# Hotjar: how AI models rank it, October 2026

GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Named in 124 judge labels across 9 categories by 14 of 14 models. Page: https://gtm-ai-index.com/vendors/hotjar/

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Session replay and heatmaps | 16% | 2 | 23% | 62 |
| Customer intelligence and data science | 0% | 21 | 12% | 17 |
| Web analytics | 0% | 23 | 27% | 15 |
| Customer feedback and surveys | 0% | 20 | 8% | 12 |
| Product analytics | 0% | 38 | 44% | 9 |
| Ecommerce marketing | 0% | 27 | 0% | 5 |
| Audience and consumer insights platforms | 0% | 58 | 0% | 2 |
| Attribution and marketing mix modeling | 0% | 82 | 0% | 1 |
| Experimentation and personalization | 0% | 48 | 0% | 1 |

## What the models said for it

- "Pick heatmap-first tools like Hotjar or Clarity if you mainly want quick UX insights and broad behavior patterns." (Perplexity Sonar, Session replay)
- "Best for: Beginners and small-to-mid-sized teams doing user experience research ... Strength: Fastest setup, easiest to use" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, Session replay)
- "Very popular for UX research and product teams... Strong on heatmaps, recordings/session replay, surveys, and feedback" (GPT-5.4 mini, Session replay)
- "Lucky Orange and Hotjar are excellent starting points due to their ease of use and bundled features" (Mistral Small, Session replay)

## And against it

- "Hotjar was merged into Contentsquare on 1 July 2025; ... By default Hotjar starts session recording as soon as the script loads, which means it can capture visitor activity before consent is given." (Muse Glimmer 30B, Session replay)
- "Session replay tools in general (Hotjar, FullStory, Mouseflow, etc.) should be used with great caution. If you don't strictly need them, avoid them." (DeepSeek V4 Flash, Web analytics)
- "Tools to Avoid or Use with Extreme Caution... Hotjar: Most popular heatmap tool, but criticized for capturing more PII than expected" (Grok 4.1 Fast, Session replay)
- "Collects more personal data than most teams realize; has faced significant legal challenges; default settings may not adequately mask PII" (Kimi K2, Session replay)

## The company

Contentsquare; https://contentsquare.com; Paris, France; founded 2008. From Wikidata, fetched 2026-09-14.

## In its own words

What Hotjar's own pages state, read 2026-09-28. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: recently been incorporated (https://trust.contentsquare.com)
- Customers named: NerdCow, Hussle, UX studio, CadoMaestro, TomTom, eShopWorld, TechSmith, Matalan

## What it publishes

Every page contentsquare.com exposes, read 2026-09-29: 2114 addresses. By kind, pages and the last 90 days:

- blog: 298 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest 2025-01-20
- case study: 159 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- report or ebook: 710 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- comparison: 61 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- template or tool: 3 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- glossary or explainer: 9 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- podcast or video: 5 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- news or press: 87 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- Recent: 2025-01-20 blog: Feedback actionable https://contentsquare.com/blog/feedback-actionable/

## Record

- Method: https://gtm-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://gtm-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as GTM AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, gtm-ai-index.com.