Contentsquare vs OpenReplay (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Contentsquare grades higher than OpenReplay: 2.8 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Contentsquare grades higher on value for money and the free plan. They get the same grade on features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Contentsquare
Heatmaps, session replays and surveys, formerly sold as Hotjar
OpenReplay
Open-source session replay and product analytics you can self-host
Which one is for you
Pick Contentsquare if
- Fits if you're a marketer who wants to see where visitors click and scroll
- Works for small sites that fit in 200k sessions and don't need every visit recorded
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want every visit recorded for free, which Clarity does
- Pricey if you want lots of survey answers, as more than 100 a month is a plan from $79 a month
- Tight if you're on Growth, which records only 15% of sessions and starts at 7k sessions for $39 a month
- Watch out: recording every session, APIs, alerts and form analysis need Pro or Enterprise, priced through sales
- Watch out: the free plan keeps 1 month of data for 1 project, and new Hotjar accounts can't be created
Pick OpenReplay if
- Fits if you're a developer who wants replays next to errors and network logs
- Works for a team that must keep recordings on its own servers
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you're staying free: 1,000 sessions a month and data kept for 7 days
- Pricey if you want Dedicated, at $199 a month before you pick a bigger VM
- Watch out: self-hosting means you handle storage, scaling and upgrades, and the open-source edition is listed for low traffic
- Watch out: Serverless costs $5.95 per 1,000 sessions a month, so busy sites climb quickly
How we grade them
| 2.8GPAContentsquareGood | 2.4GPAOpenReplayFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | B$0: the free plan covers up to 200k sessions, so a 10,000-visitor site fits, but it records only 5% of visits. Recording more starts with Growth at $39 a month billed yearly for just 7k sessions, fewer than this site has. Graded against Clarity, which records everything free, that's a B. | CDedicated starts at $199 a month, billed hourly, and Serverless is $5.95 per 1,000 sessions. That's around the top quarter of analytics prices. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree forever up to 200k sessions, with heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring and basic surveys, enough for one person to run on. The limits: 5% of sessions recorded, up to 10k, 1 project and 1 month of data. | CFree cloud plan: 1,000 sessions a month, 2 users, 1 project and 7-day retention. The open-source edition is free but you host it, and the Dedicated trial is 7 days. |
| Features | BHeatmaps, attention maps, replays, funnels, journeys, error and Core Web Vitals monitoring, surveys and Sense AI summaries. That's the whole experience analytics job, though Free and Growth record only a share of visits and APIs need Pro. | BSession replay with network and console tools, product analytics, co-browsing, bug reports, data residency, an API and MCP server. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. A snippet starts the heatmaps and replays, but Hotjar now sits inside Contentsquare's bigger platform, new users sign up there, and journeys, projects and surveys take some learning. | CNo store rating on record. You add the tracker to your app, or set up a server for self-hosting. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, with no desktop or phone app. It connects to Google Analytics, Jira, HubSpot, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Unbounce, Optimizely and AB Tasty, and AI assistants can plug in through MCP on every plan. | BWeb only, with Sentry, Datadog, Jira and GitHub links and an API. |
| Best for | heatmaps and replays of a marketing site | session replay you can host yourself |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Contentsquare and OpenReplay. How we grade
Price against what you get
Contentsquare starts at $39 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. OpenReplay starts at $199 a month and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and Contentsquare starts $160 a month lower. Of the other website and product analytics tools on the chart, none scores higher than Contentsquare for less, and none scores higher than OpenReplay for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- OpenReplay is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Contentsquare also covers surveys.
At a glance
| Contentsquare | OpenReplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $39 per month for up to 7k sessions, billed yearly ($49 billed monthly) | $199 per month for a Dedicated instance, billed hourly |
| Free plan | Free forever: up to 200k sessions a month with replays of 5% of them (max 10k), heatmaps, funnels, error monitoring, basic surveys, 1 project and 1 month of data. | Free cloud plan: 1,000 sessions a month, 2 users, 1 project and 7-day data retention; the open-source edition is free to self-host. |
| Free trial | None listed | 7-day trial of the Dedicated plan, no credit card required |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Contentsquare | OpenReplay |
| Price read from | contentsquare.com | openreplay.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Contentsquare
- New Hotjar accounts can no longer be created; new users sign up for Contentsquare, and existing Hotjar users log in there.
