AI Experience Analytics
Smartlook
SF 7.4Session replay across web and mobile
Contact sales
AI Experience Analytics
Contentsquare
SF 8.5Enterprise experience analytics with AI insight
Free · PaidPro from $39/moFree plan available; Growth pricing starts at $39/month when billed annually.
Quick decision guide
Choose based on your workflow
Smartlook may fit better if...
- Session Recordings
- Event Tracking
- Funnel Analysis
Contentsquare may fit better if...
- Journey Analysis
- Zone Analytics
- Experience AI
Overview
How each tool is described
Smartlook
What is Smartlook?
Smartlook is a digital behavior analytics platform for websites and mobile apps that combines session recordings with automatically tracked events, funnels, heatmaps, behavior flows, and mobile crash analysis to show how users navigate digital products and where experiences break down. Smartlook is now in an announced end-of-life process following its acquisition by Cisco.
- Behavioral role: session recordings provide individual interaction context, while automatically captured events and heatmaps reveal clicks, navigation, scrolling, rage clicks, and recurring behavior across users. Behavior Flows visualize the paths users take between pages and can link teams back to recordings from particular journey points.
- Diagnostic workflow: funnels identify conversion drop-offs and let teams play sessions associated with individual funnel steps. For supported mobile applications, Smartlook Crash Reports can capture crashes and open the preceding session so teams can inspect what happened before the failure.
- Implementation checks: existing customers should assess web and mobile SDK coverage, privacy masking, consent requirements, project structure, session limits, integrations, API/export requirements, and how historical Smartlook data will be handled during migration. Smartlook masks potentially sensitive inputs and IP addresses by default unless explicitly configured otherwise.
- Commercial considerations: Cisco ended new Smartlook sales on May 31, 2026. The last date to renew or add to an existing subscription is August 31, 2026, and the official last date of subscription support is August 31, 2027. Cisco identifies Splunk Observability Cloud RUM + Digital Experience Analytics as the migration product for affected Smartlook subscriptions.
Smartlook remains relevant mainly to existing customers managing active deployments and migration. Organizations selecting a new behavior-analytics platform should evaluate the Splunk successor or other currently supported alternatives rather than starting a new Smartlook implementation.
Contentsquare
What is Contentsquare?
Contentsquare is an experience intelligence platform for analyzing what people encounter across websites and mobile apps. Its Smart Capture technology records interactions such as clicks, taps, swipes, scrolls, and form activity without requiring teams to define every event in advance, allowing new questions to be investigated against previously collected behavioral data. Journey Analysis maps how visitors move through a digital experience, zone-based Heatmaps show how individual page elements perform, Session Replay reconstructs specific journeys, and Impact Quantification estimates how behaviors, friction, or technical issues relate to conversion and other business outcomes.
- Best fit: Product, ecommerce, UX, marketing, and analytics teams that need more context than conventional traffic and funnel reporting provides. Contentsquare connects Experience Analytics, Product Analytics, Experience Monitoring, Voice of Customer, and Conversation Intelligence, letting teams move between behavioral patterns, individual replays, customer feedback, and technical problems such as errors or poor page performance. Its Sense AI layer works across these areas: Sense Chat answers natural-language questions, while Sense Analyst can plan and execute multi-step investigations across capabilities such as Journeys, Funnels, Heatmaps, Session Replay, and Conversation Intelligence.
- Check first: Plan boundaries matter because Contentsquare offers Free, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise options with different feature and usage limits. Journey Analysis and Impact Quantification are available from Growth upward, while several advanced monitoring capabilities require Pro or Enterprise. Sense Analyst is a paid add-on for Pro and Enterprise customers and is currently available in Open Beta to qualifying new Growth customers, rather than being universally included across the suite.
Bottom line: Contentsquare is most useful when a team already knows that a digital journey is underperforming but needs behavioral, technical, and customer-context evidence to determine where users struggled, which issues matter most, and what deserves investigation or optimization first.
Side-by-side
Key differences
Criteria
AI Experience AnalyticsSmartlook
AI Experience AnalyticsContentsquare
Best for
AI Experience Analytics
AI Experience Analytics
Score
7.4/10
8.5/10
Pricing
Contact sales
Free · PaidPro from $39/mo
Category / audience
AI Analytics Software › AI Experience Analytics
- heatmaps
- session replay
- mobile analytics
AI Analytics Software › AI Experience Analytics
- ai recommendations
- heatmaps
- session replay
Feature check
Side-by-side feature check
Feature
Smartlook
Contentsquare
Session RecordingsShows web and mobile user journeys
-
Event TrackingDefines actions without heavy engineering work
-
Funnel AnalysisFinds drop offs across user paths
-
Crash ReportsConnects crashes with replayed user sessions
-
Heatmap ViewsVisualizes clicks taps and page engagement
-
Mobile AnalyticsTracks app behavior across supported platforms
-
12 capabilities compared.12 differentiating rows are shown first.
Use cases
Who they're built for
Smartlook
- Review mobile app user journeysWatch sessions to understand onboarding and feature adoption issues.
- Investigate funnel drop off pointsConnect dropped users to recordings for faster diagnosis.
- Analyze website events without developersDefine actions in the interface for clearer reporting.
Contentsquare
- Optimize ecommerce journeys at scaleFind costly friction across product discovery and checkout flows.
- Measure content engagement by zoneSee which page areas support or block conversion.
- Investigate journey anomalies with AIPrioritize unusual behavior changes before revenue impact grows.
The trade-offs
Pros & cons of each tool
Trade-offs
Smartlook
Pros
- Combines recordings events funnels and crash context
- Useful replay coverage across web and mobile
- Event creation reduces repeated developer dependency for teams
Cons
- End of Sale timing creates serious buyer risk
- Long-term roadmap should be confirmed before purchase
- Less suitable for fresh public launch recommendations
Trade-offs
Contentsquare
Pros
- Strong enterprise depth across experience analytics workflows
- AI recommendations help prioritize optimization opportunities across teams
- Broad product suite connects feedback and replay
Cons
- Implementation effort can feel heavy for smaller teams
- Module packaging may confuse first-time buyers during procurement
- Best value requires enough digital traffic and staffing
Final verdict
Contentsquare has the stronger catalog fit
Current catalog data gives Contentsquare more decision signals for this pair. Verify pricing, setup effort, and ecosystem fit before committing.
Differentiators available
Smartlook has 4 visible decision signals and Contentsquare has 4.
Score signal
Contentsquare has the higher SoftFinders Score in the current catalog data.
Choose Smartlook if…
- Review mobile app user journeys
- Investigate funnel drop off points
- Analyze website events without developers
- Session Recordings
Choose Contentsquare if…
- Optimize ecommerce journeys at scale
- Measure content engagement by zone
- Investigate journey anomalies with AI
- Journey Analysis
TRY THEM YOURSELF
See which one fits your workflow
Both tools have their strengths, the best way to decide is to spend a few minutes inside each.