# PostHog vs Optimizely in-depth tool comparison - [ ![](https://res.cloudinary.com/dmukukwp6/image/upload/c_scale,w_50/ian_31bf16ef7d_c3339bc255) Ian Vanagas](/community/profiles/29296.md) Nov 07, 2023 - [Comparisons](/blog/comparisons.md) PostHog and Optimizely are both multi-product tools to help you improve your apps and websites. Beyond experimentation and feature flags, they have significantly different focuses: - PostHog helps you build better products with tools like [product analytics](/product-analytics.md), [session replay](/session-replay.md), and [surveys](/surveys.md). - [Optimizely](/blog/best-optimizely-alternatives.md) is an all-in-one system for marketing that includes content management, campaign planning, asset management, and checkout customizations. This post compares their platforms, experimentation features, reporting, pricing, and more. ## How is PostHog different than Optimizely? ### 1\. Product and startup-focused PostHog is built for high-growth startups working to build the best possible products. It's easy to get started and provides all the tools you need at an early stage. There's a generous free plan and [startups](/startups.md) get free credits. Optimizely focuses on providing marketing, ecommerce, and content tools to massive enterprises. It has fewer product focused tools. ### 2\. Transparent, free, and self-service PostHog is open source. Everything from our [code](https://github.com/PostHog/posthog) to [roadmap](/roadmap.md) to [strategy](/handbook.md) is open for everyone to see. Along with this, you can [sign up for PostHog for free](https://app.posthog.com/). You don’t need to fill out a contact form, add a credit card, or have a sales call. You can use PostHog for free forever if you want. Optimizely is open about some areas, like roadmap and its SDKs, but you have to talk to sales before signing up. ### 3\. Analytics and reporting built-in PostHog links all its tools together. This means you get all the features and visualizations of product analytics for your feature flags and A/B tests. You can use them in [trends](/docs/product-analytics/trends.md), [funnels](/docs/product-analytics/funnels.md), and even directly query related metrics with [SQL](/docs/product-analytics/sql.md). Optimizely has some analytics, such as web marketing, but largely relies on Google Analytics for tracking and reporting. This limits the analysis you can do related to your feature flags and experiments. ## Platform Although both Optimizely and PostHog provide experimentation and feature flags, their overall platforms are significantly different. Optimizely **Open source** Audit code, contribute to roadmap, and build integrations ✓ ✗ **Self-serve** No need to talk to sales ✓ ✗ [**Experiments**](/experiments.md) Run statistically rigorous A/B/n tests and validate ideas with confidence ✓ ✓ [**Feature Flags**](/feature-flags.md) Control feature access with precision and safely roll out changes ✓ ✓ [**Product Analytics**](/product-analytics.md) Track usage, retention, and feature adoption with comprehensive analytics ✓ Warehouse-native only [**Web Analytics**](/web-analytics.md) Privacy-focused web analytics with real-time data and no sampling ✓ ✓ [**Session Replay**](/session-replay.md) Watch real user sessions to understand behavior and fix issues ✓ ✗ [**Surveys**](/surveys.md) Collect product feedback with no-code surveys and customizable targeting ✓ ✗ **CMS** Manage content ✗ ✓ **Cart optimization** Optimize ecommerce checkouts ✗ ✓ **Project management** Manage projects related to experiments ✗ ✓ Want to just try it already? (Sorry for the shameless CTA.) [Try PostHog - free](https://us.posthog.com/signup)[Schedule a demo](/talk-to-a-human.md) - The big platform difference between the two beyond marketing vs product features is **analytics**. Optimizely relies on external analytics providers like Google and [Adobe Analytics](/blog/best-adobe-analytics-alternatives.md) to track feature flags and A/B tests. PostHog has a full analytics suite built-in, including [autocapture](/docs/product-analytics/autocapture.md), [custom events](/docs/getting-started/send-events.md#2-capture-custom-events), direct SQL access, and more. - Being a marketing-focused platform, Optimizely includes project and content management tools like request forms, asset libraries, and hypothesis briefs. PostHog leaves the planning to the other tools you are using but does include notebooks for analysis. ## Web experimentation Optimizely splits its experimentation features into two separate categories, web and feature. We will compare both separately against PostHog. The core web experimentation features like traffic allocation, preview mode, cross-browser, dynamic website support, targeting, and more are available in both Optimizely and