Hotjar VS localhost.run

Compare Hotjar VS localhost.run and see what are their differences

Rating: 2.3 · 8 reviews
Pricing: Freemium Free trial €39 / Monthly (Starting at: 3,000 Recordings per month with unlimited Heatmaps)

Rating: 0 reviews

PromptBrake

Automated AI security testing for agents, chatbots, and APIs. Find prompt injection, data leaks, and unsafe behavior before launch. sponsored

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, localhost.run should be more popular than Hotjar. It has been mentioned 42 times since March 2021.

social mentions: 13 vs 42
Web Analytics popularity: 100% vs 0%
alternatives listed: 240+ vs 80

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

	Hotjar	localhost.run
Website	hotjar.com	localhost.run
Pricing	Freemium Free trial €39 / Monthly (Starting at: 3,000 Recordings per month with unlimited Heatmaps) Official pricing	—
Company	Startup from Malta · 2014	—
Listed in	Marketing Marketing Analytics Web Analytics User Monitoring Heatmaps User Experience Customer Feedback Surveys +5	Localhost Tools Testing Webhooks Tunnel +1

About Hotjar and localhost.run

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

Hotjar

localhost.run

Hotjar's product experience insights make it easy to understand what users are really doing on your site. Visualize behavior on your site with Heatmaps Eliminate guesswork with user Recordings Understand the reasons behind behavior with Surveys and Incoming Feedback

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Hotjar 4 features

localhost.run 4 features

Heatmaps
Visually represent where users click, move, and scroll on your site. With this context, you'll learn how users really behave.
Recordings
Live playbacks of users on your site.
Surveys
Bring the voice-of-customer to your decision making.
Incoming Feedback
A real-time suggestion box on your site, that lets users express frustration or delight about individual parts of your site.

Simplicity
Localhost.run provides a simple way to expose your local server to the internet without requiring complex configurations or additional software installations.
No Installation Required
You can use localhost.run directly from your terminal without the need to install any software or dependencies.
Free and Instantaneous
Localhost.run offers a free service, and you can quickly start tunneling without any wait times or sign-ups.
Wide Compatibility
It works with any web server running on your local machine, making it highly versatile.

Possible disadvantages

Stability and Uptime
As a free service, localhost.run may not be as reliable as paid alternatives, potentially leading to unexpected downtimes.
Limited Customization
Localhost.run doesn't offer many advanced features or customizations, which may be a drawback for more complex use cases.
Security
By exposing your local server to the internet, there could be potential security risks if your server is not properly configured or secured.
Performance
The performance of the tunnel can be slower compared to running the server locally due to additional network hops and bandwidth limitations.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Hotjar

localhost.run

Overall verdict

Overall, Hotjar is considered a good tool for businesses looking to gain deeper insights into user behavior and enhance their websites based on real user data. It offers a combination of qualitative and quantitative analytics which adds a significant advantage for understanding key user interaction points.

Why this product is good

Hotjar is a popular analytics tool that provides heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys to help businesses understand user behavior on their websites. It is praised for its ease of use, intuitive interface, and comprehensive features that offer valuable insights into how users interact with a site. Additionally, it enables businesses to collect direct feedback from users, helping to identify areas for improvement and optimize user experience.

Recommended for

Hotjar is recommended for small to medium-sized businesses, eCommerce sites, and startups looking to improve their website's user experience. It is also suitable for UX/UI designers and product managers who want detailed analytics without the complexity of larger enterprise-level tools. However, larger organizations may want to consider more robust analytics platforms that can handle and analyze larger volumes of data.

Overall verdict

Localhost.run is a good tool for developers who need a fast, efficient, and secure way to share their local development environments. Its ease of use and minimal setup make it an excellent choice for quick sharing and testing scenarios.

Why this product is good

Localhost.run is a service that provides a quick and easy way to expose a local server to the internet. It is often praised for its simplicity, ease of use, and minimal setup requirements. It allows developers to share their work quickly for collaboration, testing, or demonstration purposes without needing to deploy to a public server. It uses a secure SSH tunnel, which adds a layer of security to the service.

