The most popular Amplitude alternatives & competitors, compared
Nov 29, 2023
Contents
1. PostHog
- Founded: 2020
- Most similar to: Amplitude, Heap, Pendo
- Typical users: Engineers, product, and growth teams
- Typical customers: Mid-size product-focused B2Bs and startups
What is PostHog?
PostHog (that's us ๐) is an open-source platform combining product analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, and user surveys into one product. This means it's not just an alternative to Amplitude, but also tools like LaunchDarkly and FullStory.
Typical PostHog users are engineers, founders, and product managers at startups and mid-size companies, particularly B2B companies. Customers include AssemblyAI, Hasura, Vendasta, and Airbus.
Key features
๐ Product analytics: Funnels, user paths, retention analysis, custom trends, and dynamic user cohorts. Also supports SQL insights for power users.
๐งช A/B tests: Up to 9 test variations, primary and secondary metrics. Automatically calculate test duration, sample size, and statistical significance.
๐บ Session replays: Including event timelines, console logs, network activity, and 90-day data retention.
๐ฌ Surveys: Target surveys by event or person properties. Templates for net promoter score (NPS), product-market fit (PMF) surveys, and more.
๐ฉ Feature flags: Rollout features safely with local evaluation (for faster performance) and JSON payloads.
How does PostHog compare to Amplitude?
PostHog | Amplitude | |
Self-serve Free to try, no mandatory sales calls | โ | โ |
Product analytics Filter and visualize data with trends, funnels, paths, and retention analysis | โ | โ |
Web analytics Simple dashboard of aggregated traffic, sources, campaigns, and session metrics | โ | โ |
Autocapture Capture events without manual instrumentation | โ | โ |
Group analytics Track metrics at the account or company level | โ | โ |
A/B testing Run multivariate tests and see the impact of changes with custom goals and reports | โ | โ |
Feature flags Deploy features safely with targeting, percentage rollouts, and instant rollbacks | โ | โ |
Session replay Watch real users on your site; discover friction points | โ | โ |
Integrations Import from and export to external services | โ | โ |
EU Cloud Store your data in the EU to comply with privacy regulations | โ | โ |
Open source Audit code, contribute to roadmap, and build integrations | โ | โ |
How popular is PostHog?
According to BuiltWith, as of January 2024, 4,732 (0.5%) of the top 1 million websites deploy PostHog. This is roughly half as popular as Amplitude's 10,678.
Why do companies use PostHog?
According to reviews on G2, companies use PostHog because:
It replaces multiple tools: PostHog replaces Amplitude (analytics), LaunchDarkly (feature flags and A/B testing), and Hotjar (feedback and surveys). This simplifies workflows and ensures all their data is in one place.
Pricing is transparent and scalable: Reviewers appreciate how PostHog's pricing scales as they grow. There's a generous free tier. Companies eligible for PostHog for Startups also get $50k in additional free credits.
They need a complete picture of users: PostHog includes the necessary tools to understand users and improve products. This means creating funnels to track conversion, watching replays to see where users get stuck, testing solutions with A/B/n tests, and gathering feedback with user surveys.
Bottom line
Having all the features of Amplitude (and more) while being free, self-serve, and open source makes PostHog a great alternative. This is especially true for engineering-focused startups and scale-ups as it provides the tools to build a great product.
2. Mixpanel
- Founded: 2009
- Most similar to: Heap, Amplitude, Smartlook
- Typical users: Product managers, designers, and marketing teams
- Typical customers: Mid to large B2C and B2B companies
What is Mixpanel?
Mixpanel is one of the most popular product analytics tools on the market. Founded in 2009, in recent years it's deprecated additional features, such as A/B testing, to focus on product analytics alone. Their tools enable teams to easily connect to and analyze data from their data warehouse, CDP, and application(s).
Key features
๐ Product analytics: Track user behavior, KPIs, and core metrics with trends, retention, and flows.
๐ Collaborative boards: Build analysis in collaborative boards that can include reports, text, videos, and GIFs. Embed these boards in other tools.
๐จ Alerts: Get automated notifications when there are anomalies in metrics or if they fall outside a positive or negative range.
๐ Filtered data views: Hide and filter data on a per-team basis to reduce noise and separate data for privacy reasons.
How does Mixpanel compare to Amplitude?
Mixpanel and Amplitude are the original product analytics platforms and have battled for many years. Over time, Amplitude has added more features while Mixpanel remains focused on its key product analytics use cases.
Mixpanel | Amplitude | |
Self-serve Free to try, no mandatory sales calls | โ | โ |
Product analytics Filter and visualize data with trends, funnels, paths, and retention analysis | โ | โ |
Web analytics Simple dashboard of aggregated traffic, sources, campaigns, and session metrics | โ | โ |
Autocapture Capture events without manual instrumentation | โ | โ |
Group analytics Track metrics at the account or company level | โ | โ |
A/B testing Run multivariate tests and see the impact of changes with custom goals and reports | Manual | โ |
Feature flags Deploy features safely with targeting, percentage rollouts, and instant rollbacks | โ | โ |
Session replay Watch real users on your site; discover friction points | โ | โ |
Integrations Import from and export to external services | โ | โ |
EU Cloud Store your data in the EU to comply with privacy regulations | โ | โ |
Open source Audit code, contribute to roadmap, and build integrations | โ | โ |
How popular is Mixpanel?
According to BuiltWith, 6,300 of the top one million sites use Mixpanel as of January 2024. This is less than Amplitude's 10,678.
Why do companies use Mixpanel?
Looking at G2 reviews, companies choose Mixpanel to:
Eliminate the need for data analysts: Mixpanel helps reviewers structure large volumes of data, and make data-driven decisions, reducing their reliance on dedicated data analysts to produce insights.
Track and target campaigns: Marketers appreciate the ability to create user segments and target specific users, enabling more personalized campaigns and improved user engagement.
Understand user behavior: In common with most analytics tools, Mixpanel's users mostly want to understand user behavior, identify bottlenecks, and monitor core metrics like conversion rates, activation, and retention.
Bottom line
Mixpanel has been a top alternative for Amplitude as long as the two have existed. It's great if you only want product analytics, but if you are looking beyond that, there are likely better choices.
3. Pendo
- Founded: 2013
- Most similar to: PostHog, LogRocket
- Typical users: Product managers and customer success teams
- Typical customers: Product-focused small and mid-market B2C apps
What is Pendo?
Pendo describes itself as a product experience platform. It helps teams improve their user and custom experience. It does this through the combination of product analytics, session replay, in-app guides, user feedback, and product validation tools.
Key features
๐ Product analytics: Funnels, trends, and retention analysis with event autocapture.
๐ฆฎ In-app guides: Deliver personalized guidance to customers, directly inside your app.
๐ User feedback: Capture and analyze customer feedback at scale.
๐บ๏ธ Product validation and roadmaps: Plan your product improvements and roadmap using data from Pendo.
How does Pendo compare to Amplitude?
Pendo doesn't have as deep of product analytics functionality and doesn't include A/B testing or experimentation. It focuses more on in-app guides, feedback, and other product tools (which Amplitude doesn't include). Pendo's inclusion of session replay is also a big difference.
Pendo | Amplitude | |
Self-serve Free to try, no mandatory sales calls | โ | โ |
Product analytics Filter and visualize data with trends, funnels, paths, and retention analysis | โ | โ |
Web analytics Simple dashboard of aggregated traffic, sources, campaigns, and session metrics | โ |