Compare Hotjar and Matomo by Stackhero on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: Google Analytics
France· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist for Contentsquare-owned heatmaps and replay with a public DPA and Ireland defaults. Skip if you need an independent recorder or no US-group cloud. Consider Mouseflow.
France· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist when you want full Matomo on a dedicated French-operated bare-metal instance with one-click updates and hourly billing—especially if you prefer unlimited site/seat product framing over hit-metered multi-tenant SaaS. Skip when you need EU-only with no US region option, root/SSH access, or a minimal cookieless counter—consider self-hosted Matomo, Friendly Analytics, or Plausible instead.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | Hotjar | Matomo by Stackhero |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | France | France |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | France | France |
| Legal entity | Content Square SAS, Paris (EU Hotjar contractor). Historical Hotjar Ltd Malta merged 1 July 2025. | Stackhero (RCS Paris 512 366 378, VAT FR92512366378), 1 rue de Stockholm, 75008 Paris, France |
| Governing law | Not listed | French law; courts at registered head office (per Terms of service) |
| US parent / control | No known US parent | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Medium | Medium |
| Hosting / residency | Visitor data: AWS and Azure Ireland for Free/Growth and VoC Observe/Surveys. Pro/Enterprise may pick Ireland or Virginia. Defaults: EU/Japan to EU; US and most other APJ to US. Support: Content Square, Inc. and Zendesk (USA), Atlassian (Australia). Sense AI on AWS Bedrock/Azure; survey AI on Azure OpenAI France. Engage: Twilio, Daily.co, Postmark, Tremendous. | Primary compute: Stackhero bare-metal cloud, customer-chosen region EU (France) or USA. Backups: stored in the EU per Matomo FAQ; encrypted atomic images retained up to ~3 months. Not built on AWS/GCP/Azure as the stated compute substrate. Payment processor (unnamed) handles card data; privacy policy mentions third-party messaging/stats tools without a full named subprocessor table. |
| Summary | Contentsquare-owned heatmaps, session replay, and on-site surveys. French-group SaaS with default EU hosting on AWS and Azure Ireland, not an independent Maltese startup. | French PaaS-managed Matomo on dedicated bare-metal instances: unlimited sites until capacity, one-click updates, EU or US region choice, with hourly billing and an automatic DPA. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | Hotjar | Matomo by Stackhero |
|---|---|---|
| Current HQ / entity | Content Square SAS, Paris, France | Not listed |
| Origin | Founded in Malta in 2014 (vendor history) | Not listed |
| Ownership | Contentsquare group (acquired 2021, merged 1 July 2025) | Not listed |
| Hosting (public) | AWS/Azure Ireland default for EU Free/Growth; Virginia optional on higher plans | Not listed |
| Deployment | SaaS JavaScript tag; not self-hosted; not open source | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Free tier plus paid Growth, Pro, and Enterprise (see vendor site for current terms) | Hourly instance billing; free trial; no standard commitment |
| HQ | Not listed | Paris, France (1 rue de Stockholm, 75008) |
| Legal entity | Not listed | Stackhero — RCS Paris 512 366 378 |
| Stack | Not listed | Open-source Matomo on dedicated Stackhero VM |
| Hosting regions | Not listed | EU (France) or USA; backups in EU (vendor FAQ) |
| Certifications | Not listed | ISO 27001:2022 claimed (BAB #254338) |
| Key capabilities | Hotjar | Matomo by Stackhero |
|---|---|---|
| EU-operated (Contentsquare) | Yes | Not listed |
| Heatmaps + session replay | Yes | Not listed |
| Surveys and feedback | Yes | Not listed |
| Public B2B DPA | Yes | Not listed |
| ISO 27001 (claimed) | Yes | Not listed |
| Managed Matomo | Not listed | Yes |
| Dedicated instance | Not listed | Yes |
| French PaaS operator | Not listed | Yes |
| ISO 27001 (claimed) | Not listed | Yes |
| Automatic DPA | Not listed | Yes |
| EU or US region | Not listed | Yes |
Click, move, and scroll heatmaps with Attention Maps
Aggregated overlays show where visitors click, hover, and scroll. Contentsquare documents Attention Maps (engagement, not only clicks) and, on the wider platform, zone-based heatmaps that attach conversion context to page elements. Use this when a page-level bounce rate does not explain the layout. Coverage is limited to sessions the tag actually captures and to pages the recorder can reconstruct.
