The best FullStory alternatives & competitors, compared
Contents
FullStory made its name as a digital experience intelligence platform, combining session replay with product analytics, heatmaps, and frustration signal detection to help teams understand user behavior.
But, like every tool, FullStory has limitations: it doesn't include feature flags, A/B testing, or error tracking for example. If you're an engineering-focused team, you may want more developer tools than FullStory provides.
Whether you've outgrown FullStory, need a broader platform, or just want to compare options, this guide covers the best FullStory alternatives available today.
1. PostHog
- Founded: 2020
- Similar to: FullStory, Amplitude, LogRocket
- Typical users: Engineers and product teams
- Typical customers: Mid-size B2Bs and startups

What is PostHog?
PostHog (that's us 👋) is a developer platform combining product analytics, session replay, user surveys, heatmaps, feature flags, error tracking, and more into one product. This means it's not only an alternative to FullStory, but also tools like LaunchDarkly, Hotjar, and Amplitude.
Typical PostHog users are engineers and product managers at startups and mid-size companies, particularly B2B companies. Customers include Supabase, ElevenLabs, Lovable, and more.
Key features
Product analytics: Funnels, user paths, retention analysis, custom trends, and dynamic user cohorts. Also supports SQL insights for power users.
Session replays: Including event timelines, console logs, network activity, and 90-day data retention.
Surveys: Target surveys by event or person properties. Templates for Net Promoter Score (NPS), product-market fit (PMF) surveys, and more.
A/B tests: Up to 9 test variations, primary and secondary metrics. Automatically calculate test duration, sample size, and statistical significance.
Feature flags: Safely launch features with local evaluation (for faster performance) and JSON payloads.
Error tracking: Monitor exceptions, stack traces, and crashes, all connected directly to session replays, user behavior, and feature flag changes.
How does PostHog compare to FullStory?
PostHog goes beyond the feature set of FullStory. It matches key features like single snippet installation, user segmentation, and privacy options, while also having surveys, A/B testing, error tracking, and feature flags. As a (big) bonus, it's also free, self-serve, and open source.
Getting started takes minutes with PostHog's setup wizard, which walks you through installation step by step.
Main differences between PostHog and FullStory
- PostHog includes feature flags, A/B testing, error tracking, and LLM analytics; FullStory doesn't offer any of these natively.
- PostHog's session replay includes console logs, network monitoring, DOM explorer, and performance metrics; FullStory's replay focuses on frustration signals (rage clicks, dead clicks, error clicks) but lacks developer debugging tools.
- PostHog uses transparent, usage-based pricing with a generous free tier (1M events, 5,000 replays free); FullStory's paid plan pricing requires contacting sales.
- PostHog includes a built-in data warehouse for importing and querying external data from Stripe, Hubspot, Zendesk, and more; FullStory's data export options are more limited.
- PostHog offers SQL access for custom queries; FullStory doesn't support direct SQL querying.
Main similarities between PostHog and FullStory
- Both support event autocapture that starts collecting data immediately after installation.
- Both include product analytics with funnels, user paths, and conversion tracking.
- Both offer session replay and heatmaps for understanding user behavior.
- Both provide user privacy controls and data masking options.
- Both support web and mobile app analytics.
- Both integrate with third-party tools like Segment and Slack.
Why do companies use PostHog?
According to reviews on G2, companies use PostHog because:
It replaces multiple tools: PostHog can replace FullStory (session replay and analytics), LaunchDarkly (feature flags and A/B testing), and Userpilot (feedback and surveys). This simplifies workflows and ensures all product 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 they can use forever. Companies eligible for PostHog for Startups also get $50k in additional free credits.
They need a complete picture of users: PostHog includes every tool necessary 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 tests, and gathering feedback with user surveys.
Bottom line
PostHog provides all the tools of FullStory and more. Being self-serve with a generous free tier makes it an ideal alternative to try out. PostHog is an especially good fit for SaaS companies needing multiple tools to build the best product possible.
Install PostHog with one command
Paste this into your terminal and make AI do all the work.

2. Smartlook
- Founded: 2016
- Most similar to: Heap, FullStory
- Typical users: Engineers, business analysts, product managers
- Typical customers: Enterprise retail and ecommerce websites and apps

