Grain vs Hotjar
Hotjar is for teams who want to watch sessions and read heatmaps themselves. Grain is for teams who want an AI that reviews the sessions and tells you what's broken.
A mature, well-known tool focused on recordings, heatmaps, and quick on-page surveys.
AI-led analysis: Kai watches the sessions, finds the broken funnels, and writes the report. Plus cookieless by default and server-side WP tracking.
They overlap on: Session replay, heatmaps, click maps, scroll maps, funnels, basic surveys.
Feature matrix
What each tool ships today. No roadmap wishes.
When Hotjar is the better choice
- You want the most mature replay/heatmap UX with a long review trail.
- Your team is comfortable reviewing sessions manually.
- You already own Hotjar across other properties.
When Grain is the better choice
- You want an AI analyst reviewing the sessions, not just a recording library.
- You need cookieless tracking by default (Hotjar still uses cookies).
- You need native mobile SDKs, not just mobile-web replay.
- You want predictable flat pricing that doesn't spike with traffic.
Run both, no commitment
Run Grain alongside Hotjar for a full quarter. Compare what Kai surfaces versus what your team manually finds. Email eray@grainql.com for a 90-day Growth-tier trial.
FAQ
No, not in the next 12 months. Self-hosting is available on enterprise tier.
No. No cross-site tracking, no fingerprinting, no third-party cookies.
Yes. CSV from every view, plus the Grain Connector (in development).