VWO Alternatives 2026: 5 Free Options
VWO alternatives: GrowthBook, PostHog, Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar and 2 more. Prices and licenses checked October 25, 2026.
•3 min read•Analytics & BI
Verdict:VWO's pricing page lists Growth, Pro and Enterprise tiers with demo links and no prices. VWO's own blog says its free Starter plan has been sunset, so anyone who wanted a free tester must look elsewhere. Which alternative fits depends on what you used VWO for. For A/B tests, GrowthBook gives the cleanest free route: a Starter cloud plan with unlimited experiments and a self-hosted open source plan. PostHog covers tests with analytics and recordings. If you mostly used VWO's behavior features, you may not need a testing tool at all: Microsoft Clarity is free with no traffic limits and unlimited heatmaps, and Hotjar has a free plan. Optimizely is the like-for-like enterprise alternative, and also quote-only, so use it to negotiate rather than to save. Statsig is a fit when developers own experimentation. The trade-off is the visual editor. VWO lets a marketer change a headline without a release, and the free tools mostly expect code. If nobody on your team can ship a small change, a free tester will sit unused. Start by listing your last five tests, then see which tool could have run them.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GrowthBook | Free (Cloud Starter: up to 3 users, 1 project, unlimited feature flags, experiments and traffic; self-hosted Open Source plan is free for 1 project); paid from $40 per seat/month (Cloud Pro, up to 30 users) | Web browser, Self-hosted | A free replacement for the retired VWO plan | Docs only |
| PostHog | Free (Cloud free tier includes 5k recordings and 1M events a month; self-hosted hobby deploy suits about 100k events a month) | Web browser, Linux (self-hosted, Docker) | Experiments plus session recordings | Docs only |
| Microsoft Clarity | Free (Free with no traffic limits, unlimited heatmaps, sites and team members; records up to 100,000 sessions per project per day) | Web browser | Heatmaps and recordings only | Docs only |
| Hotjar | Free (Free plan with up to 200k sessions a month (shown on Contentsquare's pricing page, where hotjar.com/pricing now redirects)); paid from $39 per month, billed yearly (Growth; $49 billed monthly) | Web browser | Understanding why visitors drop off | Docs only |
| Optimizely | See pricing page | Web browser | Large teams comparing quotes | Docs only |
| Statsig | Free (Developer plan: 2 million events a month, unlimited flag and config checks, 50,000 session replays a month, 1 year of analytics retention); paid from $150 per month (Pro; 5 million events included) | Web browser | Engineer-run tests and flags | Docs only |
| Convert Experiences | Paid from $299 per month, billed annually (Growth, 100K tested users a month) | Web browser | A/B Testing | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You need free A/B tests with code support (GrowthBook is the pick)
- You want tests and recordings in one tool (PostHog is the pick)
- You only used VWO for heatmaps (Microsoft Clarity is the pick)
- You want free session recordings (Hotjar is the pick)
- Developers own experiments and flags (Statsig is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on VWO features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
VWO today: See pricing page (VWO pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Why people look for VWO alternatives
VWO's pricing page shows three tiers, Growth, Pro and Enterprise, with no prices and no free plan or trial listed. Stored events per monthly active user are 50 on Growth, 100 on Pro and 200 on Enterprise, and Growth keeps only the last three versions. Multivariate and cross-domain testing start on Pro, while SSO, API access, approval workflow and self-hosting are Enterprise-only.
GrowthBook
Compared with VWO: Free cloud Starter plan with unlimited experiments for 3 users, plus a free self-hosted option. VWO's free Starter plan was sunset, so this is the nearest free replacement, with fewer visual tools.
Price: Free (Cloud Starter: up to 3 users, 1 project, unlimited feature flags, experiments and traffic; self-hosted Open Source plan is free for 1 project); paid from $40 per seat/month (Cloud Pro, up to 30 users) (GrowthBook pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web browser, Self-hosted. MIT Expat, with enterprise directories under a separate licence (open source).
Project activity: 8.5k GitHub stars · latest release v5.1.0 (Sep 22, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: A free replacement for the retired VWO plan.
Worth knowing: Enterprise plans are custom priced.
PostHog
Compared with VWO: Free cloud tier with 5k recordings and 1M events a month, covering tests and heatmap-style insight in one tool. Less guided than VWO for non-technical marketers.
Price: Free (Cloud free tier includes 5k recordings and 1M events a month; self-hosted hobby deploy suits about 100k events a month) (PostHog pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser, Linux (self-hosted, Docker). MIT (ee/ directory under a separate licence) (open source).
Project activity: 40.5k GitHub stars · latest release desktop-v0.61.851 (Oct 27, 2026) · last commit Oct 28, 2026
Best for: Experiments plus session recordings.
Microsoft Clarity
Compared with VWO: Free with unlimited heatmaps and no traffic limits. It runs no A/B tests like VWO, but replaces the behavior-analytics part of VWO at zero cost.
Price: Free (Free with no traffic limits, unlimited heatmaps, sites and team members; records up to 100,000 sessions per project per day) (Microsoft Clarity pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Heatmaps and recordings only.
Hotjar
Compared with VWO: Free plan up to 200k sessions a month for heatmaps and recordings, with Growth from $39 a month yearly. No testing engine, so pair it with another tool.
Price: Free (Free plan with up to 200k sessions a month (shown on Contentsquare's pricing page, where hotjar.com/pricing now redirects)); paid from $39 per month, billed yearly (Growth; $49 billed monthly) (Hotjar pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Understanding why visitors drop off.
Optimizely
Compared with VWO: Direct enterprise rival with a visual editor, but no public prices on its pricing page. Expect a sales call and a comparable quote, not a saving.
Price: See pricing page (Optimizely pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Large teams comparing quotes.
Statsig
Compared with VWO: Free Developer plan with 2 million events a month and flags; Pro $150 a month. Aimed at engineers rather than VWO's marketer editor.
Price: Free (Developer plan: 2 million events a month, unlimited flag and config checks, 50,000 session replays a month, 1 year of analytics retention); paid from $150 per month (Pro; 5 million events included) (Statsig pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Engineer-run tests and flags.
Worth knowing: Extra events on Pro cost $0.05 per 1,000.
Other popular options (paid)
Convert Experiences
Compared with VWO: Growth is $299 a month billed annually for 100K tested users, with a 15-day trial and no card needed. Pricing is published, unlike VWO's tier page, which lists no prices.
Price: Paid from $299 per month, billed annually (Growth, 100K tested users a month) (Convert Experiences pricing, checked 2026-10-25).
Which one to pick
- You need free A/B tests with code support: GrowthBook
- You want tests and recordings in one tool: PostHog
- You only used VWO for heatmaps: Microsoft Clarity
- You want free session recordings: Hotjar
- Developers own experiments and flags: Statsig
Limits of this review
Docs-only for GrowthBook, PostHog, Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, Optimizely, Statsig: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from VWO. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked between 2026-10-22 and 2026-10-25: VWO, GrowthBook, PostHog, Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, Optimizely, Statsig, Convert Experiences. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.