12 Best Session Recording Tools in 2026 (Free and Paid Replay Software)

The best session recording tools in 2026 are Microsoft Clarity for free recordings, Contentsquare (formerly Hotjar) for recordings plus heatmaps and surveys, and Mouseflow for funnels and form analytics. LogRocket and PostHog suit product teams that also track errors.

A session recording tool captures each click, scroll, and tap on your site and plays it back. You see where visitors hesitate, rage-click, or leave, which a pageview report can’t show.

Below are 12 tools with a best-for label, what each plan meters, and who should skip it, plus what to do if you’re on Hotjar or Smartlook today.

Key takeaways

• Hotjar is now Contentsquare, and Smartlook has stopped selling new plans.
• Microsoft Clarity records sessions for free, forever.
• Plans meter different things, so compare sessions, pageviews, and recordings before price.
• Mask form fields before you record, and collect consent where your region requires it.

Which Session Recording Tool Should You Use?

The right session recording tool depends on the job. Microsoft Clarity covers most small sites for free, and paid tools earn their place with funnels, search, or debugging.

• Best free: Microsoft Clarity
• Best all-in-one: Contentsquare (formerly Hotjar)
• Best for funnels and forms: Mouseflow
• Best for searching sessions: Fullstory
• Best for product teams: PostHog
• Best for debugging: LogRocket
• Best for regulated industries: Glassbox
• Best for self-hosting: OpenReplay

What Is a Session Recording Tool?

A session recording tool records how each visitor moves through a website, including clicks, scrolls, taps, and typing, and replays the visit for review.

Teams use the replays to find the exact moment a visit goes wrong. Numbers say a page leaks visitors; a recording shows why.

• Improve user experience: watch where people slow down or backtrack, then smooth out those steps.
• Understand customers better: replays show how people read, compare, and decide, which feeds your copy, product, and support decisions.
• Spot usability issues: see where visitors struggle with design or navigation.
• Lift conversions: find the step in a funnel where people drop off and fix that step first.
• Diagnose technical problems: catch broken links, form errors, and bugs that block a visit.

If you’re auditing a whole site, pair replays with a conversion rate optimization audit so each fix maps to a page goal.

Key Features of Session Recording Tools

Most session recording tools bundle three core features. How well a tool handles each one matters more than the length of its feature list.

Session Recordings and Playback

• Recordings let you watch real visitors move through your site, so you can see pain points instead of guessing at them.
• Filters by page, device, source, or frustration signals such as rage clicks take you straight to the visits that matter.
• Watching full journeys shows where visitors run into trouble and which pages need work first.

Heatmaps and Click Tracking

• Heatmaps and click tracking show which parts of a page get the most attention.
• They reveal patterns across many visits, which helps you rework layout, design, and content.
• Crazy Egg and Lucky Orange pair heatmaps with recordings, so you can spot a pattern and then watch the visits behind it.

Our guide to heatmap software goes deeper on that side of the stack.

User Feedback and Surveys

• Feedback widgets and surveys collect what visitors think in their own words.
• Contentsquare and Lucky Orange both offer on-site surveys alongside recordings.
• Pairing a replay with a survey answer explains both what a visitor did and why.

Session Recording Tools Compared

Each session recording tool below is listed with its main strength and the unit its plans count. Pricing sits under each tool.

Tool	Best for	Plans are metered by
Contentsquare (formerly Hotjar)	Recordings, heatmaps, and surveys in one place	Monthly sessions
Mouseflow	Funnels and form drop-off	Monthly sessions
Fullstory	Searching behavior across many sessions	Monthly sessions
Microsoft Clarity	Free recordings and heatmaps	Nothing, it’s free
Glassbox	Banks, insurers, and other regulated teams	Custom quote
Crazy Egg	Heatmaps and A/B tests with light recording	Tracked pageviews and recordings
Lucky Orange	Visitor profiles and form analytics	Monthly sessions
PostHog	Replay, analytics, and feature flags together	Recordings per month
Plerdy	Recordings, heatmaps, and SEO checks on a budget	Video sessions
UserTesting	Recorded tests with real participants	Tests or team plan
LogRocket	Debugging front-end errors next to replays	Sessions captured
OpenReplay	Self-hosting for strict privacy needs	Free self-hosted, or cloud instance hours

One rule saves most buying mistakes here. Check the meter before the price, because sessions, pageviews, and recordings make the same price mean very different things.

Best Session Recording Tools for Websites

These all-in-one platforms cover recordings plus heatmaps or analytics, so most teams can start with one of them.

1. Contentsquare: Best All-in-One

Contentsquare, formerly Hotjar, combines recordings, heatmaps, and surveys in one tool. Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, and the features Hotjar users relied on sit inside Contentsquare’s plans, starting with a free tier.

It covers the full job, from spotting a drop-off in a funnel to watching the visits behind it and asking visitors why.

Features

• Session replays you can filter by page, device, source, and frustration signals.
• Heatmaps and funnels to find the pages and steps that lose people.
• On-site surveys and feedback to hear the reason behind a drop-off.
• Error and performance monitoring on the free plan.

