What is Hotjar? How to Detect Hotjar on Any Website
- ✔Detect Hotjar instantly on any website
- ✔Identify behavior analytics tools used by competitors
- ✔Get a complete tracking technology breakdown in seconds
→ Enter any website URL to instantly detect Hotjar
Quick Facts
Definition
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.
Does a Website Use Hotjar?
You can instantly check whether any website uses Hotjar by scanning it with TrueTechFinder. Enter any domain to get a full breakdown of its technology stack — including Hotjar and dozens of other tools — in seconds. Free, no signup required.
- ✔Detect analytics tools instantly
- ✔Identify tracking scripts and signals
- ✔Analyze the full competitor tech stack
🔍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 free2Check Page Source Code
Click to expand manual detection steps
Check Page Source Code
Click to expand manual detection steps
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
3Use Browser Developer Tools
Click to expand DevTools instructions
Use Browser Developer Tools
Click to expand DevTools instructions
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.
🎯Why Detect Hotjar on a Website?
Detecting Hotjar on a website shows it invests in behavioral analytics and user research, revealing how it actively optimizes the user experience.
- ✔Identify which behavior analytics tools competitors use
- ✔Understand how websites gather user feedback and insights
- ✔Evaluate Hotjar versus alternatives like Microsoft Clarity
- ✔Benchmark your own UX research and analytics setup
- ✔Spot session recording and heatmap implementations
This is valuable for UX researchers, product managers, and conversion rate optimization teams.
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 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?
Hotjar is used by over 1.1 million websites globally, making it one of the most widely adopted behavior analytics and user feedback tools.
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.
Detect Hotjar on any website instantly
Free scan — no signup required
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.
Is Hotjar GDPR compliant?
Yes, Hotjar provides GDPR compliance tools including data anonymization, cookie consent integration, and a suppress recording API. You can configure Hotjar to exclude sensitive fields and honor user opt-out preferences. Hotjar is also CCPA compliant and processes data under Standard Contractual Clauses for EU transfers.
How can I tell if a website uses Hotjar?
Use TrueTechFinder to detect Hotjar instantly. You can also check the page source for a script referencing 'static.hotjar.com' or 'vars.hotjar.com'.
Check if a Website Uses Hotjar
Enter any domain to instantly detect Hotjar and its full technology stack. Free — no signup required.
Scan Any Website Free →