- Free and Growth record only a share of sessions (5% up to 10k, and 15%); recording every session needs Pro or Enterprise.
- Surveys beyond 100 responses a month are a separate Voice of Customer plan starting at $79 a month.
- APIs, alerts, form analysis and Adobe Analytics integration need Pro or Enterprise, priced through sales.
OpenReplay
- The free cloud plan stops at 1,000 sessions a month and keeps data 7 days.
- Serverless is billed at $5.95 per 1,000 sessions a month, with 30-day retention and unlimited users and projects.
- Self-hosting means you manage storage, scaling and upgrades; the open-source edition is listed for low traffic.
- Dedicated has no published cap on users or recordings, but its price rises with the VM size you choose.
Key features
Contentsquare
- Heatmaps and attention maps
- Shows where visitors click, hover and scroll, with attention maps for engagement; zone heatmaps and side-by-side comparisons start on Growth.
- Session replays
- Replays of real visits to spot struggles and errors. Free records 5% of sessions and Growth 15%; Pro and Enterprise can record all of them.
- Funnels and journeys
- Funnels on every plan show where people drop off; Growth links funnels to replays and adds journey analysis and impact estimates.
- Error and performance monitoring
- Catches JavaScript errors and shows Core Web Vitals and how slow pages affect behavior, included on the free plan.
- Sense AI
- AI summaries of heatmaps and replays and a chat for questions about your data on Growth and up; every plan can connect AI assistants through MCP.
- Surveys and feedback
- Feedback widgets and surveys tied to replays, sold as Voice of Customer: 100 responses a month free, more from $79 a month.
OpenReplay
- Session replay with developer tools
- Replays are paired with DevTools data such as network calls and backend logs pulled in from monitoring tools.
- Product analytics
- Funnels, heatmaps, journey analysis and web analytics sit alongside the replays, with mobile app support listed as well.
- Co-browsing and bug reports
- Co-browsing lets support staff view a customer's session live, and the Spot tool records bug reports for developers.
- Three ways to deploy
- Self-host the open-source edition, run a Dedicated instance in OpenReplay's cloud or yours, or use the usage-based Serverless cloud.
- Data residency
- The Dedicated plan lists 50 regions across AWS, GCP and Azure, plus bring-your-own-cloud, so data can stay in a chosen location.
- API and MCP server
- A REST API fetches sessions, users and events, and an MCP server is listed in the plan comparison. AI Agents are marked coming soon.
Plans
Contentsquare
Free$0
Up to 200k monthly sessions, 5% recorded, 1 month of data, 1 project, 7 integrations and an MCP connection for AI assistants.
Growth$39
per month for up to 7k sessions, billed yearly ($49 billed monthly)
13 months of data, 3 projects, zone heatmaps, journeys, Sense AI chat; 15% of sessions recorded. $409 a month at 100k sessions, billed monthly.
ProCustom
Sold through sales: up to 6 projects, up to 100% of sessions recorded, APIs, alerts, form analysis, revenue attribution.
EnterpriseCustom
Sold through sales: unlimited projects, real-time error troubleshooting, synthetic monitoring, A/B testing analysis, SLAs.
OpenReplay
Free$0
On OpenReplay's cloud: up to 1,000 sessions a month, all core features, 2 users, 1 project, 7-day retention.
Open-Source$0
Free to self-host on your own infrastructure, with self-managed storage and community support through GitHub and Slack.
Dedicated$199
per month for a managed instance, billed hourly ($0.276/hr)
Dedicated VM managed by OpenReplay, with no limits on users, recordings or retention; the price is for the smallest size.
EnterpriseCustom
Self-hosted at scale with SAML and SCIM, audit trail, dedicated support and volume pricing on a multi-year contract.
Ways to pay less
Contentsquare
- Annual discount
Save 20% with yearly billing
Paying yearly saves 20%: Growth at 7k sessions is $39 a month instead of $49.
OpenReplay
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Contentsquare or OpenReplay?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Contentsquare is cheaper to start with: $39 a month, against $199 a month for OpenReplay. Contentsquare starts at $39 per month for up to 7k sessions, billed yearly ($49 billed monthly), and OpenReplay starts at $199 per month for a Dedicated instance, billed hourly.
Which has a free plan, Contentsquare or OpenReplay?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Contentsquare and OpenReplay have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.