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Wow this is simply not true, Microsoft Clarity is free forever and has better analytics. I recommend it to any founder or builder because it comes with free unlimited heatmap.

https://clarity.microsoft.com/pricing

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Hmm but is leaving your data with Microsoft much better than with Google? I'd say no.

As a former user of both (for work), I agree and would never use either for my own projects when I can easily set up a self-hosted cookieless matomo instance.

Otoh, my former compliance officer much preferred using MS's product since it explicitly states that it's GDPR and CCPA compliant, while regulator and court decisions against google analytics were piling up in one of the markets we served (EU).

There is also the ePrivacy Directive. From what at the moment seems to me (it changes), it is in principle possible to make a GDPR compliant web analytics SaaS. But it might not be possible to avoid compliance banners given the current ePrivacy Directive. But most people don't know that thing exists.

I have used google analytics, clarity, and fathom for work, and self-hosted matomo for personal projects. Clarity was the worst in terms of traffic analytics. It's more of a poor hotjar alternative than anything.

Have you tried UXWizz? Self-hosted, but also comes with heatmaps and recordings compared to Motomo.

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