Google Analytics vs Microsoft Clarity

Pick Google Analytics if you need the broad quantitative picture: how much traffic you get, which channels and campaigns drive it, and whether visitors convert. It is the right call if you run Google Ads or care about organic search, because it plugs straight into Google Ads, Search Console, and Merchant Center, with BigQuery export when you outgrow the interface. Its product-analytics events and custom dashboards let you build the funnel and retention views Clarity doesn't offer. If you can only set up one tool this week, make it this one, the standard tier is free and it's the closest thing to an industry default for web measurement.

Pick Microsoft Clarity if your question is behavioural rather than numerical: why is this page converting badly, where are people getting stuck, what are they rage-clicking? It is entirely free with no session, traffic, or seat limits and no paid tier to graduate into, which is rare in this category, session replay tools normally start metering you fast. For a lean B2B team it's the fastest way to watch real visitors move through your site without a research budget. It won't tell you where your traffic comes from or give you a conversion dashboard, so treat it as the diagnostic layer that sits alongside GA4, not a replacement for it.