Pricing: free up to 200,000 sessions a month; Growth from $49/month (from 7,000 monthly sessions); Pro and Enterprise by quote.

Good fit when: you want recordings, heatmaps, and surveys under one login.
Not a fit when: your data has to stay on your own servers.

2. Mouseflow: Best for Funnels

Mouseflow records and replays visits, then adds funnels and form analytics that many basic recorders skip. It tracks clicks, scrolls, and mouse movement on every recorded page.

Features

• Watch recordings of visits to follow each journey and spot friction.
• Funnel analysis shows where visitors drop off, so you know which step to fix.
• Form analytics flags the fields where people hesitate or quit.
• Heatmaps show where visitors click, scroll, and move their mouse.
• Filter recordings by traffic source or visitor type to compare groups.

Pricing: free plan with 500 sessions a month; paid from $25/month billed annually (Essential, 5,000 sessions a month).

Good fit when: your main problem is a leaky funnel or a long form.
Not a fit when: you also want product analytics and feature flags in the same tool.

3. Fullstory: Best for Session Search

Fullstory indexes every session, so you can search across visits instead of watching them one by one. That suits product and digital teams that need to find specific behavior fast.

Features

• Replays that capture clicks, scrolls, and hovers across each visit.
• Filters for events, users, and frustration signals like error clicks and rage clicks.
• A skip-inactivity option to get through recordings faster.
• Privacy controls to keep sensitive data out of recordings.
• Mobile app capture alongside web sessions.

Pricing: free plan with 30,000 sessions a month; Business, Advanced, and Enterprise plans by quote.

Good fit when: a large team needs to search behavior across thousands of sessions.
Not a fit when: you want public paid pricing before you talk to sales.

4. Microsoft Clarity: Best Free Tool

Microsoft Clarity is a free session recording and heatmap tool for websites and apps. It’s the easiest place to start if you’ve never watched a replay, since there’s no plan to pick and no bill to watch.

AI summaries point out patterns across many recordings, which saves hours of playback.

Features

• Session recordings with highlights that jump to the key moments of each visit.
• Click and scroll heatmaps, with comparisons across page versions.
• AI summaries and a chat assistant that answer questions about your traffic.
• GDPR and CCPA readiness, per Microsoft.

Pricing: free forever.

Good fit when: you want recordings at no cost, or you’re testing whether replays help at all.
Not a fit when: you need on-site surveys next to your recordings.

5. Glassbox: Best for Regulated Teams

Glassbox is a digital experience platform built for large teams in finance, insurance, and other regulated industries. It also took over SessionCam, so former SessionCam users now land on Glassbox.

Beyond replays, it maps customer journeys and flags struggle and errors automatically.

Features

• Session replay for websites and mobile apps.
• Journey maps that show where customers drop off across a full path.
• Struggle and error analysis that surfaces friction without manual review.
• Digital record keeping for teams with compliance requirements.

Pricing: quote-based; book a demo for a price.

Good fit when: a bank, insurer, or similar team needs replays plus record keeping.
Not a fit when: you want to sign up and start the same day.

6. Crazy Egg: Best for Heatmaps First

Crazy Egg started as a heatmap tool and now adds recordings, surveys, and A/B testing. Recordings capture mouse movement as well as clicks and scrolls, so you can follow the full visit.

Features

• Recordings that show clicks, hesitations, and exits on each page.
• Segments such as new versus returning visitors to compare behavior.
• Recordings of form sessions to see where people stop filling in fields.
• A/B testing on the same account once you know what to change.

Pricing: from $29/month billed annually (Starter, 5,000 tracked pageviews and 50 recordings a month); 30-day free trial, no free plan.

For a closer look at how it compares with the old Hotjar setup, see our Crazy Egg vs Hotjar breakdown.

Good fit when: heatmaps and A/B tests matter more to you than recording volume.
Not a fit when: you want to watch hundreds of recordings a month on the entry plan.

7. Lucky Orange: Best for Small Stores

Lucky Orange ties each recording to a visitor profile, so you can follow one person across several visits. Small stores like it for recordings and form data without an enterprise contract.

Key Features

• Every click, scroll, and hover, including rage clicks that mark frustration.
• Visitor profiles that link recordings into one journey over time.
• Page and form analytics that show which fields cause friction.
• Heatmaps for clicks, scroll depth, and attention.

Pricing: from $32/month billed annually or $39 monthly (Build, 3,500 sessions a month); 7-day free trial, no free plan.

Good fit when: you want to follow returning shoppers across visits.
Not a fit when: you need a free plan to start.

8. PostHog: Best for Product Teams

PostHog bundles session replay with product analytics, feature flags, and error tracking. It’s built for product and engineering teams that want one tool across the whole product.

Its free allowance resets every month, so small sites can run it without a bill.

Features

• Session replay with an inspector that shows events, console logs, and network calls.
• Product analytics and funnels on the same data as your replays.
• Feature flags and experiments to test a fix on part of your traffic.
• Error tracking linked to the sessions where errors happened.

