# Smartlook Is Shutting Down: Where to Go Smartlook is being shut down: there have been no new subscriptions since 31 May 2026 and no renewals after 31 August 2026, and Smartlook's own page says the platform will be deactivated on 30 September 2027, with remaining data deleted ([Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/)). Its official successor is Splunk's Digital Experience Analytics; if you want recordings elsewhere, Microsoft Clarity, Contentsquare (which Hotjar is now part of), FullStory, Mouseflow, PostHog and Inspectlet all have free tiers, and if you mainly wanted to watch visitors as they arrive, whoisbrowsing is free and stores nothing. ## The Smartlook timeline | Date | What happens | Source | |---|---|---| | 31 March 2026 | End-of-life announced | [Cisco notice](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/software/smartlook-com-eol.html) | | 31 May 2026 | End of sale: "No new Smartlook subscriptions will be sold." | [Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/) | | 31 August 2026 | End of renewals: "No further renewals or expansions will be sold." | [Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/) | | 31 August 2027 | Last day of support; end of remaining paid subscriptions | [Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/), [Cisco notice](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/software/smartlook-com-eol.html) | | 30 September 2027 | "The Smartlook platform will be deactivated; all remaining customer data will be securely deleted" | [Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/) (this date is not in Cisco's notice) | As of today (21 October 2026), the sale and renewal dates have passed. Smartlook says "any paid Smartlook subscription will terminate at the end of its current plan or its next renewal date", and once it ends "you will have access to the Smartlook Free plan until 30 September 2027" ([Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/)). ## Do this before your plan ends 1. **Export your data.** Smartlook says "we strongly recommend that you export your data before your paid subscription ends", and that you can copy data through the Smartlook APIs. It also says "Splunk will not be migrating any historical data from the Smartlook platform" ([Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/)). 2. **Decide what you actually used.** Recordings and heatmaps for UX research? Funnels? Or mostly glancing at who was on the site? The answer picks your replacement. 3. **Run the new tool alongside Smartlook** for a few weeks, so you are not blind on the day you remove the old snippet. ## The official successor Smartlook's page names "Digital Experience Analytics, part of the Splunk Observability Cloud" and says session replay, heatmaps and funnel analysis continue there; your current subscription does not transfer automatically ([Smartlook](https://www.smartlook.com/pricing/)). Cisco's end-of-life notice lists "Splunk Observability Cloud - RUM+DXA" as the migration product ([Cisco notice](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/software/smartlook-com-eol.html)). For teams already on Splunk, that is the path of least change. ## Alternatives if you need recordings | Tool | Free option, per the vendor | Source | |---|---|---| | Microsoft Clarity | "A free service forever"; recordings, heatmaps, funnels, plus live recordings | [Clarity overview](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/clarity/setup-and-installation/about-clarity), [live docs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/clarity/session-recordings/clarity-real-time) | | Contentsquare (Hotjar is now part of it) | Free plan, up to 200k monthly sessions, 1 month of data; replays capture 5% of sessions (max 10k) | [Contentsquare pricing](https://contentsquare.com/pricing/), [Hotjar page](https://contentsquare.com/hotjar/) | | FullStory | Free: 30,000 sessions a month, up to 10 users, 12 months of replay retention | [FullStory Free](https://www.fullstory.com/free) | | Mouseflow | Free Forever: 500 sessions a month, 1 website, 1 month retention; tracking stops at the cap | [Mouseflow pricing](https://mouseflow.com/pricing) | | PostHog | 5,000 web recordings free every month, no credit card | [PostHog replay pricing](https://posthog.com/session-replay/pricing) | | Inspectlet | Free: 2,500 recorded sessions a month across up to 3 websites, 1 month retention | [Inspectlet plans](https://www.inspectlet.com/plans) | | Lucky Orange | No free plan listed; 7-day trial, from $32 a month paid annually | [Lucky Orange pricing](https://www.luckyorange.com/pricing) | Free tiers change, so check each page before you commit. Two notes from the vendors' own pages: Mouseflow says tracking stops at the cap until your next refill, and FullStory lists features its free plan does not include, such as Go-Live and dashboards ([FullStory Free](https://www.fullstory.com/free)). ## If you only needed the live part Some teams open a session tool mostly to see who is on the site at the moment: during a launch, after a newsletter, or while an ad is running. If that was you, you may not need a recording archive at all. whoisbrowsing is a live-only view. You open your own site and every current visitor is drawn on the real page: a coloured cursor with a fading trail, clicks as ripples, a see-through band for phone and tablet visitors, and arrows for anyone scrolled out of view. A side panel shows live counts per page and one line per person: page, source (Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, another site's link, or direct), approximate city, device, browser, operating system, time on site and pages this visit. The dashboard can send a browser notification when someone new arrives, from the dashboard tab you keep open. See [how it works](/how-it-works). It is free, with no credit card and no usage limits for now. It sets no cookies on your visitors, and "nothing about your visitors is stored on our servers." The install is one tag: ```html ``` Start on [/try](/try) without an account, or use the [install guides](/install). ## When whoisbrowsing is not the right replacement Be honest with yourself about what Smartlook did for you. whoisbrowsing is the wrong pick if you need: - **recordings, heatmaps or funnels** to review later; nothing is kept, so if you were not watching, it is gone; - **visitors from Europe**: visitors from the EU/EEA, UK and Switzerland, and browsers with Global Privacy Control, are never shown; - **reports for a team**, with history to compare week over week. For those, pick from the recording tools above, or stay on the Splunk path. You can still add whoisbrowsing beside any of them for the live view; it is under 4 KB gzipped and loads with `defer`. ## Related reading - [Clarity live users vs whoisbrowsing](/learn/microsoft-clarity-live-vs-whoisbrowsing) - [Hotjar live view: what to use instead](/learn/hotjar-live-view-alternative) - [Best live visitor tools in 2026](/learn/best-live-visitor-tools) - All comparisons on [/compare](/compare), and what we collect on [privacy](/privacy). Home: [whoisbrowsing](/) ## Frequently asked questions ### When does Smartlook shut down? Smartlook's own page says the platform will be deactivated on 30 September 2027, and that all remaining customer data will be securely deleted. New sales ended on 31 May 2026 and renewals on 31 August 2026. ### Can I keep using Smartlook for free until then? Smartlook says that once a paid subscription ends, you will have access to the Smartlook Free plan until 30 September 2027. ### Will my Smartlook data move to the replacement? No. Smartlook's page says Splunk will not migrate any historical data, and strongly recommends exporting your data, for example through the Smartlook APIs, before your paid subscription ends. ### What is the official Smartlook replacement? Smartlook points to Digital Experience Analytics, part of the Splunk Observability Cloud. Cisco's end-of-life notice lists Splunk Observability Cloud RUM+DXA as the migration product. ### Is whoisbrowsing a Smartlook replacement? Only for the live part. whoisbrowsing shows who is on your site right now and stores nothing, so it has no recordings, heatmaps, funnels or history. If you need those, use one of the recording tools in this guide.