Quick answer
Yes — Hearback is a one-time-purchase alternative to Hotjar. It costs $79 once, while Hotjar runs $32/mo — about $384 per year, every year. Self-hosted feedback + NPS widget with an inbox, dashboard and CSV export — unlimited responses. 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 Hearback if you are an individual or small team paying Hotjar $32/mo for work your own machine can do. Three months of Hotjar costs more than Hearback does once. Everything after that is free.
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. Hearback does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Hearback | Hotjar | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $79 once | $32/month ($384/yr) |
| Cost over 3 years | $79 | ~$1,152 |
| Response limits | None | 500/mo on entry plan |
| NPS surveys + dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Your data on your server | Yes | No |
| Works behind a VPN / intranet | Yes | No |
| Cookie-banner headaches | None — first-party | Third-party scripts |
| Source code | MIT, yours | Closed |
| 5-year cost | $79 | $1,920 |
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 Hearback wins
- Price, permanently. $79 once versus $384/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- One-line embed. A single script tag. Self-contained JS + CSS in a shadow DOM, so your site's styles never leak in and the widget never leaks out.
- Feedback form. 1–5 emoji rating, Issue / Idea / Praise category, message, optional reply email.
- NPS surveys. The classic 0–10 with a follow-up question — shown once per visitor with a frequency cap enforced in the browser and on the server.
The math
Three months of Hotjar costs more than Hearback does once. Everything after that is free.
- After 1 year: Hearback has cost you $79 total — Hotjar has cost $384.
- After 3 years: Hearback is still $79 — the subscription is at $1,152.
- After 5 years: Hearback is still $79 — the subscription is at $1,920.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/feedback-widget-mvp. $79 buys the packaged version, 1-click setup and updates.
Does it do heatmaps or session recordings?
No — and we'll be straight about that. Heatmaps and recordings are Hotjar's other half, and Hearback doesn't attempt them. If you need to watch session replays, keep Hotjar. If what you actually use is surveys and feedback, Hearback covers it for 1/12th of one year's bill.
Are responses really unlimited?
Yes — they're rows in your own SQLite file. Hotjar's entry plan caps you at 500 survey responses a month; your disk is the only cap here.
Will the widget break my site's styles?
No — everything renders inside a shadow DOM, so your CSS and the widget's can't touch each other. The whole thing is ~9 KB of dependency-free vanilla JS.
Try Hearback — $79, one time
Or get Hearback plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.