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In-depth: PostHog vs Heap

Jan 10, 2024

Want to know how PostHog and Heap compare? If you remember nothing else, remember these two points:

  1. Heap is a product analytics tool designed for non-technical users.

  2. PostHog is an all-in-one platform built for engineers that replaces Heap and numerous other tools.

How is PostHog different to Heap?

1. PostHog is an all-in-one platform

Heap, like Amplitude and Mixpanel, focuses mainly on product analytics. That means you need to adopt additional tools for things like feature management, A/B testing, and surveys. PostHog combines all these features into one platform, so you can spend less time integrating different tools and more time

2. PostHog's built for engineers

We support all popular (and some unpopular) SDKs, have extensively documented APIs, and a powerful SQL query builder, so you can analyze data how you want. We make it easy to test in production, conduct phased rollouts, run beta programs, and so much more.

3. Self-serve vs talk to sales

Signing up to PostHog is as simple as creating an account and adding our JavaScript snippet to your site or app. That's it. Want more features? Just put in a card and pay for what you use. We have a generous free tier, so you may not pay anything at all. No mandatory sales calls. No boring white papers in exchange for your email.

Comparing PostHog and Heap

Platform

PostHog includes everything you need to rollout, analyze, test, and observe new features – and gather feedback from your users.

PostHogHeap

Product analytics

Track events and conversion, analyze user behavior

Web analytics

Easy to use analytics for marketing websites

Beta

Session replay

Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs

Feature flags

Roll out features safely, toggle features for cohorts or individuals

Experiments

Run tests on new features, optimize conversion funnels

Surveys

Collect and analyze feedback, run NPS and PMF surveys

Customer data platform

Sync data with third-party tools

Beta

Data warehouse

A single source for all your important data

Beta

Heatmaps

Visualize where users click in your app or website

Notebooks

Ad-hoc analysis and collaboration

Dark mode

Choose between light and dark UI

Open source

Build your own apps and contribute code

Product analytics

Heap and PostHog offer similar product analytics features, but PostHog's SQL query editor makes it a more useful tool for power users. PostHog also has a more generous free tier.

PostHogHeap

Free usage

How much free usage do you get each month?

1 million events10k monthly tracked users

Autocapture

Capture events without manual logging

Query editor

Write your own queries in SQL

Group analytics

Track metrics at a company and account level

Dashboards

Combine insights into shareable dashboards

Graphs and trends

Build custom insights and visualizations

Funnels

Track users through a sequence of events

Retention

Visualize which users stay, for how long

User paths

Track user flows and where they drop-off

Cohorts

Combine users based on properties and events for group analysis

Lifecycle analysis

Understand who is dormant, churning, and thriving

Stickiness

Find out what events keep users coming back.

Custom formulas

Use formulas to calculate unique insights

Data retention

Use formulas to calculate unique insights

7 years1 year (pay for more)

Session replays

Session replays are an essential tool for understanding how people use your product, especially for early-stage companies searching for product-market fit. Both Heap and PostHog offer session replay, though Heap lacks many developer-facing features like a DOM explorer and network events.

PostHogHeap

Free usage

How much free usage do you get each month?

5,000 recordingsNone

Web app recordings

Capture recordings from single-page apps

Mobile app recordings

Capture recordings in iOS and Android apps

Beta

Identity detection

Link recordings to user IDs

Console logs

Capture extra content from a users' browser environment

Playlists

Sort recordings into static and dynamic playlists

Performance monitoring

Track network events within a session

Privacy masking

Censor personal information from playback

Conditional capture

Only capture the sessions you want

DOM explorer

Explore an interactive snapshot of replays

Export recordings

Save important recordings offline

Minimum duration

Only record sessions longer than the minimum duration

Sample recorded sessions

Restrict the percentage of sessions that will be recorded

Record via feature flag

Only record sessions for users that have the flag enabled

Feature flags

Feature flags make it easy to roll out features to specific users or groups, and safely test in production. Our feature flags are also tightly integrated with other features, so you can target session replays, surveys, and more using existing feature flags. See our guide on the benefits of feature flags for more.

PostHogHeap

Free usage

How much free usage do you get each month?

