Indie Polls

Compared

Hotjar Alternative: Indie Polls vs Hotjar Surveys

Hotjar shows you what people did. Indie Polls is built around asking them why.

Read this first

These two are not substitutes. Hotjar's core is behaviour analytics (heatmaps, session replay, funnels) with surveys as one module of a wider platform, and it is now part of Contentsquare, whose metering counts sessions. Indie Polls has no heatmaps, no session replay and no funnels, and is not building them. If you want to watch how people use your site, Indie Polls is not an alternative to Hotjar at any price, and plenty of teams sensibly run both.

People arrive at this comparison from two very different places, and the useful thing this page can do is tell you which one you are in.

The first is: "we use Hotjar, and its surveys are not quite enough." That is a real position and it is what the rest of this page is about. The second is: "we want to see where people click and where they abandon the checkout." If that is you, keep Hotjar: Indie Polls has no heatmaps, no session replay and no funnel analysis, and adding them is not on the plan.

There is also a piece of housekeeping worth knowing before you shortlist anything: Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare. The two products have been merged into a single platform, and new accounts are created on Contentsquare rather than on Hotjar. If you are evaluating rather than renewing, you are really evaluating Contentsquare's platform, which is a broader purchase than the Hotjar you may remember and is metered on sessions rather than on responses.

Hotjar's shape follows from what it is. Behaviour analytics is the centre, and the survey is what you reach for once a recording has shown you *where* people struggle and you want to know *why*. It is good at that job, and the two halves sitting together is the reason to buy it.

Indie Polls starts from the asking and builds outward, which produces a different depth of question. Ten types, with NPS, CSAT, stars and Likert as scored scales rather than choice lists with numbers on them. Branching, so an answer can skip what does not apply or end the survey there. A/B testing the wording of one question two ways, with respondents split between them. A response quota that closes the survey when you have enough and redirects to a page of your own. Recontact spacing across the whole account, so a visitor is not asked again inside a window you set.

And a different depth of answer. Results break down by traits your own page passed to the embed (plan, country, signup age), so "detractors are mostly on the old onboarding" is a filter rather than a hunch. Open text comes back as themes instead of a list to read. One chart carries every survey you have run over three, six or twelve months, which is the view that turns a satisfaction score into a trend you can act on.

Running both is a coherent setup and a common one. The analytics tell you which step people fall out of; a targeted Indie Polls survey on that exact step asks the ones who nearly did why they hesitated. Neither tool answers the other's question.

Where they overlap, and where they do not

Compared on the things that do not change every quarter. Both tools move their prices; read both pricing pages for those.

Dimension Hotjar Indie Polls
Centre of the product Behaviour analytics: heatmaps, session replay, funnels Asking questions, and what the answers add up to
Heatmaps and session replay Yes, and they are why people buy it None, and none planned
Where it sits now Merged into Contentsquare; new accounts are created there Its own product, bought from its own pricing page
What is metered Sessions Responses
Question types Surveys and a feedback widget alongside the analytics Ten types, with NPS, CSAT, stars and Likert scored automatically
Flow control Survey logic Branching, plus A/B testing one question two ways
Where a survey can appear On your site, alongside the tracking Slide-in, modal, banner or inline, from your own button, on a hosted page, or inside your own email
Targeting Page and behaviour triggers Domain, path, visitor traits, device, and an event you fire
Asking the same person again Survey display rules One account-wide window across every survey
Reading the answers Survey reporting inside the analytics platform Trait breakdowns, AI themes over open text, every survey on one trend chart
Getting answers out Platform integrations and export Slack, Zapier, signed webhooks with retries, CSV, an MCP server

Choose Hotjar if

Hotjar is a product-experience analytics tool, best known for heatmaps and session replay, with surveys and a feedback widget as modules alongside them. It is now part of Contentsquare: the two have merged into one platform, and new sign-ups go to Contentsquare rather than to Hotjar.

