Verified 2026-07-21 · No affiliate rankings

Open-source Hotjar alternatives

This is a short page because the honest answer is short. Of the tools we test, one is genuinely open source and self-hostable. The rest are closed SaaS, whatever their marketing implies.

Worth knowing: We would rather give you one real answer than pad this to a list of ten. If self-hosting is a hard requirement, PostHog is the option. If what you actually need is data control rather than the source code, look instead at the tools offering EU data residency — that solves the common underlying concern without running your own infrastructure.

The one that qualifies

Out of the 9 Hotjar alternatives we test. Ranked with permanently-free tools first — never by affiliate payout.

  1. PostHog

    Open-source product analytics with heatmaps, session replay and a generous free tier.

    Open source, self-hostable

    Our take: The developer/SaaS pick: heatmaps and replay ride along with real product analytics, feature flags and A/B testing in one open-source stack — overkill for a brochure site, ideal for a product team.

    Price
    Free · 5,000 recordings + 1M events/mo
    Paid from
    Usage-based
    Skip it if
    Non-technical marketers who just want a visual heatmap — the surface area is large and developer-shaped.