What is Smartlook?
Smartlook is an analytics platform that combines session replays with product analytics, visualizations, and crash reports to generate user insights. It focuses on mobile apps with specific tools like mobile heatmaps, native rendering, and wireframe mode.
Cisco acquired Smartlook in June 2023 to strengthen its AppDynamics and Full-Stack Observability offerings, though Smartlook continues to operate as a standalone product.
Key features
Session recordings: Understand how users are actually using your app and where issues occur.
Event-based analytics: See how often users behave in the ways important to you.
Heatmaps: Figure out the most popular parts of a page users click on and scroll to.
Funnels and paths: See how users move through your app with custom visuals for key flows.
Crash reports: Learn what happens before a crash without complex debugging or reproduction.
How does Smartlook compare to FullStory?
The feature sets of Smartlook and FullStory are nearly identical. The difference is that Smartlook focuses slightly more on product analytics, is self-serve, and adds crash reports.
Main differences between Smartlook and FullStory
- Smartlook specializes in mobile apps with native rendering, wireframe mode, and mobile-specific heatmaps; FullStory supports mobile but is more web-focused.
- Smartlook includes crash reporting tied directly to session replays; FullStory doesn't offer crash or error tracking.
- Smartlook is fully self-serve with transparent pricing starting at $55/month; FullStory's paid plans require contacting sales.
- FullStory offers more advanced frustration signal detection (rage clicks, dead clicks, error clicks); Smartlook's approach is more manual.
- Smartlook was acquired by Cisco in 2023 and is now part of their AppDynamics ecosystem; FullStory remains independent.
Main similarities between Smartlook and FullStory
- Both offer session replay and heatmaps for understanding user behavior.
- Both include product analytics with funnels, user paths, and conversion tracking.
- Both support event autocapture to reduce manual instrumentation.
- Neither offers feature flags or A/B testing natively.
- Both are designed to be accessible to non-technical teams.
- Both are closed-source, cloud-only platforms.
Why do companies use Smartlook?
According to G2 reviewers, Smartlook users benefit from:
The integration between replays and events: Smartlook connects event-based analytics and sessions. This enables users to dive deeper into user behavior than a single tool provides.
Understanding visitor pain points: The analytics and visualizations make it easy to understand where users are running into trouble. Reviews use this to improve the user experience and conversion in these areas.
Real user monitoring: Smartlook shows how real users are using your app and monitors the quality of their experiences. Reviewers use it to figure out what areas are confusing or used improperly.
Bottom line
Smartlook and FullStory have nearly the same focuses and features, with Smartlook offering a stronger mobile focus and transparent pricing. This makes it a great alternative for ecommerce and retail companies with native apps.
3. Amplitude
- Founded: 2012
- Most similar to: PostHog, LogRocket
- Typical users: Product managers, data analysts, marketing teams
- Typical customers: Mid-size and large enterprises

What is Amplitude?
Amplitude is one of the original product analytics tools. Many large enterprise customers, like Ford, NBCUniversal, and Walmart rely on it. In recent years, they've also added session replay, A/B testing, and a customer data platform to their offering.
Key features
Product analytics: Funnel and retention analysis, user paths, behavioral cohorts, custom dashboards, and more.
A/B testing: Test new features on specific targets and analyze with primary, secondary, and counter metrics.
Customer data platform: Combine analytics data with third-party tools for data governance, identity resolution, and data federation.
AI insight builder: Generate insights based on natural language requests, like "What is my purchase conversion rate?"
Session replay: Watch real user sessions with mobile support (iOS, Android).
How does Amplitude compare to FullStory?
Amplitude is analytics-first while FullStory is replay-first. Amplitude offers deeper analytics, A/B testing, and warehouse-native queries, but its autocapture is less comprehensive than FullStory's and its session replay is a newer addition.
Why do companies use Amplitude?
According to G2 reviews, Amplitude users appreciate three key aspects:
Simple to use: Amplitude makes it easy for non-technical users to get insights about their product and make improvements. Amplitude is built for users like product managers and marketers, making it a popular choice for them.
Built-in A/B testing: Unlike FullStory, Amplitude offers integrated experimentation features. This enables companies to run experiments on existing cohorts, and then analyze the data in a single place.
Become data-driven: Amplitude users appreciate it helps them become data-driven. It becomes easy to add data, visualize it, and make decisions. It makes data accessible to them.
Bottom line
Amplitude is a popular choice for product analytics with strong experimentation features, but lacks the depth of session replay and frustration detection that makes FullStory powerful. If you value A/B testing and deep analytics over replay-first UX insights, it can be a good choice.
4. Heap
- Founded: 2013
- Most similar to: FullStory, PostHog
- Typical users: Product and marketing teams
- Typical customers: B2C SaaS and ecommerce companies wanting to monitor and improve user experience.

What is Heap?
Heap describes itself as a digital insights platform. This means Heap offers both product analytics and session replay, and supports marketing use cases with multi-touch attribution.
Contentsquare, a marketing and ecommerce analytics firm, acquired Heap in September 2023 and has integrated the two products.
Key features
Event autocapture: Frees product teams from relying on engineers to instrument all events. Heap offers a visual editor for enables teams to tag on-page events for analysis.
Session replay: Augment Heap's analytics features with qualitative insights by replaying their session (although this lacks the debugging tools typical of most replay tools).
Heatmaps: See where users click, what point they scroll to, and the areas that get the most attention.
Analysis suggestions: Their advanced data science capabilities discover hidden interactions, friction points, and paths.
Managed ETL: Connect to data warehouses, so you can combine your analytics with other sources and get a fuller picture of the entire user journey.
How does Heap compare to FullStory?
Heap and FullStory both focus on user experience data and have many of the same features to do it. Autocapture is a main selling point for both.
FullStory leans more toward session replay and frustration signals, while Heap is stronger on the analytics side with its visual event editor and retroactive event definition.