In-depth: PostHog vs Plausible

Oct 01, 2024

How is PostHog different?

1. We're free (forever)

Our "ridiculously cheap" 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 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 date. Although not a focus of Plausible, it does have 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
Surveys250 responsesFrom $0.20/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.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', person_profiles: 'identified_only'})
</script>

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


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