PostHog Optimizely **Multivariate (A/B/n) testing** Test multiple variables simultaneously to find optimal combinations ✓ ✓ **Custom targeting** Target users by properties and other attributes ✓ ✓ **Custom goals** Define your own goals and metrics to track ✓ ✓ **Single-page app support** Use app frameworks like React and Vue ✓ ✓ **No-code experiments** Modify your website and run experiments without writing code Beta ✓ **Low-code experiments** Implement experiments with a small amount of code ✓ ✓ **Funnel metrics** Track conversion rates across multi-step journeys, like signup flows or checkout ✓ ✓ **built\_in\_analytics** ✗ **Flag scheduling** Schedule flags to turn on or off automatically at specified times ✓ ✓ **Use external data** Use data from other platforms in experiments ✓ ✓ - In Optimizely, many features of web experiments, like scheduling, multi-armed bandits, [multi-variate testing](/tutorials/abn-testing.md), and advanced personalization are only available on the higher-tier "Accelerate" plan or as add-ons. - PostHog doesn't offer a no-code experiment creator yet, but it does have a UI to create and manage experiments as well as snippets to make it easy to implement them. For example, you can add a basic experiment anywhere you can insert custom JavaScript like this: HTML PostHog AI ```html ``` ## Feature experimentation Feature experimentation relates to releasing and testing feature changes in your product. Both Optimizely and PostHog have all the core features to do this safely and effectively. Optimizely **Boolean flags** Simple on/off flags to enable or disable features ✓ ✓ **Percentage-based rollouts** Roll out features gradually to a percentage of users ✓ ✓ **Custom targeting** Target features based on user properties and attributes ✓ ✓ **Flag usage logs** Track how many times a feature flag has been called ✓ ✓ **Audience builder** Known as cohorts in PostHog ✓ ✓ **Custom attributes** Known as properties in PostHog ✓ ✓ **Statistical significance** Automatic calculation of statistical significance with configurable confidence levels ✓ ✓ **Statistics engine** How the results of an experiment are calculated Bayesian or Frequentist Frequentist with sequential testing **Remote config** Replace hard-coded values in your app with remotely configurable parameters ✓ ✓ **Multi-environment support** Use the same flag key across PostHog projects for local development or staging Partial ✓ In Optimizely, many of the feature experimentation features, like multi-armed bandits and custom segmentation, are only available in higher tier plans. These are all available for free in PostHog. ## Pricing PostHog and Optimizely are very different here. Optimizely is sales-driven and completely opaque. PostHog is self-serve and transparent. Optimizely **Transparent pricing** Clear, upfront pricing with no hidden fees ✓ ✗ **Usage-based pricing** Only pay for what you use ✓ ✗ **Free tier** Generous free tier available ✓ ✗ **Per-product pricing** Separate pricing for each product ✓ ✓ For many Optimizely products, there are also paid add-ons like advanced personalization, the data platform, and their Salesforce integration. PostHog only has free and paid tiers for each product, plus platform packages for SSO, dedicated support, and advanced permissions. Want to just try it already? (Sorry for the shameless CTA.) [Try PostHog - free](https://us.posthog.com/signup)[Schedule a demo](/talk-to-a-human.md) ## Reporting Although Optimizely has web analytics through its content marketing platform, it relies on Google Analytics or other third-party analytics providers for advanced tracking and reporting. PostHog’s product analytics suite shines here. It treats feature flags and experiments as usage, so you can analyze them like any other user behavior. On top of standard experiment results, you can use visualizations like trends, funnels, user paths, and even direct SQL access. Optimizely **Native analytics** Track experiments without the use of third parties ✓ ✗ **Segment results** Break results down for segments ✓ ✓ **Secondary metrics** Monitor impact on unrelated metrics ✓ ✓ **Winner** Calculate the winning experiment variant ✓ ✓ **Custom insights** Query and customize analytics ✓ ✗ [**Graphs & trends**](/trends.md) Build custom insights and visualizations ✓ Warehouse-native only [**Funnels**](/funnels.md) Track users through a sequence of events to find drop-off and improve conversion ✓ Warehouse-native only **Confidence interval** Show confidence in results ✓ ✓ [**Session Replay**](/session-replay.md) Watch real user sessions to understand behavior and fix issues ✓ ✗ Another bonus of PostHog is the ability to view user sessions related to feature flags and experiments. You can see directly how they respond to new features and changes