Cognito Forms vs. Hotjar

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cognito Forms
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Cognito Forms, from the company of the same name in South Carolina, is presented by the vendor as an easy-to-use online form builder, allowing anyone to create, publish, and manage forms, with free and paid plans. With it, users can create unlimited forms including registration forms, payment forms, and surveys without coding. Forms can be embedded directly into a website, and form submissions can be viewed from any device, any time.
$19
per month 2 users
Hotjar
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Hotjar is a conversion rate optimization tool for digital marketers. Features include heatmapping, visual session recording, conversion funnel analytics, form analytics, feedback polls and surveys, and usability testing. The tool is used by digital analysts, UX designers, web developers and product marketers. Hotjar was acquired by Contentsquare September 2021, and is now a Contentsquare brand.
$39
per month 100 daily sessions
Pricing
Cognito FormsHotjar
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
1 user
Pro
$19
per month 2 users
Team
$39
per month 5 users
Enterprise
$129
per month 20 users
Hotjar Observe - Plus
$39
per month 100 daily sessions
Hotjar Ask - Plus
$59
per month 250 monthly responses
Hotjar Ask - Business
$79
per month Starting from 500 monthly responses
Hotjar Observe - Business
$99
per month Starting from 500 daily sessions
Hotjar Scale - Business
$213
per month Starting from 500 daily sessions
Hotjar Ask - Scale
Contact Sales
per month unlimited volume
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cognito FormsHotjar
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Features
Cognito FormsHotjar
Survey Format & Appearance
Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Product A and Product B
Cognito Forms
8.3
4 Ratings
4% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Survey templates8.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Themes7.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom logo/branding9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Content
Comparison of Survey Content features of Product A and Product B
Cognito Forms
8.7
4 Ratings
2% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Changes to live survey8.53 Ratings00 Ratings
Question design help8.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple question types9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Logic
Comparison of Survey Logic features of Product A and Product B
Cognito Forms
9.5
4 Ratings
15% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Survey logic flexibility9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Cognito Forms
9.5
4 Ratings
15% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Response tracking9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Data export9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Administration & Security
Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Product A and Product B
Cognito Forms
9.8
4 Ratings
11% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Access controls9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Distribution
Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Product A and Product B
Cognito Forms
9.3
3 Ratings
12% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Vendor-offered crowdsourcing9.53 Ratings00 Ratings
Respondent restrictions9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
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Cognito FormsHotjar
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Siteimprove
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Score 9.5 out of 10
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Verint Voice of the Customer
Verint Voice of the Customer
Score 9.7 out of 10
Contentsquare
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Score 8.4 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cognito FormsHotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(6 ratings)
9.9
(103 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
5.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(5 ratings)
9.7
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(3 ratings)
9.6
(4 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cognito FormsHotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
Cognito Forms
It's excellent for small sets of forms, from simple to highly complex It's not good at scale. With over 170 forms now, we desperately need some way to manage and maintain shared content once Cognito does not help. Their approach is that you can copy a working form (great) and modify it to create the next one. That's how we've got so many forms...
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Contentsquare
Hotjar is good for a first pass at understanding user sentiment or locating potential usability issues. There are features such as "rage clicked" which shows recordings or instances when a user rage clicked or had an issue with your site. Hotjar has also been helpful to launch intercept surveys on mobile, desktop, and app, which not all competitor software allow. Hotjar recordings are fun to watch. "Watching Hotjar like Netflix" is a favorite pastime at work.
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Pros
Cognito Forms
  • New Hire Form - It announces the new hire and provides direction to several departments on their needs, computer, phone, security level, etc.
  • Terminations - We use it to shut off security, badges, computers, track phone, electronics, etc.
  • Temp Form - It provides an avenue to enter them into our payroll system for tracking hours, also, for the start and end dates.
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Contentsquare
  • Heat mapping is great on Hotjar. It is a good place to start when you are looking at the UX & CRO on your website. You can see the % of people clicking on elements on a page, how far they scroll, and mouse movements.
  • Hotjar is great for session recordings. These record the mouse movements, clicks, pages and scrolls of a user in video format. You can watch these to investigate what works well on a site and identify potential roadblocks and bugs.
  • Hotjar is great as it ensures that users details are anonymous; for instance, if you are watching a session recording, you cannot see what a user types in a form field, as Hotjar blanks this out.
  • Hotjar has a poll function, so you can have polls on your website.
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Cons
Cognito Forms
  • It isnt the most user friendly if you have someone who isnt experienced
  • Learning curve is pretty high
  • Should be easier to customise the formatting
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Contentsquare
  • Hotjar is primarily used for web-based experiences. Not that easy to use on mobile apps.
  • I'd love to see Hotjar integrated with Google Analytics for an even deeper view.
  • Hotjar is primarily used by smaller organizations...pricing can get steep quickly for larger organizations.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cognito Forms
No answers on this topic
Contentsquare
Even though the heat maps and user recordings were useful, our website was significantly slowed down after we installed Hotjar, so much so, that it took over a minute for our blog to load. The data that we gathered was not worth the length that it took our website to load.
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Usability
Cognito Forms
We have been using Cognito Forms for over 5 years. We find it very easy use and it is part of the programs we use on a daily basis.
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Contentsquare
So easy and simple to use! Straightforward anyone in the team is able to easily go in and set up anything in Hotjar. The UI is really simple. Whenever you give feedback to Hotjar they continously take on board the feedback and improve the tool.
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Support Rating
Cognito Forms
Very friendly and helpful, but typically takes at least one day to respond. However, when they do respond they dive right into the specific form I ask about and tell me exactly how to fix what I need help with
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Contentsquare
Hotjar is a SaaS-based company, and as such has a good support service. Users can quickly submit support tickets through Hotjar's online portal. Enterprise customers get access to additional support members and have SLAs to support their larger, more complex needs. Overall, Hotjar is extremely reliable and I've never had to reach out to customer support.
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Alternatives Considered
Cognito Forms
I have not used any other programs like Cognito Forms. I have been with my company for almost two years. I very much like the ease of this system and its capabilities. I like knowing everyone is using the same thing. I do not foresee us making any changes to our current use of Cognito Forms.
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Contentsquare
HotJar was selected for a few reasons:
  • Video Capture - HotJars video capture of user sessions is nothing short of amazing. It is so useful (not to mention cool) to see, in real time, how users interact with our software. It makes our jobs so much easier and more enjoyable to get this type of d
  • User Surveys - The ease and flexibility of surveys we can make available on our website are an awesome tool to get additional data.
  • Simple implementation - Adding a very small amount of code to our website gives us the ability to use all of HotJars features without having to touch our code again.
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Return on Investment
Cognito Forms
  • We've been able to get away from Word and pdf forms and build a functionality that is conditional on form content
  • The speed of getting a good-enough version up and running to meet an immediate business need is outstanding
  • The cost of improving a set of almost good-enough forms or propagating a change in business rules is depressing
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Contentsquare
  • We have fixed many issues, for example, checkout usability problems with the video recording feature. You can catch bugs and get an overall idea of how a particular page is working.
  • Polls have helped us pair intent with the video sessions, so we can understand better why certain users answered different things. You get greedy and try to ask everything but that won't work. Keep it simple and it will give you small but important insights.
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ScreenShots