Recommended for

Developers who need to demo their work to clients or teams
Collaborative programming and real-time feedback
Testing webhooks or APIs from an external source
Temporary exposure of local servers for testing purposes

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Hotjar 4 videos + Add

localhost.run 0 videos + Add

What is Hotjar?

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100

Hotjar

localhost.run

100% 100%

Web Analytics

0% 0%

Localhost Tools

100% 100%

Heatmaps

0% 0%

Testing

100% 100%

User comments

Share your experience with using Hotjar and localhost.run. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Hotjar 2.3 · 8 reviews

localhost.run no reviews yet

7 Best Product Discovery Tools for High-Growth B2B SaaS Teams (2026)
www.laneapp.co · Jan 2026

Hotjar is a behavioral analytics tool that provides heatmaps and session recordings. In the discovery process, it acts as the "eyes," showing where users get stuck, click out of frustration, or ignore a new feature...
10 Best Mixpanel Alternatives for Product Analytics in 2024
clickup.com · Oct 2024

Hotjar is an all-in-one feedback and analytics software suite to optimize your website and make data-driven decisions. Hotjar Observe is the suite’s most popular Mixpanel alternative—pair it with Hotjar Ask, Hotjar...
Love it
SaaSHub review

· Oct 2024

I've been using Hotjar for a few months, and it's been a perfect tool for understanding how users interact with my website. The heatmaps and session recordings are especially helpful for identifying problem areas, and...

Tunnelling services for exposing localhost to the web
chenhuijing.com · Feb 2019

localhost.run is very similar to Serveo but with less features. In fact, as far as I can tell, it only does 1 thing: expose your local web server to the web with a public URL. And it does that well enough for me.

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Hotjar 13 mentions

localhost.run 42 mentions

The Best 100 Free UI/UX Resources for Every Designer & Developer
Hotjar Hotjar.com Heatmaps, session recordings, and feedback polls (free basic plan). - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
Hotjar — Website Analytics and Reports . Free Plan allows 2000 pageviews/day. One hundred snapshots/day (max capacity: 300). Three snapshot heatmaps can be stored for 365 days. Unlimited Team Members. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
What do I do after ProductHunt?
So you can use heatmapping software such as Crazy Egg and Hotjar to see how your end users use your website. Source: almost 3 years ago

SSH one-liner for Ghost in TMUX Shell
- This asciinema: https://asciinema.org/a/674501?t=111 Any unix machine (currently only fedora and debian based distro dependencies are auto installed. Passwordless sudo recommended) with tmux if you run this ssh command you’ll get a... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
List of ngrok/Cloudflare Tunnel alternatives and other tunneling software and services. Focus on self-hosting.
Localhost.run - Simple hosted SSH option. Supports custom domains for a cost. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
Localhost.run — Expose locally running servers over a tunnel to a public URL. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago

Alternatives to Hotjar and localhost.run

When comparing Hotjar and localhost.run, you can also consider the following products.

Smartlook
Qualitative analytics for websites and mobile apps Start understanding the 'whys' of your users' behaviors with clear, visual insights. With session recordings and event tracking, you get the complete picture.

Compare Smartlook to Hotjar or localhost.run:

Smartlook vs Hotjar Smartlook vs localhost.run
ngrok
ngrok enables secure introspectable tunnels to localhost webhook development tool and debugging tool.

Compare ngrok to Hotjar or localhost.run:

ngrok vs Hotjar ngrok vs localhost.run
Google Analytics
Improve your website to increase conversions, improve the user experience, and make more money using Google Analytics. Measure, understand and quantify engagement on your site with customized and in-depth reports.

Compare Google Analytics to Hotjar or localhost.run:

Google Analytics vs Hotjar Google Analytics vs localhost.run
sish
An open source serveo/ngrok alternative. HTTP(S)/WS(S)/TCP Tunnels to localhost using only SSH.

Compare sish to Hotjar or localhost.run:

sish vs Hotjar sish vs localhost.run
FullStory
Meet FullStory, the app that captures all your customer experience data in one powerful platform.

Compare FullStory to Hotjar or localhost.run:

FullStory vs Hotjar FullStory vs localhost.run
Pinggy.io
Public URLs for localhost without downloading any binary

Compare Pinggy.io to Hotjar or localhost.run:

Pinggy.io vs Hotjar Pinggy.io vs localhost.run