Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued) vs. Hotjar

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Based on the former Coremetrics, IBM Digital Analytics is a discontinued analytics product. IBM acquired Coremetrics in 2010, and re-branded the platform to the IBM Digital Marketing Optimization Solution. Product support was ultimately provided by Acoustic, but the product is not a part of the company's plans going forward.N/A
Hotjar
Score 8.3 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
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)Hotjar
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
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
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)Hotjar
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)Hotjar
Considered Both Products
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
In comparison to Adobe, I believe IBM Digital Analytics and Adobe Analytics are fairly similar in terms of features. When it comes to the marketing attribution approach, IBM is what sets it apart. Additionally, pre-integrated technologies with great ROI, like LIVEmail or IBM …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Cognos has exploration but it doesn't have much AI and ML functionality. Watson is much more helpful when it comes to customer experience analytics. Watson gives clarity into end-to-end journeys and effectiveness while also giving the ability to visualize the actual customer …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
IBM Analytics is a great tool for measuring and analyzing web traffic along with consumer behavior to a degree. When compared to other solutions and tools available in the market today, I'd suggest checking out Kissmetrics or even Google analytics over this tool. Ultimately, it …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
IBM Digital Analytics was already in place when our team was brought on. None of us are fans. IBM does not seem to care from a customer service level whether or not we are satisfied or getting what we need out of their offering.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
I think that Google Analytics does everything just a little bit better than IBM. I was brought in with IBM being so deeply integrated with existing systems that changing to another tool isn't viable at this time.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
The alternative products mentioned differ wildly.

Adobe Analytics is similar to IBM CXA although not as strong for transactional web assets (eStores). In keeping with IBM CXA, integration with Adobe's own suite of products is strong. However, in a heterogeneous environment, this …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
IBM Analytics typically goes up against Adobe Analytics in the enterprise web analytics product selection process. When we determine a client isn't after the big guns, we'll usually refer them to Google Analytics, but when individual user conversion tracking is a must, we will …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
We have used Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics in similar instances. IBM Digital Analytics is between the 2 products, slightly better than Google Analytics but far behind the flexibility offered in Adobe.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
IBM Digital Analytics is typically a choice driven by CMS and pricing decisions. In terms of stand alone considerations:

Adobe Analytics typically wins on flexibility (aka ability to customize the system to your particular business)
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Coremetrics was the overall most comprehensive solution at the time.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
The customer support, advanced analysis and no data sampling are the primarily reasons why I would choose IBM over GA.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Google Analytics - Compared to IBM, not as strong on the product reporting (product views, abandoned carts etc.). The end results can be achieved through custom variables, but that does require custom coding. While Google does at least have a reporting API, it is not nearly as …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Google Analytics is great low cost alternative to IBM Digital Analytics for smaller, low traffic sites but does not offer the in depth product performance reports we require for our retail clients. IBM can add notes on Google's user interface but Google should really add …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
As a consulting company, we tailor the analytics solution to our clients. Usually they start with a free solution like Google Analytics, but they rapidly end up with a paying solution because it offers a deeper analysis and less restrictions on the data.

For instance Google …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Much of the work we did in IBM Digital Analytics could have been answered through Google Analytics, a much simpler, agile and FREE solution set. Not mention, given the vast number of Google Analytics USERS, free and actionable support is simply a click away ... this compared to …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Have extensive use of Omniture and Google Analytics, but I find Digital Analytics the best for retailers. It's is an easy to use solution that highlights the merchandising and marketing issues related to your website.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Compared to Adobe: I think Adobe Analytics and IBM DA are very close in terms of functionalities. IBM makes the difference when it comes to the marketing attribution model. Also, the pre-integrated solutions such as LIVEmail or IBM Recommendations are very easy to use and allow …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
I mentioned Adobe and Google and made some comparisons in prior questions. I believe that any of these packages can be made quite powerful with a good implementation, which includes a good tagging strategy. I like Coremetrics best because I believe it is easier to get a solid …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
I feel that Google Analytics give you what you really need, without the hefty price tag. Along with giving you what you need, it is extremely more user friendly than IBM DA and can be easily learned by a multitude of people while still giving very significant information that …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
At the time we signed they were a Cadillac of software, there are really only 1-2 others that can compete on their level but that comes at a cost.