Session replay with claimed automatic masking
Replays mouse movement, clicks, taps, and scrolls so UX and engineering can watch a single journey. Official pages describe event-triggered recording, comments, and jump-to-replay from heatmaps or surveys. Contentsquare states that card and bank details are masked automatically. You still must suppress other personal data with blocking scripts or field exclusion. This is a browser reconstruction, not a server-side log archive.
Surveys, feedback widgets, and Engage research
On-site surveys and feedback widgets (Ask) plus user interviews and unmoderated tests (Engage). The DPA treats this as Voice of Customer. Observe and survey visitor data is hosted on AWS Ireland. Interview and user-test recordings are retained for 2 years per the DPA. Engage adds extra subprocessors (Twilio, Daily.co, Postmark, Tremendous). Response volume is plan-gated.
Funnels that open the matching recordings
Build step funnels and open sessions that converted or dropped at a step. That pairing is the reason teams keep a recorder next to GA-style charts. Advanced journey and multi-session funnel work sits on Contentsquare product analytics (Heap lineage), not on the classic Hotjar-only recorder. Funnel depth and comparison features are plan-dependent.
Error and speed context on the Contentsquare platform
The unified platform adds JavaScript error lists ranked by impact and speed analysis tied to behavior. Classic standalone Hotjar was weaker here. Full network-waterfall debugging is a platform capability. If you refuse the DXA transition you may not get this layer. Errors are only as good as what the browser tag can see.
Dedicated bare-metal Matomo instance
Each customer gets an isolated VM on Stackhero’s own bare-metal cloud (Stackhero DC OS), not shared multi-tenant Matomo. Local disks and included Redis are positioned for high IOPS and heavy traffic—fit teams that outgrow noisy-neighbor shared analytics clouds.
Unlimited sites, members, segments, and goals until capacity
Stackhero does not meter websites, team seats, segments, or goals as product SKUs; you scale by instance size (published up to 16 vCPUs / 64 GB RAM). Retention is limited by disk, not a fixed product TTL—plan storage for long history.
One-click Matomo updates and managed ops (no SSH)
Stackhero delivers Matomo updates for dashboard application; firewall IP rules are customer-configurable. SSH is intentionally unavailable on the managed service—good for reduced surface area, poor fit if you need custom OS packages.
Custom domain, GeoIP2, and dedicated notification email
Point matomo.yourdomain.com with TLS 1.3/ECDSA, ship visitor location via bundled GeoIP2, and send unlimited Matomo reports/alerts through a per-instance email path—reduces glue work after first deploy.
Atomic encrypted daily backups (EU vault)
24-hour atomic image backups (plus event-driven backups on upgrades) are validated, then encrypted (OpenPGP ECDH/Curve25519) and retained up to three months. Vendor FAQ states backups are stored in the EU even when regions differ—confirm dual-region implications for US instances.
Hourly billing with EU or US region choice
Spin services up/down with hourly charging and a single monthly invoice; free trial without payment method. Choose European (France) or USA placement at create time—region is a first-class control for residency, not a hidden default.
| Assurance & compliance | Hotjar | Matomo by Stackhero |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | On request / NDA Vendor claims annual external penetration tests and publishes a Trust Portal with pentest reports behind access. No public independent no-logs audit (this is a recorder, not a no-logs VPN). | Not found ISO 27001 and bug-bounty openness claimed; no public independent no-logs audit report specific to analytics found. |
| ISO 27001 | Vendor claimed Contentsquare states it is ISO 27001 certified (also claims ISO 27017, 27018, 27701). Certificates are on the Trust Portal; not independently downloaded for this draft. | Vendor claimed Vendor publishes ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certificate #254338 from the British Assessment Bureau (PDF). Not re-verified against the issuer’s public register in this draft. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Vendor claimed Trust portal and security pages claim a SOC 2 Type II report. Report not independently downloaded. | Not found No SOC 2/3 claim found on certifications/privacy/GDPR pages reviewed. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed EU parent and contracting entity for non-Americas Hotjar Services. Public DPA, SCCs, and GDPR language. Customer is controller and must supply a lawful basis for visitor capture. | Vendor claimed French entity; public GDPR & DPA page; customer controller / Stackhero processor model; EU region option for service data. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Partial Assessment, not a vendor slogan. French parent and no known US parent, but AWS and Azure host visitor data, Content Square, Inc. and Zendesk process support data, and US regions exist. Not legal advice. | Partial French entity, no known US parent, non-hyperscaler bare-metal hosting claimed. Medium/partial because USA is a first-class hosting region; EU-only only when the customer creates the service in Europe. Backups stated as EU-stored. Not legal advice. |