as well as how it affects the rest of their session. ## SDKs and API PostHog and Optimizely both support similar languages and frameworks with SDKs, as well as provide an API for interacting with data. Optimizely **SDKs** Number of SDKs available 14 14 **Client-side SDKs** Capture events and use features from JavaScript, React, and more ✓ ✓ **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 ✓ ✓ **OTT** Over-the-top TV applications ✗ ✓ **API** Capture events, get stats, and make changes via API ✓ ✓ ## Integrations PostHog’s integrations are free while Optimizely often requires a subscription to their data platform "enhancement." Optimizely **Google Analytics** Connect with Google Analytics data ✗ ✓ **Salesforce** Sync event and person data ✓ Add-on [**CDP**](/cdp.md) Ingest, transform, and send data between 145+ tools ✓ ✓ **Zapier** Trigger Zapier automations ✓ ✗ **Segment** Send events via Segment ✓ ✓ **exports** ✓ ✓ **Amazon S3** Export data to a S3 bucket ✓ ✓ **Snowflake** Export data to Snowflake database ✓ ✓ **BigQuery** Export data to Google BigQuery for analysis ✓ ✓ **Slack** Alerts and notifications for Slack ✓ ✓ **Microsoft Teams** Alerts and notifications for Microsoft Teams ✓ ✓ PostHog’s [data warehouse](/docs/data-warehouse.md) further expands these destinations by enabling you to use data from these sources directly in PostHog. ## Privacy, admin, & security Both PostHog and Optimizely have the privacy and compliance tools users expect. Optimizely **Change history** Trail of changes to data Scale ✓ **SAML/SSO** Use SAML or single sign-on authentication Scale ✓ **2FA** Enforce login with two-factor authentication ✓ ✓ **Role-based access control** Control access to features and data based on user roles and permissions Enterprise ✓ **GDPR-ready** Can be compliant with GDPR ✓ ✓ **Cookieless tracking option** Track users without cookies ✓ ✗ **DPA available** Data Processing Agreement ✓ ✓ ## Frequently asked questions ### How difficult is it to implement Optimizely? At its most simple, Optimizely’s web experimentation product requires adding a single script to your app. Their feature experimentation product is similarly simple, only requiring installing an SDK in your product and setting up the experiment logic. To get full usage data and reporting, Optimizely also requires the implementation and connection of a third-party analytics tool like Google Analytics. Optimizely’s other features are more complicated to set up, requiring a connection with your website, content system, or ecommerce software. ### How difficult is it to implement PostHog? You can access all of the features of PostHog, including feature flags and A/B testing, by installing a single script or SDK. There is no need to set up multiple scripts or SDKs for the different products. Adding the specific logic for flags or A/B tests is as simple as a couple of lines of code. You can even implement them in no-code site builders like [Webflow](/tutorials/webflow.md) and [Framer](/tutorials/framer-analytics.md). ### Who is PostHog useful for? PostHog is useful for startups looking for all the tools they need to be a successful product. Companies like Y Combinator, [Supabase](/customers/supabase.md), and Contra use PostHog. ### Who is Optimizely useful for? Optimizely is useful for large enterprises looking to optimize their content, website, and ecommerce experiences. Companies like AmeriPride, JW Player, and HP use Optimizely. ### Does Optimizely or PostHog offer a free trial? PostHog offers a free forever plan as well as a generous free usage limit on the paid plan. This means you can access all of the features of PostHog for free as long as you stay under the free limits. It even provides billing warnings and limits to ensure you don’t go over the amount you want to spend. Optimizely provides free trials for some of its products like feature flagging and content marketing, but most of its products (including web and feature experimentation) do not offer free trials. > PostHog is the leading platform for building self-driving products. With a full suite of developer tools – [AI observability](/ai-observability.md), [product analytics](/product-analytics.md), [session replay](/session-replay.md), [feature flags](/feature-flags.md), [experiments](/experiments.md), [error tracking](/error-tracking.md), [logs](/logs.md), and more – PostHog captures all the context agents need to diagnose problems, uncover opportunities, and ship fixes. A [data warehouse](/data-stack.md) and [CDP](/cdp.md) tie it all together, unifying that context into one source agents can read across. You can steer it all from [Slack](/slack.md), [the web app](/ai.md), the desktop ([PostHog Code](/code.md)), or your own editor via [the MCP](/mcp.md). ### Community questions Ask a question