1 million API requestsn/a

Boolean flags

Simple flags returning true or flag

Multivariate flags

Flags with multiple customizable values

Payloads

Flags with string, number, or JSON payloads

Local evaluation

Store flag definitions locally

Percentage rollouts

Target percentages of a group

Custom targeting

Target users based on user properties, custom contexts

Scheduling

Schedule flags to turn on or off

Beta

Environments

Manage flags for dev, stage, prod

Partial

Bootstrapping

Flags available on frontend application load

Early access

Manage betas, test features

Experimentation

PostHog's offers a generous free 1 million A/B testing events. Heap doesn't support A/B testing, instead opting to integrate with several third-party tools.

PostHogHeap

Free usage

How much free usage do you get each month?

1 million API requestsn/a

Custom goals

Customize metrics that a test tracks

Secondary metrics

Monitor impact on unrelated metrics

Split testing

Split participants into groups

Multivariate (A/B/n) testing

Test multiple variants of a change

Statistical significance

Automatically checks for statistical significance

Recommended run time

Calculates the recommended run time and sample size

Holdout testing

Withhold multiple features to measure cumulative impact

Partialn/a

Statistics engine

How the results of an experiment are calculated

Bayesiann/a

Integrations

PostHog and Heap both offer a wide range if integrations, but only PostHog enables you to build you own custom integrations thanks to our open-source license. Below is snapshot of integrations, see our data pipeline docs for a full list of PostHog integrations.

PostHogHeap

Imports

Import data from data warehouses and other sources

Exports

Export data to data warehouses other destinations

Community integrations

Build your own integrations

Segment

Send events via Segment

Rudderstack

Send events via Rudderstack

Zapier

Trigger Zapier automations

Sentry

Connect to Sentry data

Zendesk

Two-way integration for customer support

Slack

Alerts for Slack

Hubspot

CRM and marketing tools

Customer.io

Marketing automation

Intercom

Marketing automation

Security and compliance

PostHogHeap

User privacy options

Anonymize users, drop personal data

History, audit logs

Manage and view flag edits and related users

GDPR-ready

Can be compliant with GDPR

HIPAA-ready

Can be compliant with HIPAA

SOC 2

SOC 2 security certification

2FA

Enforce login with two-factor authentication

SAML/SSO

Use SAML or single sign-on authentication

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to deploy PostHog?

Deploying PostHog takes mere minutes. Just include our tracking snippet in your product or website and (thanks to autocapture) you're immediately capturing events. Once up and running, you can enable session replays and other features via your project settings. See our guide to getting started on PostHog Cloud for more info.

Can PostHog also replace Google Analytics?

Yes. PostHog can replace Google Analytics for many use cases – our marketing team uses PostHog, for example. You can integrate PostHog into your website using Google Tag Manager. See our comparison of PostHog and Google Analytics 4 and an intro to PostHog for Google Analytics users for more.

How can I estimate my usage?

The easiest way is to sign up to PostHog, integrate our snippet, then check the projection on your billing page after a few days. Alternatively, you can guesstimate by multiplying your current monthly active users by an estimate of events generated per user – 50 to 100 per user is a good starting point. See Estimating usage & costs in our docs for more.

Does PostHog block bots by default?

Yes. See the full blocklist in our docs.

What about ad blockers?

We recommend all users deploy a reverse proxy, which enables you send events to PostHog Cloud using your own domain. Events sent from your own domain and are less likely to be intercepted by tracking blockers, ensuring you capture the best data possible. We have reverse proxy setup guides for AWS Cloudfront, Caddy, Cloudflare, Netlify, Vercel, and more, in our docs.

Can I use PostHog with a CDP? (Segment, Rudderstack, etc.)

Yes. See Using PostHog with a CDP in our docs.

Can you use PostHog on e-commerce websites?

Absolutely. PostHog is easy to integrate with Shopify. You can easily install PostHog on other e-commerce platforms using our Javascript snippet – see our guides to setting up Webflow analytics and Wordpress.

How does PostHog compare to Amplitude and Mixpanel?

Amplitude and Mixpanel offer similar features to Heap. Read our PostHog vs Mixpanel and PostHog vs Amplitude guides for more info. You may also find guide to the most popular Heap alternatives useful.


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