Quick answer
Yes — Clickmap is a one-time-purchase alternative to Hotjar. It costs $49 once, while Hotjar runs $39/mo — about $468 per year, every year. Self-hosted click heatmaps, scroll depth and session recordings, all in your own SQLite file. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside Hotjar's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Clickmap if you are an individual or small team paying Hotjar $39/mo for work your own machine can do. Two months of Hotjar buys Clickmap outright, and it never prices you by the session again.
Stay with Hotjar if your workflow depends on its integrations, you need enterprise features (SSO, admin controls, SLAs), or your team is large enough that per-seat collaboration tooling is worth the bill. Clickmap does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Clickmap | Hotjar | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 once | $39/mo |
| Sessions | Unlimited (your disk is the limit) | Plan-capped |
| Data location | Your server | Their cloud |
| Click heatmaps + scroll depth | Yes | Yes |
| Session replay | Yes (cursor/click/scroll stream) | Yes (full DOM replay) |
| Rage-click filter | Yes | Yes |
| Surveys, feedback widgets, funnels | No | Yes |
| Input recording risk | Impossible by construction | Masked by config |
| 5-year cost | $49 | $2,340 |
Where Hotjar still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into Hotjar's ecosystem, switching means rebuilding that plumbing — a real cost.
- Team and enterprise features. Shared workspaces, granular permissions, SSO, audit logs and a vendor to call when something breaks — that is what the higher subscription tiers actually buy, and a pay-once app does not come with it.
- Familiarity and hiring. Hotjar is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Clickmap wins
- Price, permanently. $49 once versus $468/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- One-tag install. Drop a single defer script tag with your site key and start collecting.
- Click heatmaps. Click density on a proportional page canvas, per URL, filterable by device and date range, with a most-clicked elements list.
- Scroll-depth chart. See what percentage of visitors reach each 10% fold of the page.
The math
Two months of Hotjar buys Clickmap outright, and it never prices you by the session again.
- After 1 year: Clickmap has cost you $49 total — Hotjar has cost $468.
- After 3 years: Clickmap is still $49 — the subscription is at $1,404.
- After 5 years: Clickmap is still $49 — the subscription is at $2,340.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Clickmap is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/heatmap-session-recorder-mvp. The $49 buys the packaged Windows installer and updates; building from source is free.
Does it record what my users type?
No. The tracker has no code path that reads input values, textarea content or keystrokes — only element positions and short CSS selectors. It is physically incapable of recording typed input.
Is this a subscription in disguise?
No. $49 once, no renewal, no per-session pricing. Data never leaves your server, so you stay the sole controller.
Try Clickmap — $49, one time
Or get Clickmap plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.