Hotjar
Hotjar is a suite of analytic tools to assist in the gathering of qualitative data, providing feedback through tools such as heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys.
What detecting Hotjar tells you about a site
Hotjar is a behaviour-analytics and feedback tool focused on heatmaps, session recordings and on-page surveys. Its fingerprint is a script from static.hotjar.com and a window.hjSettings / hj global carrying a site ID. Catching it tells you the team studies how users interact with pages visually — where they click, scroll and hesitate — and gathers qualitative feedback, which is a conversion-rate-optimisation and UX concern more than an engineering one. It is widely used by marketing and product teams on commerce and SaaS landing pages.
Hotjar in a real-world stack
When you find Hotjar, it rarely travels alone. Lives alongside Google Analytics for the quantitative side and frequently a chat or feedback widget completing the CRO toolkit.
About
Hotjar is a suite of analytic tools to assist in the gathering of qualitative data, providing feedback through tools such as heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys.
Categories: Analytics
Quick facts
Detection methodology for Analytics
Analytics SDKs are usually loaded from a vendor-controlled CDN (`googletagmanager.com`, `google-analytics.com`, `cdn.segment.com`, `cdn.amplitude.com`, `eu.i.posthog.com`) and expose a global with a recognisable surface. We catch the script src URL plus the global plus — when a sourcemap is available — the exact `node_modules/<sdk>/package.json` version. Tracker isolation prevents these vendor libraries from polluting the surrounding stack readings.
How we detect Hotjar
Sourcemap Explorer carries 4 fingerprint signals for Hotjar, spread across 2 channels — javascript global and script src url. The exact patterns are listed below, and you can replay each one in Chrome DevTools to confirm a match by hand.
Each signal alone is rarely conclusive — Sourcemap Explorer cross-references all of them and weights by confidence. You can reproduce any of these checks yourself in Chrome DevTools.
Window-level global the technology installs on page. Reproducible by typing the path into the DevTools console.
window.HotLeadfactory
window.HotleadController
window.hj.apiUrlBase
Script URL pattern. Typically a CDN host or chunk path that ships with the technology.
//static\.hotjar\.com/
FAQ
How do I check if a website is using Hotjar?
Open the page in Chrome, click the Sourcemap Explorer toolbar icon, and read the Stack tab. Hotjar's specific fingerprints here are javascript global and script src url, and the popup flags Hotjar whenever any combination of them is found. The same checks can be reproduced manually in DevTools — see the "How we detect" section above.
What Hotjar version can Sourcemap Explorer detect?
Hotjar ships as a hosted analytics rather than a bundled npm package, so version-specific detection isn't always possible. Where the platform leaks a version in response headers (`X-Powered-By`, `Server`, generator meta tags) we surface it; otherwise we report presence only.
Is Hotjar a SaaS or self-hosted?
Hotjar is offered as a hosted SaaS product. Detection runs against the JavaScript SDK or asset-URL fingerprints the platform ships into pages.
How much does Hotjar cost?
Hotjar's pricing model is documented as: freemium, low, recurring. Detection is independent of the pricing tier — Sourcemap Explorer flags the technology by its fingerprints, regardless of which paid plan a site is on. See the official site for the current pricing page.
Where can I read more about Hotjar?
Official site: https://www.hotjar.com. For Sourcemap Explorer's detection guide, see the deep-dive link below or the related guides in the cross-link section.
Keep reading on Sourcemap Explorer
Practical guides
Alternative tools
Detected by Sourcemap Explorer
Open the popup on any page running Hotjarand you'll see the exact version pulled from the bundled package.json when sourcemaps are exposed.