In-depth: PostHog vs Plausible

In-depth: PostHog vs Plausible

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.

Plausible
compare
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 option
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.

Plausible
compare
Custom events
Manually capture custom events and properties wherever they happen
Custom properties
Add more data to custom events or users
Events only
Autocapture
Capture events without manual tracking
Pageviews
Graphs & trends
Build custom insights and visualizations
Funnels
Track users through a sequence of events to find drop-off and improve conversion
Limited
Retention
Track user retention over time to understand how long users stay with your product
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
Track personally-identifiable user info like name, email, and usage data
Group analytics
Track metrics at a company and account level
User paths
Understand how users navigate through your product and where they get stuck
SQL query editor
Write SQL queries directly against your data without a separate data warehouse

💡 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).

Plausible
compare
EU hosting
Access and store your data in the EU
Open source
Audit code, contribute to roadmap, and build integrations
Free collaboration
Add unlimited teammates to your project
Heatmaps
Visualize where users click and scroll on your website
Session Replay
Watch real user sessions to understand behavior and fix issues
Experiments
Run statistically rigorous A/B/n tests and validate ideas with confidence
Surveys
Collect product feedback with no-code surveys and customizable targeting
Feature Flags
Control feature access with precision and safely roll out changes
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.

Plausible
compare
CSV exports
Export your data as a CSV
Data Warehouse
Query & visualize product and third party data together
Import from data warehouses
Import data from third-party sources like Postgres, S3, GCS, Stripe, HubSpot, and more
Batch exports
Schedule data exports to S3, Snowflake, BigQuery, and more
Slack
Alerts and notifications for Slack
Reports, anomalies
Email reports
Send reports to email
Google Search Console
Import data from Google Search Console
Stripe
Stripe customer data connector
Hubspot
Send and receive data from Hubspot
Zapier
Trigger Zapier automations
Zendesk
Send and receive data from Zendesk
Sentry
Send and receive data from 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.

Plausible
compare
Data retention
The length of time event data is retained
7 years
3 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
Anonymize user data for privacy
SOC 2 Type II
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.replace(".i.posthog.com","-assets.i.posthog.com")+"/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="init capture register register_once register_for_session unregister unregister_for_session getFeatureFlag getFeatureFlagPayload isFeatureEnabled reloadFeatureFlags updateEarlyAccessFeatureEnrollment getEarlyAccessFeatures on onFeatureFlags onSessionId getSurveys getActiveMatchingSurveys renderSurvey canRenderSurvey getNextSurveyStep identify setPersonProperties group resetGroups setPersonPropertiesForFlags resetPersonPropertiesForFlags setGroupPropertiesForFlags resetGroupPropertiesForFlags reset get_distinct_id getGroups get_session_id get_session_replay_url alias set_config startSessionRecording stopSessionRecording sessionRecordingStarted captureException loadToolbar get_property getSessionProperty createPersonProfile opt_in_capturing opt_out_capturing has_opted_in_capturing has_opted_out_capturing clear_opt_in_out_capturing debug".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:'2025-11-30'})
</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.

Want to just try it already?

(Sorry for the shameless CTA.)

Community questions

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