In-depth: PostHog vs Matomo
Contents
PostHog and Matomo help you understand how your users are using your site and product, but they're very different tools below the surface:
Matomo focuses on tracking sessions, making it ideal for running analytics on large content and e-commerce websites. It's designed to look and feel similar to Google Analytics 3, AKA Universal Analytics.
PostHog can also replace Google Analytics, but it offers a wider suite of tools for product analytics, web analytics, session replays, feature flags, A/B testing, user surveys, and much more.
How is PostHog different from Matomo?
1. It's an all-in-one platform
Matomo charges extra for features like funnel analysis, cohorts, path analysis, A/B testing, and session recording. These are also considered add-ons and are not tightly integrated with the main analytics product. In PostHog, all of these tools work together and each comes with a generous free tier.
2. It's built for engineers
Rather than focusing on marketers like Matomo, PostHog focuses on the tools engineers need to build better products.
On top of product analytics, this includes A/B testing, feature flags, a complete API, direct SQL access, and more. PostHog also includes a data warehouse so you can import and query data from other sources as well as destinations to send your data to external warehouses or other tools.
3. Seamless integrations with the tools you already use
PostHog is built to work with the tools you already use.
That means you can import data and query from sources like Stripe, Hubspot, Zendesk, S3, and more. You can also export data in batches to your data warehouse like Snowflake or BigQuery as well as a range of real time destinations like Google Ads and Slack.
Feature comparison
Platform
Both PostHog and Matomo offer a range of tools for tracking and analyzing your site and product. PostHog offers more tools for understanding and improving your product, while Matomo focuses more on marketing analytics.
PostHog | Matomo | |
Product analytics Track events and conversion; analyze user behavior | ✔ | ✔ |
Web analytics Simple dashboard of aggregate traffic, sources, campaigns, and session metrics | ✔ | ✔ |
Session replay Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs | ✔ | ✔ |
Heatmaps Visualize where users click in your app or website | ✔ | ✔ |
Experiments Run A/B/n tests on new features, optimize conversion funnels | ✔ | ✔ |
Surveys Collect and analyze feedback, run NPS and PMF surveys | ✔ | ✖ |
Feature flags Roll out features safely, toggle features for cohorts or individuals | ✔ | ✖ |
Free tier Free forever option, no credit card required | ✔ | ✖ |
Free team members Number of users you can invite to your instance | Unlimited | 30 |
EU hosting Access and store your data in the EU | ✔ | ✔ |
Open source View code, comment on roadmap, and contribute | ✔ | ✔ |
Server-side SDKs Capture events and use features from Python, Node, and more | ✔ | ✔ |
Mobile SDKs Capture events and use features from Android, iOS, and more | ✔ | ✔ |
API Capture events, get stats, and make changes via API | ✔ | ✔ |
💡 Good to know: Matomo's first paid tier comes with 1,500 heatmap pageviews and 150 session recordings per month.
Web analytics
Both PostHog and Matomo offer all the features you expect from Google Analytics alternatives.
PostHog | Matomo | |
Pageviews Track visitors and their views | ✔ | ✔ |
Sessions Track unique sessions and their durations | ✔ | ✔ |
Traffic breakdown See where your visitors and conversions are coming from | ✔ | ✔ |
Conversions Track actions you want users to take | ✔ | ✔ |
Bounce rate See the percentage of users that leave after one pageview | ✔ |