In-depth: PostHog vs Plausible

In-depth: PostHog vs Plausible

Oct 01, 2024

How is PostHog different?

1. We're free (forever)

Our "pay-as-you-go" tier includes all of the features of PostHog for free with an allowance of 1M events per month. For Plausible, this would cost a minimum of $69/m.

Beyond PostHog's free tier, we try to be as cheap as possible and transparent. Want to know how much we'll charge? See our pricing calculator.

2. We're more than just web analytics

Web analytics is a core feature of PostHog, but we offer many more tools to help you analyze, test, observe, and deploy your site and app.

These include product analytics, session replay, surveys, experiments, feature flags, a data warehouse, and more.

3. We're multi-platform

Plausible is entirely focused on the web, whereas PostHog supports both web tracking and other platforms, like mobile, backend, and API.

This isn't limited to event capture and features either. Our data warehouse lets you import and query data from sources like Stripe, Hubspot, and Postgres, and our data pipelines let you send data to destinations like Slack, S3, or a custom HTTP webhook.

Web analytics

Both Plausible and PostHog are Google Analytics alternatives, so they're ideal for tracking and analyzing your website.

PostHogPlausible

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

✔✔

Entry and exit paths

See the pages users first visit and the last ones before they leave

✔✔

Outbound clicks

See the links that take users away

✔✔

UTM tracking

Track marketing campaigns with UTM tags

✔✔

Cookieless tracking

Track users without cookies

✔✔

Snippet install

Install HTML snippet

✔✔

Script size

Size of the script that runs on your site

56.8 kb<1 kB

Product analytics

Teams rely on product analytics when they need more customization in both capturing and analyzing data. Although not a focus of Plausible, it does offer some basic product analytics features for those that need them.

PostHogPlausible

Custom events

Capture and analyze any type of event

✔✔

Custom properties

Add more data to custom events or users

✔Events only

Autocapture

Capture frontend clicks and events automatically

✔✖

Graphs and trends

Build custom insights and visualizations

✔✖

Funnels

Track users through a sequence of events

✔Limited

Retention

Visualize which users stay, for how long

✔✖

Custom dashboards

Build a custom dashboard of your own or use a template

✔✖

Cohorts

Combine users based on properties and events for group analysis

✔✖

User profiles

View user demographic data such as country, language, and device type

✔✖

Group analytics

Track metrics at a company and account level

✔✖

Paths

Track user flows and where they drop off

✔✖

SQL

Query your data with SQL

✔✖

💡 Good to know: Many of Plausible's product analytics features, like custom properties and funnels, are on its more expensive "Business" plan. It's roughly twice the price of the Growth plan and includes up to 10 team members and priority support.

Platform

Beyond web analytics is where PostHog really shines. We provide all of the tools developers need to build a successful product (and they all work together).

PostHogPlausible

EU hosting

Access and store your data in the EU

✔✔

Open source

View code, comment on roadmap, and contribute

✔✔

Free collaboration

Add unlimited teammates to your project

✔✖

Heatmaps

Visualize where users click in your app or website

✔✖

Session replay

Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs

✔✖

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

✔✖

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

✔Partial

💡 Good to know:

  1. Plausible's API is limited to capturing events and querying aggregate metrics. PostHog's API provides capture, full SQL querying, feature flags, and CRUD operations for all metadata.
  2. You can add unlimited teammates to your project in PostHog. Plausible limits you to 3 on their growth plan and 10 on their business plan. For more than that, you need a custom enterprise plan.

Integrations

Although Plausible has some integrations with other tools, it mostly stands on its own. PostHog has many more features for importing data from other sources as well as sending it to other destinations.

PostHogPlausible

CSV exports

Export your data as a CSV

✔✔

Warehouse exports

Export data to warehouses like S3 and BigQuery for storage and analysis

✔✖

Data warehouse

Query customer and product data together

✔✖

Warehouse import

Import data from third-party sources like Postgres, S3, and GCS

✔✖

Slack

Send events, reports, and anomalies to Slack

Events, reportsReports, anomalies

Email

Send reports to email

✔✔

Google Search Console

See search queries that sent traffic to your site

✖✔

Stripe

Import charges, customers, invoices, subscriptions, and more

✔✖

Hubspot

Import contacts, companies, deals, and more

✔✖

Zapier

Trigger Zapier automations

✔✖

Zendesk

Import organizations, tickets, users, and more

✔✖

Sentry

Send and receive error data with Sentry

✔✖

Security, compliance, privacy

Plausible prides itself on being privacy-friendly, but PostHog stands toe-to-toe with it in terms of features. On top of that, PostHog includes many of the features enterprises need for compliance.