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
IBM analytics prices can get really high if you overpass the contracted server calls, also increasing the amount of credits reports can get you the price to the roof
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Webtrends and Omniture were on the shortlist. Webtrends tagging implementation seemed a little less flexible than Omniture and Coremetrics. When it finally came down to pricing and desired features, Omniture and Coremetrics were not significantly different, so we based the …
Chose Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)
Omniture and Webtrends were also considered. When business needs are met by both Coremetrics and Omniture, the latter tends to be more expensive. Webtrends is often a good choice when server logs are also used with page tags. Server logs is an older technology which tends to …
Hotjar
Chose Hotjar
Hotjar is the only tool like this that I've used. It is easy to use and beneficial. I would recommend it to anyone looking for this kind of tool.
Chose Hotjar
In my opinion, Hotjar is much easier to set up and use than Microsoft Clarity
Chose Hotjar
For surveys, I think Hotjar is better than Maze by a mile. The functionality is directly embedded in the SaaS or webapp which is a major plus.

Qualtrics is a survey powerhouse with many more functionalities for surveys as well as reports, but I think Hotjar has better UX and …
Chose Hotjar
Compared to Sprig and Usabilla, Hotjar has robust functionality. Again, as stated earlier, the ability to summarize rage clicks, trigger recordings for a/b experiments, and run intercept surveys on mobile is very useful. Hotjar is also noticeably more intuitive to use than …
Chose Hotjar
The fact that it has a trial period in which you can fully try each feature of the platform. The fact that is very intuitive for us to understand each feedback given by the users and to interpret how they move and what they observe on the pages we need to test.
Chose Hotjar
For us, Hotjar was really simple to implement and the user interface is really easy to use and get accustomed to. Some of the other products we evaluated didn't have as rich features and were way overpriced which made us choose Hotjar. Also, Hotjar allows you to capture …
Chose Hotjar
There was not something specific negative that we noticed in the other products, hotjar came in the discussion through a referral from one of our colleagues, was covering all the tickboxes that we had set and decided to move forwards with it
Chose Hotjar
Whatever software does, Hotjar does better. Integration and setup are really fast and you can have data to analyze in a few minutes. Also, the support team is very dedicated and there's a lot of documentation and examples you can follow.
Chose Hotjar
There are overlaps of a few features, but session recording is a unique feature of Hotjar.
Chose Hotjar
I have not used any other services and only used Hotjar so I cannot say how this service compares to others in their vertical. I have used Survey Monkey and I have found that their survey templates do not match that of Hotjar's. I also think that the reporting/tracking is more …
Chose Hotjar
Hotjar was significantly cheaper for us, and they’ve been brilliant at honouring their legacy pricing model which is much cheaper up until recently. We find that Hotjar also offers a wider range of tools that we would otherwise need to pay more for elsewhere like surveys. The …
Chose Hotjar
Cmparing with other products in the same vertical, we found the UX UI for Hotjar the best. It is easier to integrate with and has lot many more features as compared to its nearest competitors. We fount the product to be robust and accurate with lot of customizable options to …
Chose Hotjar
I liked the Hotjar User interface a little more and it seemed a little bit easier to set up. For some users with just the basic needs smart look was overly complicated. whereas in Hotjar everything you need is in one simple easy-to-view dashboard. Also, it offered more free …
Chose Hotjar
I test drove Lucky Orange and decided to keep Hotjar as the UI is easier to use. The competitor had no compelling features vs the ones offered by Hotjar. I also found the standard sound effects in Lucky Orange very overbearing and obnoxious.
