Budget & alternatives · Prompt 8 of 8 · September 2026

A real buyer question from the September 2026 snapshot, asked 3× to each of the three models. 9 answers recorded.

“What's a good free or cheap way to get session recordings on our site?”

ChatGPT answered 3× this snapshot

A few good free/cheap options for session recordings: Easiest free/cheap tools Microsoft Clarity — Free Session recordings Heatmaps Basic filtering Very popular for small teams Best if you want something simple and no-cost PostHog — Free tier / cheap self-hosted Session replays Product analytics Feature flags, funnels, etc. Good if you want more than just recordings Can get more technical than Clarity Hotjar —…

Named across its answers: 1. Microsoft Clarity2. PostHog3. Hotjar4. OpenReplay5. FullStory

Verbatim excerpt from one collected ChatGPT answer; formatting flattened, words untouched.

Microsoft Clarity owns this question entirely, earning the first recommendation slot in all 9 answers across every model, which is rare dominance for a budget-framed query. Hotjar appears just as consistently but never leads, settling at an average position of 2.6 and functioning as the default second choice rather than a contender.

AI-generated read of the September 2026 measurements.

Who wins this question

Owned Consensus

All three models name Microsoft Clarity, PostHog, Hotjar and FullStory on this question.

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini mentioned · first · avg. pos

Microsoft Clarity 111111111 9/9 · 9× first · #1

Hotjar 333222233 9/9 · never first · #2.6

PostHog 22273322 8/9 · never first · #2.9

LogRocket 534554 6/9 · never first · #4.3

FullStory 46555 5/9 · never first · #5

Lucky Orange 344 3/9 · never first · #3.7

Smartlook 446 3/9 · never first · #4.7

OpenReplay 44 2/9 · never first · #4

Each square is one collected answer; the number is the brand's position in that answer. Lime = the very first recommendation. Unlinked brands were named by the models here but sit outside this category's published top 15 overall. Never mentioned here: Amplitude, Mixpanel, Mouseflow, Heap, Contentsquare, Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk, Exabeam.