The most popular PostHog alternatives, compared
Contents
As an all-in-one platform, PostHog replaces a lot of legacy tools. PostHog is great if you:
- Need quantitative and qualitative insights into user behavior
- Want easy control over new features roll outs, kill switches, and feature gating
- Desire one integrated tool over a complex stack of discrete solutions
This guide is an overview of some popular alternatives to PostHog, how they compare, and why people choose PostHog.
Note: User reviews and comments are hand curated from G2.com
Amplitude
- Founded: 2012
- Similar to: Mixpanel, Heap
- Best known for: Product analytics
- Useful for: Product managers, growth and marketing teams
Amplitude is most known as a product analytics platform, though it also offers separate A/B testing and Customer Data Platform products. Here's how Amplitude describes itself:
"We are a digital analytics platform. We help every business optimize the business value of digital product innovation. We’re the competitive edge to not only survive—but thrive—in the new era."
Amplitude vs PostHog summary
Amplitude | PostHog | ||
Product analytics | ✔ | ✔ | Analyze user behavior |
Autocapture | ✖ | ✔ | Fast to implement |
Session replay | ✖ | ✔ | Watch real user sessions |
Feature flags | ✖ | ✔ | Manage feature access and rollouts |
A/B testing | ✔ | ✔ | CRO and test in production |
Group analytics | ✔ | ✔ | Analyze groups (e.g. companies and teams) |
SQL access | ✔ | ✔ | Write your own queries and filters |
Transparent pricing | ✖ | ✔ | Know exactly what you'll pay |
Billing limits | ✖ | ✔ | Prevent surprise bills |
Open source | ✖ | ✔ | Open core, build your own integrations |
Cute hedgehogs | ✖ | ✔ | Joy |
Key differences
Breadth of features: PostHog combines product analytics, session replay, feature management, and A/B testing into one integrated platform. Amplitude is primarily a product analytics tool, and doesn't include any session replay capability.
Marketing use cases: Amplitude offers more useful features for marketing teams, such as predictive forecasting, and multi-touch attribution. PostHog is primarily designed for technical users, and product teams.
Free tier: PostHog offers a generous 1 million events and 5k session recordings for free. Amplitude's free plan is limited to 100k monthly tracks users, and doesn't include important features, such as cohorts or data tables.
What people like about Amplitude
Users consistently praise Amplitude's range of visualizations:
"One of the features that I appreciate the most is the wide range of graphs and visualizations available. I can create insightful visualizations with just a few clicks."
"Amplitude is built in such a way it eases you into doing data analysis and making sense of the data. It allows for simple analysis to really advanced stuff."
Users also praise its accessibility for non-technical users, such as marketing and UX designers:
"Its user-friendly interface makes it an ideal tool for Marketing teams to navigate effortlessly."
"As a senior product designer... for the first time, I feel comfortable exploring data.
What people dislike about Amplitude
High prices are a frequent complaint:
"The high price tag poses a challenge for small businesses, early-stage, and even medium-sized startups.
"I'd like some more flexibility on their startup programs, pricing seems a little tight for up-and-coming companies. The pricing structure on the website shouldn't always redirect you to sales."
More technical users sometimes find it inflexible and the documentation lacking:
"My primary gripe with Amplitude has always been its documentation, which was scattered across 2 or 3 websites, leading to fragmented content."
"I do feel amplitude makes it difficult to parse out nuanced information on data. For more technical people, like myself, SQL is better for really digging into data."
**Read more: The best Amplitude alternatives, compared
Mixpanel
- Founded: 2009
- Similar to: Amplitude, Heap
- Best known for: Product analytics
- Useful for: Product managers and growth teams
Mixpanel is purely focused on product analytics, going so far as to shut down other popular products it offered to renew its focus on analytics. According to Mixpanel, it lets you:
"...explore data freely, without SQL. Set up your metrics to measure growth and retention. Slice and dice data to uncover trends and see live updates on how people are using your app."
Mixpanel vs PostHog summary
Mixpanel | PostHog | ||
Product analytics | ✔ | ✔ | Analyze user behavior |
Autocapture | ✖ | ✔ | Easy to implement |
Session replay |