Chose Hotjar
Hotjar was relatively more known to the team and they had past experience as well with the tool which made the adoption relatively easier. As such we didn’t find a lot of difference between the two tools when it comes fulfilling our use cases so for us specifically both were …
Chose Hotjar
They have a user-friendly website and product and the accuracy of the feature and also more development feature
Chose Hotjar
We used different tools but Hotjar combines several functionalities in one tool. So we used and are still using SurveyMonkey for bigger Surveys but it's handy to also have a tool where we can create short single questions surveys. We selected Hotjar because it is a good …
Chose Hotjar
Hotjar is the full deal and provides fantastic functionality and options for me to track my users on my website. The other software is good but I personally feel Hotjar is the best for purposes. I know it’s a little pricey, but if you use it right, it will ultimately help you …
Chose Hotjar
HotJars UX is much better Crazy egg has a bit more capabilities I.E. A/B testing.
Chose Hotjar
Hotjar has more robust functionality than CrazyEgg. Optimizely is a little more advanced and more expensive than what we needed.
Chose Hotjar
Google Analytics is a much more robust platform than Hotjar, but works great as a complement to Google Analytics - in other words, it was a matter of choosing both, not either/or. While there are workarounds for them on Google Analytics, heatmaps and screen recordings are much …
Chose Hotjar
Hotjar is better at taking screenshots from landing pages which help us better visualize clicks, scroll and mouse movements. With Hotjar, we can better see what users are doing on our landing pages. This way you'll have a much more accurate picture of how people arrive at …
Chose Hotjar
I've really liked Hotjar for our web app and haven't had a need to look for other products. We've used Hotjar for three years and it gets us the answers we need for our web app UI changes or releases. I've really enjoyed using it.
Chose Hotjar
I just find Hotjar to be simpler, cleaner, easier, and more flexible. Lucky Orange was a tool that another client of my had installed and, while it 'worked' and did similar things, I found that Hotjar was simpler. I don't know if there are cost differences between the two …
Chose Hotjar
Mouseflow matches nearly every feature that Hotjar offers – although, they may work a little differently.
The most relevant difference is in data capture. Hotjar offers unlimited options for heat maps, recordings, forms and comments as long as you are a paying customer. In …
Best Alternatives
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)Hotjar
Small Businesses
StatCounter
StatCounter
Score 9.0 out of 10
Smartlook
Smartlook
Score 8.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 10.0 out of 10
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Optimal
Optimal
Score 9.0 out of 10
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 7.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)Hotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.8
(0 ratings)
5.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
2.3
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)Hotjar
Likelihood to Recommend
  • As mentioned earlier, transactional heavy web assets such as eStores are particularly strong candidates.
  • IBM CXA along with other, similar tools, is not set-and-forget. The solution must be well managed in order to deliver value. Purchase of the solution is one thing; driving analytic results is another. If a company's staff are not strong analytical thinkers, CXA will not help. IBM CXA is not just a technology platform - it is a basis to design strong customer touchpoints and interactions. You need to be customer journey design literate to get the best from this.
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Hotjar is well suite for organizations that want to get a good glimpse into user behavior on their websites. The tool is easily installed through Google Tag Manager, and then users simply select which pages or paths they want the tool to analyze. After a few days, users can start seeing patterns develop, helping them understand what areas of the user journey flow they need to test out and improve. Hotjar is primarily for web-based experiences, not for mobile applications and other non-web digital applications.
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Pros
  • Marketing attribution models - capable to deliver an holistic view of the marketing channels performance
  • Multisite capabilities : allows to have a Cie view as well as individual site's view
  • Unique customer view and Live Profile: we are able to go to the visitor level and therefore use the behavioural data for marketing actions
  • Reliability of the data: we have full confidence in the data collected and the rules are clear for us
  • Support: available support 24h/7.
Read full review
  • 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
  • The new UI is slow, buggy, incomplete, is not intuitive, and has limited support or explanation.