  • You want to see behaviour: heatmaps, session replay, where people abandon. Indie Polls has none of that.
  • One vendor for analytics and surveys together matters more to you than depth in either.
  • The survey's job is a quick follow-up to something a recording already showed you.
  • You are already invested in the platform and nobody on the team is asking more of the survey half.

Choose Indie Polls if

Ten question types, a widget in four shapes, targeting by page, trait, device and event, and the analysis afterwards.

  • The survey is the point, not the footnote: you are measuring NPS or CSAT properly and over time.
  • You need branching, A/B tested wording, a response quota or a redirect when someone finishes.
  • You want answers sliced by your own user traits rather than by page.
  • You want each response pushed to Slack, Zapier or your own signed endpoint as it arrives.

Moving from Hotjar

This is rarely a switch and usually an addition, so the first question is whether you are replacing anything at all. If you are there for the recordings, stay there for the recordings. Nothing below argues otherwise.

What moves well is the survey programme. Rebuild the studies here rather than exporting them: it is quick, and it is the moment to turn a five-option satisfaction question into a CSAT scale that scores and charts itself, and to add the branch that stops asking people about a feature they have just said they do not use.

Then use what the analytics already taught you. The pages where sessions show people hesitating are exactly the paths to put in the widget's targeting rules, and the moment they hesitate is exactly the event to fire with IndiePolls.track() so the question arrives then rather than on page load. A survey placed by evidence gets better answers than one placed by guess, which is the part of the analytics you keep the benefit of even for the surveys you move.

Keep exports of your existing survey responses before you turn anything off. They do not import here, and the trend charts start from your first response on Indie Polls.

Common questions

Does Indie Polls have heatmaps or session recordings?
No, and it is not going to. There is no session replay, no click map and no scroll map. If that is what you came for, Hotjar (now Contentsquare) is the tool, and this page will not waste your time.
Is Hotjar still its own product?
It is now part of Contentsquare: the two have been merged into a single platform, and new accounts are created on Contentsquare rather than on Hotjar. Worth knowing if you are comparing rather than renewing, because the thing you would be buying is the wider platform.
Can I use both?
Yes, and it is what we would suggest if the budget allows. The analytics find where people struggle; a targeted Indie Polls survey on that page, or after that event, asks them why, with scored scales and branching behind it.
What does Indie Polls do that a survey module inside an analytics tool usually does not?
Score NPS, CSAT, stars and Likert natively; branch on an answer or end the survey early; A/B test one question two ways; close at a response quota and redirect to your own page; space out recontact across the whole account; break results down by traits your page passed in; summarise open text into themes; and plot every survey on one trend chart.
How does the Indie Polls widget decide when to show up?
By rule: the domain, the page paths you list, visitor traits your page passes as attributes, the device class, or an event you fire with IndiePolls.track(). It can also stay hidden until someone clicks your own button or link, which data-trigger-id wires up.
Is Indie Polls cheaper?
They meter different things (sessions against responses), so the comparison does not really work, and one of the two includes session-recording infrastructure. Check both pricing pages. The question worth asking first is whether you need the analytics at all, because if you do, the survey tool is not what you are choosing between.
What does the Indie Polls trial include?
Seven days on Max, which is the whole product: branching, A/B tests, widget targeting by trait, device and event, segment breakdowns, cross-survey trends, AI generation and insights, Slack, Zapier, signed webhooks, the MCP server, custom CSS and white label. No credit card to start it. Afterwards Pro covers the survey workflow with a monthly response allowance and two seats, and Max lifts the response cap and unlocks the rest.
Can I bring my existing responses with me, and get them out again?
Out, yes: every response exports to CSV on Max, and Slack, Zapier and signed webhooks push each one to your own systems the moment it is submitted, with a delivery log and retries behind them. In, no: there is no importer for another tool's response history. A switch starts a fresh set of results rather than moving the old ones, so the usual approach is to keep the old tool's export where it is and start the new survey clean.

See it before you decide

Seven days on Max, so nothing on this page is held back. No credit card required.

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