| Data processing agreement (B2B) | Vendor claimed Public Contentsquare DPA incorporated by the MSA. Execution of the MSA or an order form is treated as execution of the DPA and SCCs. | Vendor claimed DPA applies automatically with Terms of service; PDF downloadable from the GDPR & DPA page. |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Core product is analytics and replay, not an AI system sold as such. Sense AI and survey LLMs exist as optional features. Confirm AI Act role if you enable those modules. | Not applicable Web analytics hosting; not positioned as an AI system product. |
| CSA STAR | Vendor claimed Security page displays a STAR badge. Scope and level not independently verified. | Not listed |
| Considerations & known limitations | Hotjar | Matomo by Stackhero |
|---|---|---|
| No longer an independent Maltese company | High Acquired in 2021 and described as merged into Contentsquare on 1 July 2025. New contracts are Contentsquare entities. A scheduled DXA transition from 18 August 2026 can move data and retire the old UI unless you elect to stay. Practical impact: vendor risk, product roadmap, and DPA counterparty are the French group, not Hotjar Ltd. | Not listed |
| US-group cloud and US support path | Medium Visitor data sits on AWS and Azure. Zendesk (USA) and Content Square, Inc. handle support. US regions are default for some geographies. Practical impact: an Ireland region does not remove US-group infrastructure from a CLOUD Act discussion. | Not listed |
| Session replay can capture extra personal data | Medium The vendor asks customers to block non-permitted personal data and claims card masking. Misconfigured tags still record inputs or on-screen PII. Practical impact: you need a suppressions review and a consent story before go-live. | Not listed |
| SaaS tag only | Low No official self-hosted or open-source edition. Practical impact: skip this product if residency rules require your own servers. | Not listed |
| Optional LLM features add extra processors | Low Sense AI and survey AI use AWS Bedrock and Azure OpenAI. Practical impact: disable those features or map their regions if procurement treats LLMs as a separate transfer. | Not listed |
| Optional US hosting region | Not listed | Medium Platform offers USA placement alongside France/EU. Mis-selected region or unclear contract language can put visitor analytics outside the EU. Procurements that require EU-only must pin region at create time and in the order form. |
| EU backups when primary is US | Not listed | Medium FAQ states backups are stored in the EU. If an instance runs in the USA, confirm whether visitor data is dual-homed (US primary + EU backup) and how that affects DPIA and transfer tools. |
| No SSH / managed-only host | Not listed | Low Cannot install arbitrary system software or agents; support hours stated as CET office hours for basic platform support—not full Matomo application consulting. |
| Limited named subprocessor list | Not listed | Medium Privacy policy mentions third-party tools and a payment processor without a detailed public subprocessor register. Request the annex in diligence if procurement requires named processors. |
| ISO certificate vendor-published | Not listed | Low ISO 27001:2022 is claimed with a public PDF and BAB certificate number; validate scope, sites, and validity dates with the certification body before treating it as verified. |
| Matomo privacy configuration is yours | Not listed | Low Hosting in the EU does not auto-configure consent, IP anonymization, or cookieless modes. Controllers remain responsible for Matomo GDPR tooling and site policy. |
When: You want session replay and heatmaps from an independent European vendor, not the Contentsquare group
Consider: Mouseflow
Danish SaaS with selectable EU or US Google Cloud residency and a public DPA.
When: You only need page or privacy-oriented analytics without replaying mouse paths and form fields
Consider: Plausible Analytics or etracker
Lighter measurement. Not a substitute for session replay.
When: You want a no-contract recorder and will accept a US vendor
Consider: Microsoft Clarity
Free Microsoft product. Different jurisdiction and contract posture than Content Square SAS.
When: You need a US-native event warehouse more than qualitative replay
Consider: Mixpanel or Amplitude
Product analytics incumbents. Pair with a recorder only if you still need heatmaps.
When: You want Swiss Matomo-as-a-Service with cookieless defaults and CH product hosts
Consider: Friendly Analytics
Different operator, residency story, and privacy defaults; still Matomo-based.
When: You need enterprise analytics packaging beyond plain managed Matomo
Consider: Piwik PRO
Compare modules, contracts, and hosting regions independently.
When: You only need a minimal open-source-friendly counter with simple SaaS UX
Consider: Plausible Analytics
Far less Matomo depth; different product surface.
When: You require full root control and in-house residency guarantees
Consider: Self-hosted Matomo on your own EU IaaS
Maximum control; you own updates, backups, and hardening.