Formstack Forms vs. Hotjar

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Formstack Forms
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Formstack is an online form building solution. Its drag-and-drop web form creator gives digital marketers a tool for online data collection and engagement. Users can collect payments and pass form data to popular marketing apps through third-party integrations. With Formstack, users can capture responses, store the information and share it with their teams.
$50
per month
Hotjar
Score 8.1 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
Formstack FormsHotjar
Editions & Modules
Enterprise
Contact sales team
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
Formstack FormsHotjar
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPlans start at $50/month (billed annually), including: 20 Digital Forms 1,000 Submissions Per Form 14,400 API Calls Per Day Drag-and-Drop Form Builder Custom Themes Payment Integrations Salesforce Integration SSO User Management Form PrefillDiscount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Formstack FormsHotjar
Considered Both Products
Formstack Forms

No answer on this topic

Hotjar
Chose Hotjar
I think HotJar is comparable to both competitors. My preference for HotJar is really based upon price and comfort with implementing on site.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Formstack FormsHotjar
Survey Format & Appearance
Comparison of Survey Format & Appearance features of Product A and Product B
Formstack Forms
6.0
61 Ratings
25% below category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Survey templates9.053 Ratings00 Ratings
Themes4.656 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom logo/branding4.558 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Content
Comparison of Survey Content features of Product A and Product B
Formstack Forms
7.7
58 Ratings
10% below category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Changes to live survey6.453 Ratings00 Ratings
Question design help8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple question types8.858 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Logic
Comparison of Survey Logic features of Product A and Product B
Formstack Forms
7.3
58 Ratings
12% below category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Survey logic flexibility7.358 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Survey Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Formstack Forms
9.3
59 Ratings
14% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Response tracking10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Data export9.159 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports9.056 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports8.648 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Administration & Security
Comparison of Survey Administration & Security features of Product A and Product B
Formstack Forms
8.7
57 Ratings
5% above category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Access controls8.855 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance8.550 Ratings00 Ratings
Survey Distribution
Comparison of Survey Distribution features of Product A and Product B
Formstack Forms
8.0
1 Ratings
1% below category average
Hotjar
-
Ratings
Vendor-offered crowdsourcing8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Respondent restrictions8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Formstack FormsHotjar
Small Businesses
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Smartlook
Smartlook
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 8.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Medallia
Medallia
Score 9.1 out of 10
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Formstack FormsHotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
7.2
(74 ratings)
8.7
(101 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(12 ratings)
5.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
6.9
(6 ratings)
9.7
(6 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
3.3
(5 ratings)
9.6
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Formstack FormsHotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
Formstack
Formstack makes it easy to create a variety of forms. I have used it for event interest and registrations, email list sign-ups, and surveys. I have found it easy to customize, and easy to export data for import into other systems (e.g., CRM).
Read full review
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
Formstack
  • Allows for unique situations. As a school, we don't have the luxury of being cookie cutter. Neither do our forms.
  • Support. If we don't know how to do it, their support team has been very helpful and actually attempts to understand the issue on hand.
  • User friendliness. In our field we have a phrase: "what if you get hit by a bus?" With Formstack, you can "get hit by the bus" and someone else can jump in and still keep things running (this is used as a phrase for illness, not termination).
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Cons
Formstack
  • Setting up our multi-step form took some getting used to. Some of the branching logic configuration wasn't as intuitive as would be ideal.
  • Since we were pushing data directly into Hubspot, I found it cumbersome to deal with data storage limits within Formstack. I would get frequent notices that new responses were not being stored in Formstack and that I needed to upgrade or delete data. I got tired of that.
  • More/easier support for custom fonts would have been a huge plus. We were able to customize the form's appearance, but had to make some concessions in that regard.
Read full review
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
Formstack
Our user base has come to rely on Formstack to get forms done. The Formstack tools make it easy to start from scratch or copy an existing form to "quick start" a new, similar form. The price is right and frees up IT staff to do more transformative work.
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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
Formstack
I give it this rating because Ali feel like just about anyone can use this. Now with 7 billion people in the work I understand that’s not the case but I feel like Formstack get it pretty simple where a majority of humans could use it and navigate through. The only reason I didn’t give it a higher rating is because I think Google Forms is a little easier to use and that it’s pretty much impossible for any product to get a 10 on usability in my opinion.
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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
Formstack
The agents in the original group, especially the ones in cahoots with the developers, are really solid and know what they're talking about--I'm looking at you, Collin. The 'Tier 1' support agents that typically reply to the tickets are really spotty. If you have an overly technical question, i.e. bugfix, or describe a feature from a few years back that randomly disappeared, these agents typically will give you what feels like a generic reply and not know what you're talking about.
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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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Implementation Rating
Formstack
We implemented on one of the earlier versions. Through continuous engineering improvements, the interface keeps getting easier and more intuitive. Therefore, later implementations keep getting easier and better.
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Contentsquare
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Formstack
Drupal is a much more customizable platform, however you must have someone build the forms first and then you can work with them if you do not have the programming knowledge. If you have any changes to make, it can sometimes be both a time consuming and difficult process. Formstack is much more efficient if you do not have an in house programmer.
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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
Formstack
  • Positive - ability to analyze submission trends - e.g. when a marketing email is sent, looking at increased form viewing and submissions in relation to the sending of the campaign.
  • Immediate response - those that submit forms receive immediate response that their form has been submitted.
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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