GhostStat vs Microsoft Clarity: free recordings, at what cost?

Microsoft Clarity is hard to argue with on price: heatmaps and session recordings for free, with no traffic limits. So why look further? Because free comes with trade-offs around cookies, consent and data. This comparison of GhostStat vs Microsoft Clarity sets the two side by side and links every statement about Clarity to Microsoft’s own documentation.

Last checked: 11 October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

Microsoft Clarity vs GhostStat at a glance

What Microsoft Clarity does well

Clarity calls itself a free user behaviour analytics tool, “free forever”, and its FAQ adds that you never meet traffic limits and that it does not sample. You get session recordings, heatmaps for clicks and scrolling, AI summaries and a chat assistant, and a lightweight SDK for mobile apps. The FAQ does list practical caps for very large sites: up to 100,000 recorded sessions per project per day, and up to 100,000 page views per heatmap.

For a small team that already shows a cookie banner, that is a lot of value for nothing.

Cookies and consent with Microsoft Clarity

Clarity uses cookies. Microsoft’s Consent Mode documentation names _clck and _clsk, and explains that with Consent Mode on, Clarity only sets cookies after valid consent. Since 31 October 2025 Clarity enforces consent signals for visits from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland: “a valid consent signal is required to ensure full functionality of Clarity features”. In practice, visitors who decline your banner may not be measured in full.

GhostStat has nothing to consent to. It sets no cookies, uses no localStorage, sessionStorage or fingerprinting, and never writes an IP address to disk: the IP is used in memory for a location lookup and then dropped. Visitors are counted with an identifier that is salted per site and rotates daily. Read exactly what is collected in our privacy policy.

Data retention and access

Microsoft’s data retention page says recording playback is kept for 30 days, labelled or favourited sessions for 9 months, and heatmap and dashboard data for 9 months. After that, the data is deleted and cannot be recovered.

On access, the Clarity FAQ says the data is stored in the Microsoft Azure cloud, that EU customers contract with Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, that Clarity “doesn’t sell data”, and that “Microsoft/Clarity has access to the data”, pointing to the Microsoft Privacy Statement and the Clarity terms for details.

GhostStat stores its data in Dronten, the Netherlands. Raw events are kept for your plan’s retention window and then rolled up into daily totals, so long-term charts stay intact; the window per plan is on the pricing page.

One dashboard instead of two

Clarity is built around behaviour: recordings and heatmaps. Its FAQ describes integrating Google Analytics with Clarity. If you also need page views, sources and campaigns, that means a second tool: two scripts and, in Europe, two reasons for a cookie banner.

GhostStat does both jobs in one dashboard. The core covers pages, referrers, campaigns, countries, devices and real-time visitors. Every plugin is available on every plan, Free included:

• Heatmaps for clicks, scrolling and movement, per device.
• Session recordings with every form input masked by default.
• Funnels, goals, form analytics and A/B tests.
• AI crawler analytics, so you can see which AI bots read your site.
• Visitor intelligence: intent, friction and attention per visit.

On the Free plan each plugin has a monthly view allowance; paid plans remove it.

Testing both side by side

Because Clarity is free, the easiest way to decide is to run both tools for a few weeks and compare what you learn:

1. Add the GhostStat snippet next to your Clarity tag; they do not interfere with each other.
2. Switch on Heatmaps and Session Recordings in GhostStat for the same key pages you watch in Clarity.
3. Compare the number of recorded visits from European visitors. Clarity depends on consent there, while GhostStat measures every visit the same way, so the difference shows how many visitors your banner hides from you.
4. Look beyond single sessions. Set up a funnel and a goal in GhostStat and check whether the drop-off points match what the recordings suggest.
5. Decide on your banner. If GhostStat covers what you used Clarity for, removing Clarity may let you simplify your cookie banner. Check with whoever owns privacy at your organisation.

Microsoft Clarity or GhostStat: how to choose

Choose Microsoft Clarity if you want free recordings, already run a consent banner, and are comfortable with Microsoft having access to the data. Pair it with a traffic analytics tool.

Choose GhostStat if you want recordings and heatmaps that every visitor counts in, without cookies or a banner, traffic analytics in the same place, and data stored in the Netherlands. Start free; no card is needed.

Comparing more tools? Read GhostStat vs Hotjar, GhostStat vs Google Analytics 4 or the best Google Analytics alternatives.

Sources

• Microsoft: Clarity home page
• Microsoft Learn: Clarity FAQ
• Microsoft Learn: Consent Mode
• Microsoft Learn: Data retention