Pricing: free for 5,000 recordings a month, then usage-based per recording.

Good fit when: product and engineering share one tool for replay, analytics, and flags.
Not a fit when: a marketer only needs simple heatmaps and replays.

9. Plerdy: Best Budget Pick

Plerdy combines recordings, heatmaps, and SEO checks in one budget-friendly tool.

Watching a visitor’s path to a goal, such as a purchase or a form, shows where your layout gets in the way, which is the starting point when you optimize CRO with UX design.

User Behavior with Plerdy

• See where visitors click, including spots they click by mistake.
• Follow how people move through a page to find confusing layouts.
• Spot frustration through heavy clicking, fast cursor movement, or scrolling back and forth.

Pricing: free plan with 500 video sessions; paid from $21/month billed yearly or $32 monthly (Startup, 5,000 video sessions).

Good fit when: a small site wants recordings and SEO checks for one low fee.
Not a fit when: you need deep product analytics.

Niche Website Session Recording Software

The tools above cover most needs. These three fit narrower jobs.

10. UserTesting: Best for User Tests

UserTesting is mainly a user research platform, but every test it runs is recorded. You get videos of real participants using your site, often while they talk through what they’re thinking.

That mix of recordings and spoken feedback gives a fuller view of your audience than replays alone.

Pricing: quote-based, billed per test or as an unlimited team plan.

Good fit when: you want people to talk through a task while they do it.
Not a fit when: you want to watch your own live traffic.

11. LogRocket: Best for Debugging

LogRocket pairs session replay with front-end error and performance monitoring. You see the visit and the technical data behind it, so you can tell when slow loading or a bug caused someone to leave.

Pricing: usage-based by sessions captured; its calculator shows $176/month at 25,000 sessions, with a free trial.

Good fit when: developers fix front-end bugs from real sessions.
Not a fit when: marketers only need heatmaps.

12. OpenReplay: Best for Self-Hosting

OpenReplay is an open-source session replay tool you can host on your own servers. Your data never leaves your infrastructure, which suits teams with strict privacy rules. A managed cloud version is there if you’d rather not run servers.

Pricing: free to self-host; managed Dedicated cloud from $199/month, billed hourly.

Good fit when: recordings must stay on infrastructure you control.
Not a fit when: nobody on your team can run and update servers.

Which Tools Record Mobile Apps?

Microsoft Clarity, Fullstory, Glassbox, and LogRocket record native mobile apps as well as websites. The other tools on this list focus on web visits.

If your app matters as much as your site, check for a mobile SDK and confirm that taps, swipes, and screen changes show up in replays before you commit.

Moving Off Smartlook or Hotjar?

Smartlook has stopped selling new plans and ended renewals in 2026, and Hotjar accounts now run as Contentsquare. Both groups need a plan for what comes next.

• Hotjar users: your heatmaps, recordings, and surveys carry on inside Contentsquare, so review which Contentsquare plan matches your session volume.
• Smartlook users: Microsoft Clarity is the free swap for web replay, and Fullstory or LogRocket cover mobile apps too.
• Before you switch: export any recordings, notes, or segments you want to keep.
• During the switch: install the new script, then remove the old one so two recorders don’t run on the same page.

Privacy and Masking Before You Record

Recordings capture what visitors type and see, so set privacy rules before you switch one on. A few habits keep you on the right side of GDPR and similar laws.

• Mask inputs by default: hide form fields, emails, and payment details so they never reach the recording.
• Skip sensitive pages: exclude account, checkout, and health or finance pages unless you need them.
• Collect consent where required: in the EU and UK, recording usually sits behind your cookie banner.
• Keep retention short: store recordings only as long as you use them.
• Self-host if you must: OpenReplay can run on your own servers when data can’t leave your control.

How to Choose the Right Session Recording Tool

When you compare session recording tools, weigh these factors:

• Ease of use: pick a tool your team will open every week. Fast filters and clear replays save more time than a long feature list. If nobody has time to watch replays, one of the best conversion rate optimization agencies can run this work for you.
• Features: list what you need, such as recordings, heatmaps, funnels, or surveys, and match it to your goals. If you only need recordings on a few key pages, a free tool may cover it.
• Metering: estimate your monthly sessions or pageviews first, then compare plans on the unit they count.
• Integrations: connect recordings to Google Analytics, your CRM, or your testing tool so each replay ties back to a goal.

Whatever you pick, watch ten sessions on your highest-traffic page before you change anything. Patterns you see three or four times are worth fixing; one odd visit isn’t.

If replays keep showing visitors who browse but don’t buy, work through the usual reasons for getting traffic but no sales.

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Wrap Up

Session recording turns guesses about your site into evidence. Start with a free tool, watch the visits on your most important pages, and fix the step where people stall.

Once you know where visitors hesitate, WiserNotify can add proof at those exact spots. For more on the visual side, see the WordPress heatmap plugins worth pairing with your recorder.