Microsoft Clarity vs Smartlook: Which Is The Better Session Replays Software?

When it comes to session replay software, there are a few key players that stand out in the market. Among these, Microsoft Clarity and Smartlook have proven to be some of the most popular options available. Both tools offer a range of features that help website owners gain valuable insights into how their users interact with their sites.

But which of these two is the best session replay option for your business? In this article, we take a deep dive into the similarities and differences between Microsoft Clarity and Smartlook to help you make an informed decision.

What Is Microsoft Clarity?

Microsoft Clarity is a user behavior analytics tool that provides website owners with actionable insights about user interaction. It offers features like session replays, heatmaps, and advanced filtering to help understand user behavior, aiding in website optimization and enhancing user experience. It's free, easy to use, and GDPR-compliant.

What Is Smartlook?

Smartlook is a comprehensive user analytics solution that provides detailed insights into user behavior. It offers features such as event tracking, session replays, and funnels, making it a strong choice for businesses focusing on conversion optimization. Unlike Clarity, it has both free and paid versions.

Microsoft Clarity vs. Smartlook: features comparison

In the following section, we'll delve deeper into the nuanced differences between Microsoft Clarity and Smartlook. Despite both being powerful tools for understanding user behavior, they vary in aspects such as pricing models, data presentation, and the specific emphasis of their features.

Microsoft Clarity

• Session replay: Microsoft Clarity lets you view individual user sessions on your site, highlighting their interactions. This helps identify usability issues.
• Heatmaps: Provides a visual display of user interactions on your site, showing high and low engagement areas.
• Insights dashboard: Offers an overview of your site's performance metrics and highlights significant changes.
• Integrations: Clarity integrates seamlessly with tools like Google Analytics and Zapier.

Smartlook

• Session recordings: Smartlook records all visitor actions on your website or app, enabling you to watch video replays and understand user behavior in detail.
• Event tracking: Automatically tracks every event on your website, helping you to analyze user interactions at a deeper level.
• Heatmaps: Visualizes user behavior on your website by showing clicks, movement, and scroll heatmaps. This helps identify popular and ignored elements on your webpage.
• Conversion funnels: Allows you to create custom funnels to track user conversion paths. You can identify where users drop off to optimize the user journey.
• Crash reports: Smartlook provides detailed reports on technical issues, including error messages and crashes.

Microsoft Clarity vs. Smartlook: use case comparison

In this section, we'll cover use cases for both Microsoft Clarity vs. Smartlook. Microsoft Clarity is a free tool for web designers, researchers, and marketers in SMBs and e-commerce, focusing on user interactions and strategy optimization. Conversely, Smartlook serves various industries, offering qualitative analytics for user experience improvement, with strengths in identifying onboarding issues and enabling QuickBooks screen sharing.

Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity is a user behavior analytics tool ideal for web designers, UX researchers, digital marketers, SEO specialists, e-commerce businesses, online retailers, publishers, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and developers. Its features allow these professionals to understand user interactions on their websites, optimize marketing strategies, improve product page views, understand reader behavior, and enhance analytics tools. As a free resource, it's especially beneficial to SMBs looking to gain powerful insights without a financial burden.

Smartlook

Smartlook is a qualitative analytics solution suitable for businesses of all sizes and various industries, including tech, as indicated by its recent acquisition by Cisco. It's particularly beneficial for UX researchers, digital marketers, and web designers aiming to improve user experiences by understanding customer interactions on websites and mobile apps.

Microsoft Clarity vs Smartlook: user reviews comparison

In this section, we'll cover user reviews for both Microsoft Clarity and Smartlook. Both tools have a high overall satisfaction rating, with Microsoft Clarity achieving 4.5/5, and Smartlook scoring 4.6/5 on G2 Crowd.

Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity has a 4.5 out of 5-star rating on G2, with 32 reviews. Users like that Microsoft Clarity is:

• "Free to use"
• "Great for gaining information on user behavior"
• "Unlimited visitor recording and tracking"

However, some users have noted the following negatives:

• "Sessions expire after a month"
• "Slow to use"

Smartlook

Smartlook has a rating of 4.6 out of 5-star rating on G2, with 869 reviews. Users like that Smartlook:

• "Easy to use"
• "Excellent for user analytics"
• "Supports various platforms such as websites, mobile apps, and desktop applications."

However, some users have noted the following negatives:

• "Smartlook is slow in fixing issues"
• "Bugs in the funnel reports"
• "Not all sessions are recorded properly"

Microsoft Clarity vs Smartlook: pricing comparison

In this section, we'll cover pricing for both Microsoft Clarity and Smartlook. While Microsoft Clarity is completely free, Smartlook offers both free and paid plans.

Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity is a free tool, meaning it has no pricing tiers or options.

Smartlook

Smartlook offers a variety of pricing tiers to meet the needs of different businesses. They offer a free plan, which offers up to 3,000 monthly sessions. Their paid plans start at $55 and can be customized to fit the needs of larger businesses.

Alternative to Microsoft Clarity & Smartlook: Fullview

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If you're looking for a more comprehensive user behavior analytics tool, Fullview is an excellent alternative to both Microsoft Clarity and Smartlook. In addition to features like session recordings, Fullview offers advanced functionality such as:

• Complete Session Replays: Fullview records all user interactions with no sampling, providing a more comprehensive view than competitors.
• User Frustration Highlighting: Fullview detects console warnings, errors, and signs of rage clicks for quick issue resolution.
• Cobrowsing: Fullview allows agents to initiate cobrowse calls with users and control their screen, solving support issues directly.
• Console Logs: Fullview includes console logs in every session replay and cobrowsing call for easy bug diagnosis.
• Affordable Pricing: Fullview offers a free plan and competitively priced paid plans starting at $49 per seat.
• GDPR compliance: Fullview stores data on EU servers (with the option to store on US servers if you require that), ensuring GDPR compliance, unlike Microsoft Clarity and Outlook.

Sources used:

• Microsoft Clarity Homepage
• Smartlook Homepage
• G2 Smartlook
• G2 Microsoft Clarity

Sources last checked on: 14-Nov-2023