  • The demo videos for the new UI showcase features that are not even available in the new UI and support said those features may never be available so they are not sure either why they are shown in the demo videos.
  • Tag management is extremely manual leaving a lot of room for human error.
  • Support across the board for the legacy UI and new UI are not very helpful. They typically do not take the time to understand the root of your problem and commonly default to the response "that feature is not available". For example, you cannot currently delete reports in the new UI even though there is a delete button available. Support says the feature is not available, so if you want anything deleted you have to submit a list to support and they will delete it for you. This is extremely frustrating when you are creating "test" reports in the new UI and then you have no option to delete them when done.
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  • The video recording feature is very slow to use. I know there is a very powerful process going on (saving your CSS and the DOM movements you make) but anyway it's slow to use.
  • Hotjar itself is heavy and has effects on your load times. This is a very important issue and I hope they're working on that.
  • Adding more segmentation would be nice. For example, being able to connect your API or more information to show relevant polls or feedback buttons to certain users. Aggregated info is hard to process.
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Likelihood to Renew
It is still a best in class analytics platform, but working with IBM contracting has proven to be quite a hassle at times... There are proven pros and cons to each of the major systems and vendors (most I already listed). I always recommend to establish the business questions you are trying to answer, determine which platform answers them best and decide whether it is worth the dollar investment
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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
Very easy to implement and use.
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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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Reliability and Availability
Never had any issues
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No answers on this topic
Performance
As reports are templated, the system is pretty quick. Sometimes you have to wait a bit for a report to render. Or you might have to re-load the page. But there is no real issue here and the system is on par with other similar systems.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Overall, the level of support is very good and I would say it is a strong asset of the solution. However, you can sometimes feel that there is a difference of level among the support team.
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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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Online Training
Online training is really great. One of the best assets that they have. Lots of great videos, pop quizzes at the end of each module. Fantastic. Other tools have similar features, but not as good.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
See previous comment: reading and understanding the encyclopedic implementation guide is a must.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM Analytics is a great tool for measuring and analyzing web traffic along with consumer behavior to a degree. When compared to other solutions and tools available in the market today, I'd suggest checking out Kissmetrics or even Google Analytics over this tool. Ultimately, it will come down to the end user and if they are comfortable in the environment of the backend and workflows of IBM Digital Analytics.
Read full review
Compared to Sprig and Usabilla, Hotjar has robust functionality. Again, as stated earlier, the ability to summarize rage clicks, trigger recordings for a/b experiments, and run intercept surveys on mobile is very useful. Hotjar is also noticeably more intuitive to use than Usabilla, with a cleaner interface and navigation.
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Scalability
This solution can support large amount of data and transaction. The way that user management features are built, it shows it is meant for large organizations.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Using IBM Digital Analytics has allowed us to optimize marketing spend for our clients and provide us the insight to reduce the spend on vendors that are not performing well or not bringing in qualified traffic.
  • Using IBM Digital Analytics data to power on-site product recommendations has increased the percentage of total sales from recommendation zones to around 10% compared to around 1% with manually merchandised zones.
  • Using IBM's TruePath Funnels to analyze the checkout process for various clients has allowed us to see where visitors are dropping out of the checkout process and make improvements to increase conversion rate.
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  • Our UX team can now use hard data to back up and validate design decisions that we make. Our role as usability experts is becoming more respected and integral to business objectives because we now have data that can back up our field of study and prove that our roles are demonstrably useful and necessary.
  • HotJar allows our small team of 3 UX designers to get research data as if we were a much larger team. Instead of painstakingly using our time to do guerrilla research, endless user observations, and other types of manual testing, we can now get a significant portion of our data from HotJar.
  • Using HotJar is actually giving our team a sense of excitement and enjoyment in our day-to-day usability work. Instead of seeing UX as a chore, HotJar is making data gathering and analyzing more fun, because we can see tangible results from a much larger pool of user/user-data than we could in the past.
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