Compare Hotjar and Mouseflow on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: FullStory, Microsoft Clarity
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.
Denmark· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist when you need session replay, heatmaps, friction scoring, and journey/funnel analysis from a Danish SaaS with public DPA and pin-able EU (Belgium) or US (Iowa) Google Cloud residency. Skip when you only need cookieless pageview analytics, must avoid US-group cloud or US affiliate processing, or require self-host—consider etracker, Friendly Analytics, or a self-hosted stack instead.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | Hotjar | Mouseflow |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | France | Denmark |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | France | Denmark |
| Legal entity | Content Square SAS, Paris (EU Hotjar contractor). Historical Hotjar Ltd Malta merged 1 July 2025. | Mouseflow ApS, Flæsketorvet 68, 1711 Copenhagen V, Denmark; affiliate Mouseflow, Inc., Austin, Texas |
| Governing law | Not listed | Denmark (DPA); courts of Copenhagen for DPA disputes |
| 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. | Google Cloud EMEA Limited storage/hosting in Belgium (EU) and Iowa (USA); region by signup geography (EU customers → EU; Americas/Oceania → US). Affiliates Mouseflow ApS (DK) and Mouseflow, Inc. (TX) process Customer Data for support/implementation; DoiT Multi-Cloud Sverige (SE) for multi-cloud consulting. |
| 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. | Denmark-headquartered behavior analytics SaaS: session replay, heatmaps, friction detection, journey analytics, and AI insights for CRO and UX teams, with EU or US Google Cloud residency and a public DPA. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | Hotjar | Mouseflow |
|---|---|---|
| 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) | Session-volume SaaS; free tier; unlimited users |
| HQ | Not listed | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Legal entity | Not listed | Mouseflow ApS (+ Mouseflow, Inc. US affiliate) |
| Category | Not listed | Behavior analytics / session replay SaaS |
| Hosting | Not listed | Google Cloud Belgium (EU) or Iowa (US) |
| Self-host / OSS | Not listed | No / No |
| Key capabilities | Hotjar | Mouseflow |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Session replay | Not listed | Yes |
| Heatmaps + friction scores | Not listed | Yes |
| EU or US residency | Not listed | Yes |
| DPA available | Not listed | Yes |
| Denmark HQ | Not listed | Yes |
| ISO 27001 DC (claimed) | 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.
Full-session replay without sampling
Records complete visitor journeys—clicks, scrolls, navigations, device context—for later playback, starring, tagging, and sharing. Mouseflow markets 100% recording (no sampling) so rare bugs and checkout failures are not lost to traffic samples; filter by source, device, page, or friction events before reviewing.
Heatmaps with segment and period comparison
Click, scroll, movement, and attention heatmaps overlay page layouts so teams see ignored CTAs and fold issues. Compare devices, campaigns, or time ranges side by side to measure redesign impact without running a separate heatmap product.
Friction Detection and Mina AI prioritization
Automated scores surface rage clicks, dead clicks, hesitations, form abandons, and JavaScript errors, with links into the underlying replays. Mina AI answers natural-language questions about sessions and heatmaps so analysts spend less time manual-filtering queues.
Journey maps, funnels, forms, and surveys
Multi-page Journey Analytics, conversion funnels, field-level form analytics, and on-site feedback surveys sit in one workspace so drop-off diagnosis does not require four vendors. Useful for CRO and ecommerce teams closing the loop from path → leak → fix.
EU or US data residency on Google Cloud
Public subprocessors list Google Cloud EMEA Limited with Belgium (EU) and Iowa (USA) storage. Signup geography determines default region (EU customers → EU; Americas/Oceania → US). Confirm contracted region and subprocessor annex before treating residency as guaranteed.
Privacy controls, DPA, and Visual Privacy Tool
Vendor defaults include IP masking, keystroke exclusion for EU visitors, and field/element masking; customers must still audit HTML for PII. A public B2B DPA is available for electronic signature, with SCCs/DPF language for international transfers.
| Assurance & compliance | Hotjar | Mouseflow |
|---|---|---|
| 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). | Partial Vendor claims third-party penetration/vulnerability tests and offers a Security Kit; no public independent no-logs audit report found for download without request. |
| 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 states data centers maintain ISO 27001; request Security Kit for certificate scope—not independently re-verified against a public registry 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. | Partial Privacy page mentions SOC 2 Type II-certified infrastructure; compliance/About emphasize SOC 1 Type II for data centers; FAQ prefers SOC 1 as internal standard. Confirm report type/scope via Security Kit. |
| 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 Danish entity; public GDPR page, DPA, IP masking, EU residency option, SCCs/DPF transfer language. Customer remains responsible for consent and PII exclusion from HTML. |
| 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 Danish entity, no known US parent; session data on Google Cloud (Belgium/Iowa) and US affiliate Mouseflow, Inc. may process Customer Data. EU residency does not eliminate US-group cloud risk. Indicative only—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 Public DPA at mouseflow.com/legal/data-processing-agreement/ with electronic signature; SCCs and DPF language included. |
| 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 Behavior analytics SaaS with optional AI assistants (Mina, MCP); not positioned as a high-risk AI system product for this checklist. |
| CSA STAR | Vendor claimed Security page displays a STAR badge. Scope and level not independently verified. | Not listed |
| PCI DSS (data center) | Not listed | Vendor claimed Vendor states data centers maintain PCI DSS compliance; not a substitute for customer PCI scope on payment pages—mask card fields. |
| Considerations & known limitations | Hotjar | Mouseflow |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Google Cloud (US-group) hosts session data | Not listed | Medium Even EU-region (Belgium) storage uses Google Cloud EMEA Limited. Material for DPIAs that treat any US-group cloud as in scope for CLOUD Act/transfer analysis. |
| US affiliate processes Customer Data | Not listed | Medium Mouseflow, Inc. (Texas) is listed for consulting, support, maintenance, implementation, and development on Customer Data—not only a marketing office. |
| Session replay can capture unexpected PII | Not listed | Medium Defaults mask IPs/keystrokes/sensitive fields, but customers must audit DOM/HTML, forms, and custom variables; incidental PII is a shared-responsibility risk in this category. |
| ISO/SOC claims are data-center scoped | Not listed | Low Public materials emphasize infrastructure certifications; SOC 1 vs SOC 2 wording differs across pages—verify current reports rather than assuming org-wide SOC 2. |
| SaaS-only (no self-host) | Not listed | Low Closed multi-tenant SaaS only; no official on-prem path if residency or operator control requirements demand it. |
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 need cookieless traffic analytics without session replay depth
Consider: etracker or Friendly Analytics
Different category focus: measurement and privacy defaults vs high-fidelity replay
When: You want free heatmaps/replays and accept Microsoft as processor
Consider: Microsoft Clarity
Lower cost of entry; different privacy and commercial model
When: You need enterprise digital-experience analytics with heavy customization
Consider: Contentsquare or FullStory
Higher implementation and procurement weight
When: You need Swiss/EU product hosts with no Google Cloud visitor path
Consider: Friendly Analytics or fusedeck
Confirm each peer’s subprocessor list independently