What is Hotjar? How to Detect Hotjar on Any Website
Hotjar is a behavior analytics and user feedback platform offering heatmaps, session recordings, surveys, and user interviews to help product teams understand the user experience.
Quick Facts
Quick Answer
Hotjar is a behavior analytics platform that combines heatmaps, session recordings, and user feedback tools in a single product. It is used by over 1.3 million websites to understand user experience beyond what traditional traffic analytics reveals.
🧠What is Hotjar?
Hotjar is a behavior analytics and feedback platform founded in Malta in 2014. It bridges the gap between quantitative analytics (what users do) and qualitative insights (why they do it).
Hotjar gives product and growth teams a visual understanding of user behavior through:
- •Heatmaps: Click, move, and scroll maps showing aggregated user interaction patterns
- •Session Recordings: Full playback of individual user sessions including mouse movements
- •Feedback Widgets: On-page widgets where users can rate and comment on their experience
- •Surveys: Targeted in-app and post-session surveys
- •User Interviews: Built-in user research and interview scheduling
🔍How to Detect Hotjar on a Website
There are several ways to identify whether a website is using Hotjar.
Use a Technology Detection Tool Recommended
The fastest and most accurate method. TrueTechFinder analyzes HTML structure, script files, and DOM patterns to detect Hotjar instantly.
Try TrueTechFinder freeCheck Page Source Code
Hotjar has highly distinctive script and initialization patterns that make it one of the most reliably detectable behavior analytics tools.
- static.hotjar.com/c/hotjar-
- script.hotjar.com
- vars.hotjar.com
- hjid
- hjsv
- window.hj
- vc.hotjar.io
- api.hotjar.io
- hotjar.com/feedback
- _hjid cookie
- _hjFirstSeen
- _hjIncludedInSessionSample
Use Browser Developer Tools
Open DevTools (F12), check the Network tab for Hotjar-specific script filenames, request headers, and DOM attributes that reveal the underlying technology.
Hotjar's distinctive boilerplate initialization function is one of the most recognizable tracking snippets on the web.
How to Detect Hotjar Manually
Hotjar's installation leaves several distinctive markers that are easy to identify without a tool:
Check Page Source for Hotjar Script
View source (Ctrl+U) and search for 'hotjar'. You will find a script tag loading from static.hotjar.com with a unique site ID number.
Look for hjid in Scripts
Search the page source for 'hjid'. This is the Hotjar Site ID variable and is always present when Hotjar is installed.
Check Browser Cookies
In DevTools > Application > Cookies, look for _hjid (the Hotjar user identifier cookie). Its presence confirms Hotjar is active on the site.
Monitor Network Requests
In DevTools > Network, filter by 'hotjar'. You will see requests to vc.hotjar.io for session recording data collection.
The hjid parameter (Hotjar ID) is unique to every Hotjar installation and acts as a definitive fingerprint.
🌐Who Uses Hotjar?
Commonly Used By
- •Product managers and UX designers
- •Conversion rate optimizers
- •Growth and marketing teams
- •Ecommerce managers
- •SaaS product teams
Industries
- •SaaS & software
- •Ecommerce & retail
- •Marketing agencies
- •Financial services
- •Education
Market Strengths
- ✓Combined analytics and feedback in one tool
- ✓Widest adoption among mid-market SaaS companies
- ✓Strong survey and NPS functionality
- ✓1300+ integrations via Zapier and native connectors
- ✓GDPR-compliant with robust privacy controls
Why Businesses Use Hotjar
✓Key Benefits
- Identifies exactly where users drop off in conversion funnels
- Combines behavioral data with user sentiment feedback
- Easy to install via a single JavaScript snippet
- Integrates natively with HubSpot, Segment, and Optimizely
- Strong free tier for early-stage product validation
→Common Use Cases
- Landing page conversion rate optimization
- Checkout funnel analysis
- Feature adoption tracking in SaaS products
- Form UX and completion rate improvement
- Post-launch product experience monitoring
🧱Hotjar Ecosystem & Integrations
Hotjar connects with the major analytics, CRM, and product platforms used by modern SaaS and ecommerce teams.
Analytics Platforms
- •Google Analytics (event sync)
- •Segment (send events to destinations)
- •Mixpanel
- •Amplitude
CRM & Marketing
- •HubSpot (contact data enrichment)
- •Salesforce
- •Intercom (session replay in tickets)
- •Mailchimp
Product & Experimentation
- •Optimizely (A/B test analysis)
- •VWO
- •LaunchDarkly
- •Jira (feedback to issues)
Hotjar's Zapier integration provides access to 3,000+ additional app connections for custom workflow automation.
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Hotjar vs Alternatives
| Feature | Hotjar | Microsoft Clarity | FullStory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Freemium | Free | Paid |
| Session Recordings | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Heatmaps | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Surveys & Feedback | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| User Interviews | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI Insights | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free Tier | 35 sessions/day | Unlimited | Limited |
Is Hotjar a Good Choice?
✓ When it works well
Asynchronous Loading
The Hotjar snippet is non-blocking and uses deferred execution to avoid impacting First Contentful Paint.
Selective Session Sampling
Hotjar samples a percentage of sessions rather than recording all visitors, reducing bandwidth and storage overhead.
CDN Delivery
All Hotjar assets are served via a global CDN with edge nodes ensuring fast script delivery worldwide.
⚠ Limitations to consider
- ⚠Session recording can add 10-50ms to page load depending on configuration
- ⚠Free plan limits sessions to 35/day
- ⚠Heatmap accuracy decreases on highly dynamic single-page applications
- ⚠Deep funnel analysis requires higher paid tiers
- ⚠No direct SQL or raw data export on lower plans
Privacy & Security Profile
Hotjar is GDPR-compliant and provides granular controls for masking, suppressing, and anonymizing user data.
Intelligence Use Cases for Hotjar Detection
Identifying Hotjar on competitor sites reveals important signals about their growth and optimization practices:
Common Technologies Used with Hotjar
Hotjar websites often integrate with:
🔗 Related Technologies
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if a website uses Hotjar?
Use TrueTechFinder to scan the site, or view page source and search for 'hotjar' or 'hjid'. You can also check DevTools > Application > Cookies for the _hjid cookie.
Is Hotjar free?
Hotjar has a free plan limited to 35 daily sessions. Paid plans unlock unlimited recordings, advanced filtering, and feedback features.
What does Hotjar track?
Hotjar tracks mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, form interactions, and rage clicks. It also records full session videos and allows you to collect user feedback through surveys.
Does Hotjar slow down a website?
Hotjar loads asynchronously and has minimal impact on page speed for most sites. However, session recording adds some overhead. Sampling settings can reduce this further.
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