PostHogPlausible

Data retention

The length of time event data is retained

7 years3 years

Bot blocking

Block scrapers, crawlers, and other unwanted traffic from stats

✔✔

Reverse proxy

Avoid tracking blockers and capture more data

✔✔

HIPAA-ready

Can be compliant with HIPAA

✔✖

GDPR-ready

Can be compliant with GDPR

✔✔

Data anonymization

Options to anonymize user data

✔✔

SOC 2

SOC 2 security certification

✔✖

2FA

Enforce login with two-factor authentication

✔✔

SAML/SSO

Use SAML or single sign-on authentication

Enterprise✖

Frequently asked questions

How much do PostHog and Plausible cost?

Plausible is a monthly subscription based on usage. Plans start at $9/m for 10k events. Its Business plan unlocks more team members, custom properties, funnels, and more for a minimum of $10/m more.

PostHog is entirely usage-based. Its free tier includes:

FeatureFree usage per monthAdditional cost
Product analytics1 million eventsFrom $0.00005/event
Session replay5,000 recordingsFrom $0.005/recording
Surveys1500 responsesFrom $0.10/response
Feature flags and A/B testing1 million API requestsFrom $0.0001/request
Data warehouse1 million synced rowsFrom $0.000015/row

Basically, we aim to give you the tools you want for as cheap as possible. We split out the products, and features like group analytics and pipelines within products, to do this.

Does PostHog offer a free trial?

Plausible offers a free trial, but PostHog doesn't, what gives?

Instead of a free trial, PostHog offers a free forever tier as long as you stay under the free limits. You don't even need a credit card, but adding one unlocks all the features (we have billing limits you can use too).

Can I migrate from Google Analytics to PostHog?

Yes, see our Google Analytics to PostHog migration guide for more details.

Isn't Plausible simpler than PostHog?

Although PostHog has many more features than Plausible, it isn't necessarily more complicated. Our web analytics dashboard is similar to Plausible's:

PostHog web analytics dashboard

Our install snippet is also only a couple of lines:

HTML
<script>
!function(t,e){var o,n,p,r;e.__SV||(window.posthog=e,e._i=[],e.init=function(i,s,a){function g(t,e){var o=e.split(".");2==o.length&&(t=t[o[0]],e=o[1]),t[e]=function(){t.push([e].concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}(p=t.createElement("script")).type="text/javascript",p.crossOrigin="anonymous",p.async=!0,p.src=s.api_host+"/static/array.js",(r=t.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]).parentNode.insertBefore(p,r);var u=e;for(void 0!==a?u=e[a]=[]:a="posthog",u.people=u.people||[],u.toString=function(t){var e="posthog";return"posthog"!==a&&(e+="."+a),t||(e+=" (stub)"),e},u.people.toString=function(){return u.toString(1)+".people (stub)"},o="capture identify alias people.set people.set_once set_config register register_once unregister opt_out_capturing has_opted_out_capturing opt_in_capturing reset isFeatureEnabled onFeatureFlags getFeatureFlag getFeatureFlagPayload reloadFeatureFlags group updateEarlyAccessFeatureEnrollment getEarlyAccessFeatures getActiveMatchingSurveys getSurveys getNextSurveyStep onSessionId".split(" "),n=0;n<o.length;n++)g(u,o[n]);e._i.push([i,s,a])},e.__SV=1)}(document,window.posthog||[]);
posthog.init('<ph_project_api_key>', { api_host: 'https://us.i.posthog.com', defaults: '2025-05-24' })
</script>

Our users range from individual indie hackers to YC-backed startups to massive enterprises.

Can I migrate from Plausible?

Yes. See our Plausible to PostHog migration guide for more.


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