs of your company and a 14-day free trial to let you experience its features before paying for the full price. Hotjar has different pricing plans, starting on a free basic plan, depending on the service you require—observing heatmaps, discovering how your users feel through feedback and surveys, and automating key aspects of the process.
Bugpilot follows a more straightforward approach to pricing. There are three plans—all with access to Bugpilot’s core features. The free plan supports one user, the Pay As You Grow plan costs $10/user/month and supports automated bug detection, and the Business plan offers savings for larger teams.
What is FullStory?
FullStory is a website analytics tool that provides businesses with invaluable insights into how users interact with web and mobile elements.
The software's suite of features includes the ability to detect frustration signals, track funnels, and conversions, map user journeys, create customized dashboards, capture session replays, and generate heatmaps.
These features combine to give product teams, UX designers, and developers a better understanding of who is using their products and (more importantly) how they’re using them.
Key features
Heatmaps
FullStory's heatmaps offer a visual window into how users engage with your website or app, allowing you to decipher what catches their attention and how they navigate your content. By checking the pulse of any page, you can gain valuable insights into user behavior, analyze scrolls and clicks to pinpoint areas for improvement, and observe whether users are responding as expected or encountering issues.
Session replays
FullStory's session replay feature offers a unique perspective into the digital journey of individual users, allowing you to step into their virtual shoes and witness precisely what they see and do, even across multiple tabs.
Frustration signals
FullStory's automated alerts cover a wide range of events, including rage clicks, error clicks, thrashed cursors, and many more. By getting alerts for these frustration signals in real-time, you're not simply informed that a problem exists—you're provided with the invaluable insight needed to swiftly and effectively remedy it.
FullStory pricing
You’ll need to contact sales for accurate information. There’s a 14-day free trial available to test to tool out.
Pros & cons
Pros
- Easily shows you the "what" users are doing
- The tool makes it easy to collaborate around issues that users are having
- Create a direct link to any point in playback so that the example is easily shared with support
Cons
- Some users reported that setting up the software was a little difficult
- Several users are not happy with the pricing, saying it’s way too high for the value
- UI takes time to load in recorded sessions
What is Hotjar?
Hotjar is a web analytics tool that offers insights into visitor behavior and opinion.
The tool includes session replays and heatmaps (like FullStory) but expands on these features with surveys, polls, and support for user interviews. This mix of features aims to give product teams a holistic understanding of user behavior, needs, and feelings.
Key Features
Engagement zone heatmaps
Hotjar's Heatmaps feature is your ticket to improving any web page. These heatmaps vividly illustrate where users move, click, and scroll, unveiling critical areas for optimization. From identifying quick wins, counting rage clicks, and comparing user behavior across desktop and mobile platforms, heatmaps are a versatile tool to enhance user experience.
AI for Hotjar surveys
One of the standout capabilities of Hotjar's Surveys is the ability to autogenerate surveys with the assistance of AI. If you're unsure about the right questions to ask, simply articulate your goal, and let AI work its magic to create the most relevant survey for your needs.
Session recording
Hotjar's Session Recordings feature provides you with unparalleled access to user behavior, allowing you to refine your website, uncover hidden issues, and enhance the overall digital experience for your audience.
Hotjar Pricing
Hotjar offers separate pricing for different feature sets—Observe (for heatmaps and recording), Ask (for surveys and feedback), and Engage (for user interviews). Each product has a free tier that allows for limited access.
- Observe: There are three paid plans —Plus ($32/month), Business ($80+/month), and Scale ($171+/month). You can customize these plans based on the number of sessions you want to track per day.
- Ask: Again, there are three paid plans —Plus ($48/month), Business ($64+/month), and Scale ($128+/month). With this product, you can customize plans based on the number of monthly responses you need.
- Engage: There’s Plus ($280/month) for up to 180 interviews per year, Business ($440/month) for up to 360, and Scale (which is fully custom).
If you want to combine these tools you can create a custom package at a discounted price.
Best FullStory & Hotjar alternative: Bugpilot
Bugpilot is an all-in-one platform for finding and fixing user-facing bugs.
We offer features designed to support you through the entire bug resolution lifecycle. Our simple reporting widget is designed to capture and send precise information from your users, while our frustration monitoring keeps tabs on worrying user behavior patterns.
Detailed bug reports give you all the information you need to start working on fixes, and an in-app bug-tracking tool keeps your efforts organized. We also offer AI-assisted troubleshooting that highlights root causes like ad-blockers, JavaScript, and network errors.
Key Features
User frustration monitoring
Bugpilot’s user frustration monitoring feature provides you with insights into the importance of each bug, allowing you to prioritize your bug-fixing efforts effectively. This feature is your frontline defense against JavaScript errors, failed network requests, rage clicks, error clicks, and a range of other critical UX issues that can impact your digital platform.
Bug reporting widget
With the Bug Reporting Widget feature, your users can easily record their screens and submit bug reports with just a few clicks, eliminating any potential friction in the bug reporting process. This innovative tool enables your users to record their screens and report actionable bugs seamlessly, all without the need for additional software or complex procedures.
Technical bug reports
Get all the details you need to understand complex bugs by collecting contextual information along with users’ screenshots. Get the timeline of actions taken, the exact version used, and the device type all in one place. AI-assisted troubleshooting highlights likely root causes, saving you hours of investigation each week.
Session replays
With Session Replay, you can effortlessly reproduce bugs, gather crucial data, and refine the user experience. It allows you to diagnose problems, assess the impact of changes, and validate the effectiveness of bug fixes.
Related: Check out the best session replay software for 2023.
Bugpilot Pricing
Better-Than-Nothing is our free-forever plan—it supports the bug reporting widget, unlimited bug reports, and one user seat. Pay As You Grow ($10/user/month) gives users access to all Bugpilot’s features, including automated bug detection, 20+ integrations, and more.
Business ($240/month) is a fixed package deal that supports 20 user seats and offers five workspaces, permission management, and custom branding.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Real-time monitoring
- Custom dashboards
- Automated bug reports
- Easy to integrate
- Excellent customer support
- Collaboration features
Cons
- Users reported that the setup process isn’t very intuitive
- Requires learning curve
FullStory vs. Hotjar vs. Bugpilot: feature comparison
ㅤ | FullStory | Hotjar | Bugpilot |
User-Frustration Monitoring | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
Bug Reporting Widget | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
Session Replays | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
AI-assisted Troubleshooting | 🟡 | ✅ | ✅ |
Bug Tracking | 🟡 | 🟡 | ✅ |
Technical Bug Reports | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
Error Tracking | 🟡 | 🟡 | ✅ |
Detailed Error Reports | 🟡 | 🟡 | ✅ |
Alerting and Notifications | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Application Metrics | 🟡 | ✅ | ❌ |
Integration Options | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Choose the Best Error Monitoring Tool Today!
FullStory, Hotjar, and Bugpilot are all great options for bug tracking and application monitoring. These tools provide deep insight into your application’s performance and potential issues, allowing you to identify and resolve bugs quickly.
However, if your primary goal is to efficiently track and fix bugs and ensure seamless collaboration between teams, Bugpilot is an excellent choice. The software’s emphasis on collaboration tools, bug tracker, customizable workflows, and project management features could enhance your team’s communication and productivity.
Create a free account and try Bugpilot now!