ingobaab

BAAB Insights runs inside your WordPress admin. It builds an on-screen report (overview table, advisor tabs) and a JSON data block you can copy. For a more detailed report on the BAAB site, open https://baab.de/insights/ and paste your JSON there when you are ready (that step is optional and only happens if you copy data out of WordPress yourself).
What this version includes
<ul>
<li>Admin page under “BAAB Insights” (capability: <code>manage_options</code>)</li>
<li>One-click report generation (AJAX, same-site only) with database, object cache, media, and SSL advisors</li>
<li>Read-only JSON export with compact formatting for large lists</li>
<li>English source strings with German translations (<code>de_DE</code>)</li>
<li>Optional activation redirect to the plugin screen (single activation only)</li>
</ul>
Privacy and external connections
<ul>
<li>No phoning home: The plugin does not send analytics or telemetry to BAAB or any third party. No license pings, no usage tracking, no crash reporting.</li>
<li>Your data stays on your server unless you explicitly copy the JSON elsewhere.</li>
<li>Outbound HTTP(S) is limited to your own site’s URLs: optional HEAD requests to your configured home URL (HTTPS for HSTS detection, HTTP for redirect-to-HTTPS checks). This is not a call to the plugin author; it uses WordPress’s HTTP API to inspect your public responses.</li>
<li>For SSL details, the plugin may open a TLS connection to your site’s host to read the presented certificate (same host as your WordPress URL). By default, fields like certificate subject, SAN list, and full site URL are not included in the JSON export unless you opt in by defining <code>BAAB_DISABLE_SENSITIVE_OUTPUT</code> as <code>false</code> in code.</li>
</ul>
Optional commercial product
<ul>
<li>The admin screen may link to a PRO offering on the author’s site. The free plugin on WordPress.org remains fully functional for analysis; the PRO product is optional.</li>
<li>The web app for extended analysis based on your JSON export: https://baab.de/insights/</li>
</ul>

BAAB Insights

BAAB Insights analyzes your WordPress installation locally in the admin and helps you spot performance, database, cache, media, and SSL issues.

Hotjar

Hotjar helps you to connect the dots between what your users do and why—so you can confidently create and optimize user experiences that convert. See what your users see, ask how they feel, and connect 1:1, all from one powerful and intuitive platform.
Hotjar Observe:
<ul>
<li>Visualize user behavior – Heatmaps visually represent where users click, move, and scroll on your site. With this context, you’ll be inspired with simple ways to improve your site.</li>
<li>Put yourself in their shoes – Watch recordings of real user behavior on your site. See visitors’ clicks, mouse movements, u-turns, and rage clicks. Learn what frustrates users and resolve issues early.</li>
<li>Measure conversions and learn why users drop off – Visualize your conversion flows with Funnels, and understand where your users are getting stuck by zooming into relevant recordings.</li>
<li>Explore and understand your metrics – Trends connects the dots between numbers and user behavior insights so you can visualize your most important metrics and find the recordings and heatmaps of the underlying user behavior with a single click.</li>
</ul>
Hotjar Ask:
<ul>
<li>Hear from your users – Surveys bring voice-of-customer to your decision-making. Gathering evidence for a landing page or feature? Use a targeted Survey to validate your ideas and better understand your users.</li>
<li>Get feedback with context – A real-time suggestion box on your site, Feedback lets users express frustration or delight about individual parts of your site, right down to the page, form, or image they’re looking at.</li>
</ul>
Hotjar Engage:
<ul>
<li>Connect with users – Automate the recruitment, scheduling, and hosting of moderated user interviews, and focus on what matters the most—connecting with users.</li>
</ul>
Hotjar Platform:
<ul>
<li>Stay on top of your user metrics – Use your Dashboard to get a high-level view of user data and spot issues before they become serious, identify trends, and find deeper insights.</li>
<li>Integrate Hotjar with the tools you love – Connect Hotjar with thousands of popular apps, so you can automate your work and have more time for what matters most—no code required.</li>
</ul>
This plugin provides a simple installation of Hotjar on your WordPress site. <a href="https://insights.hotjar.com/register?utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=plugin" rel="nofollow ugc">Sign-up for your free trial today</a>!

The Hotjar plugin works as expected and it took less than a minute to get it up and running! The whole process was super smooth (and by "process" I mean simply copy-pasting my Hotjar site ID into Hotjar settings).

It's a 5 star plugin as is, but I'd love the addition of a user role restriction so I can exclude administrators from user recordings.

Up and running in a minute

It seems the data isn't sent to Hotjar, finally I prefer using the JS integration directly.

Plugin is not working


…Now it won't even correctly verify the installation. The tracking script was in my website yet the HotJar control panel claimed over and over that it wasn't when I tried to verify the installation. I tried FOUR different browsers, since it claimed that ad blocking in my primary browser was preventing it from working. The other 3 browsers have no ad-blocking extensions. Still no dice. I could see the requests reaching the site while trying to verify, and I even tested the requests that were made and, sure enough, the tracking script was installed.



So… I'm done. I'll find another way to tackle the task I needed to complete. My HotJar account is deleted and I will no longer be suggesting it to my customers.


Used to be good

The fast & visual way to understand your users.

BAAB Insights vs Hotjar