Mrkr vs Hotjar.
Both record sessions. Hotjar wraps them in heatmaps and surveys and asks for consent first. Mrkr wraps them in traffic, funnels, and revenue, and in its default cookieless mode asks for nothing.
What is the difference between Mrkr and Hotjar?
Hotjar is a qualitative research tool: heatmaps, session recordings, and on-site surveys, built to answer why people behave a certain way. Mrkr is a web analytics tool with session replay built in, built to answer which traffic makes money. Hotjar uses cookies and needs consent. Mrkr is cookieless by default and does not.
That difference decides most evaluations. If you are running a redesign and want to see where people click on a page, Hotjar’s heatmaps are the better product and Mrkr has nothing equivalent. If you want to know which campaign brought the visitor who dropped at checkout, Hotjar cannot tell you and Mrkr can.
A recording that knows where the visitor came from.
A Hotjar recording is a recording. A Mrkr replay opens with the source, campaign, and landing page attached, so you can filter to the sessions from one paid campaign that did not convert and watch only those.
Where Mrkr is better.
You do not need a banner
Hotjar sets cookies, so it waits for consent. Mrkr's default mode records everyone.
Sessions attached to money
Every recording carries its source, campaign, and any revenue the session produced.
One tool, not two
Analytics and replay in one dataset, so there are no two session counts to reconcile.
Pricing that does not go dark
Hotjar meters daily sessions and stops. Mrkr meters monthly events with overage.
Side by side.
| Mrkr | Hotjar | |
|---|---|---|
| Session replay | Yes, included on Pro | Yes, the core product |
| Heatmaps | No | Yes |
| On-site surveys | No | Yes |
| Cookieless by default | Yes | No |
| Consent banner required | No in cookieless mode, yes in cookie mode | Yes |
| Traffic sources and campaigns | Yes | No |
| Funnels | Yes | Higher tiers only |
| Cohorts and retention | Yes | No |
| Revenue attribution | Yes | No |
| Core Web Vitals | Yes | No |
| Free plan | No, 14-day trial | 35 daily sessions |
| Entry paid price | $5/mo, 100K pageviews, session replay included | $32/mo, 100 daily sessions |
| Seat charges | None | Per seat above the base |
Hotjar details checked against hotjar.com pricing and feature pages on 2026-08-24. Hotjar changes packaging often, so verify before you buy.
See both halves in one dataset
The live demo has the funnels, the sources, and the recordings sitting in the same product. Click a drop-off step and open the sessions behind it.
Open the live demo
Where Hotjar is genuinely better.
Heatmaps
Click, move, and scroll maps across thousands of sessions. Mrkr has no heatmaps at all.
Surveys and feedback
A mature survey product wired into the recordings. Mrkr collects no qualitative feedback.
Research workflow
Highlights, clips, and shareable reels for a design team. Mrkr replay is not a research library.
Established at scale
Longer in market, with the integrations and enterprise paperwork that follow.
Questions, answered.
Keep reading
- How Mrkr's session replay works
Masking, retention, and what it costs.
- Mrkr vs Microsoft Clarity
The other free replay option, and its trade-off.
- Mrkr vs Google Analytics
The comparison most teams start with.
- How analytics works without cookies
What replaces the cookie.
- Pricing
From $5/mo, 14-day trial.
- Open the live demo
Replay running on a real dataset.
Your first visitor is already here.
Drop in the script and watch them land. It takes about a minute.