Microsoft Clarity alternative
Microsoft Clarity is free: session recordings, heatmaps and AI summaries with no traffic limits. It's free partly because Microsoft can use the data it collects, including for advertising. Datasense is the privacy-first alternative: replays next to your traffic, goals, errors and revenue, and your visitors' data is never used for ads.
Free up to 5k events a month. No card.
Clarity is the better tool if you want unlimited free replays and heatmaps and you're fine with Microsoft's data terms. Datasense is the better tool if you want replays tied to revenue, a cookieless option and data that stays yours.
Side by side, on the things people ask about most. Checked against Microsoft Clarity's own site in October 2026.
| Feature | Datasense | Microsoft Clarity |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 5k events a month, 1 site | Free forever, up to 100k sessions a day |
| Paid plans from | $9/month for 50k events | No paid plans |
| No cookie banner needed | Cookies by default; switch any site to cookieless | Sets cookies; needs consent in the EEA, UK and Switzerland |
| Realtime visitors | Updates every second | Watch up to 100 live sessions |
| JavaScript error tracking | Last 100 errors per site, with stack and browser | Filter replays by JavaScript error |
| Revenue by traffic source | Stripe, Dodo Payments or any provider | Not clearly documented |
| Goals and custom events | One line of code or a data attribute | Smart events and a custom events API |
| Proxy to get past ad blockers | Recipes for Next.js, Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare, Nginx | Not clearly documented |
| AI crawler and bot tracking | See which AI crawlers read your pages, on paid plans | AI bot activity through a CDN connection |
| Visitor profiles and journeys | Each visitor's pages, visit by visit | Visitor profiles |
| Raw data export | CSV and JSON, any date range, on paid plans | Aggregated data, last 1 to 3 days, 10 requests a day |
| Script size | Under 4 KB | About 26 KB |
| Open source / self-host | Capture code is open source; not self-hostable | |
| Session replay | On Pro and Team, 5k recordings a month on Pro | Unlimited, kept 30 days |
| On-site surveys | Up to 2 questions, on every plan |
Clarity's terms let Microsoft use the data it collects to build profiles, including for advertising, and you have to say so in your privacy notice. Datasense doesn't sell your visitors' data or share it for advertising.
Clarity sets first- and third-party cookies, and in the EEA, UK and Switzerland it needs a consent signal before it tracks. Datasense uses first-party cookies by default, and one setting switches a site to cookieless mode.
Clarity is built around replays and heatmaps. Datasense is web analytics first: sources, campaigns, goals, revenue and errors, with each recording linked from the visitor, the error or the form answer it belongs to.
Clarity is free, with no paid plans. Datasense is free up to 5k events a month without replay, $9 a month for 50k events and 5k recordings, and $49 a month for 200k events and 50k recordings. Clarity costs less. Datasense is the one to pick for privacy and revenue.
It takes about five minutes, and you don't have to turn anything off on day one.
Create a free account and paste one script tag into your site's <head>. Leave Microsoft Clarity where it is for now.
Compare visitors, top pages and sources. Datasense often shows more visitors once the proxy is on, because ad blockers stop blocking it.
When you're happy, delete the Microsoft Clarity snippet. Export your old data from Microsoft Clarity first if you want to keep it.
Or see all web analytics tools on one page.
Add one script tag, compare the numbers, then keep the one you like. The free plan is enough to test it.
Add your siteMicrosoft Clarity is a trademark of its owner. Facts checked October 2026; if something changed, tell us at [email protected].