Web Analytics · Comparison
Plausible Analytics vs. PostHog
Plausible Analytics and PostHog compared across Company facts, Pricing, Analytics capabilities, Privacy & compliance, Data ownership & deployment and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.
Plausible Analytics
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics — a lightweight, cookieless Google Analytics alternative.
PostHog
All-in-one open-source platform for product analytics, web analytics, session replay, and feature flags.
Company facts
Headquarters
EU (remote-first)
San Francisco, CA PostHog is incorporated in San Francisco, CA but is a remote-first company with team across 20+ countries.
Employees
10
202 Approximately 202 employees as of May 2026 per Tracxn; ~185 per April 2026 LinkedIn data.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$9 Starter plan at $9/mo (monthly billing); 10k pageviews, 1 site
—
Offers Free Tier
Plausible Community Edition (CE) is a free self-hostable open-source version
PostHog offers a perpetual free tier: 1M events/month at no cost, no credit card required, no expiry.
Free Trial Length (Days)
30 days 30-day free trial on all paid plans, no credit card required
0 days No free trial period — PostHog provides a perpetual free tier instead of a time-limited trial.
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
10k Starter plan includes up to 10k monthly pageviews
1M Free tier includes 1M events/month. PostHog meters 'events' (not raw pageviews); each pageview fires as one event.
Entry Plan Website Limit
1 sites Starter plan covers 1 site; Growth allows up to 3, Business up to 10
6 sites 6 projects on the paid (pay-as-you-go) plan; PostHog tracks per project. Free plan includes 1 project.
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Real-time dashboard updates every 30 seconds
PostHog's web analytics dashboard includes real-time data with live visitor activity.
Custom Event Tracking
Custom event tracking available via JS snippet, CSS class, or Events API
PostHog supports custom event tracking via JS SDK (posthog.capture()), autocapture, and data attributes.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Supports pageview goals and custom event goals with conversion rate reporting
Web analytics dashboard supports conversion goals: define a key event or action, see total/unique conversions and conversion rate.
Funnels
Funnel analysis is a Business plan feature ($19/mo+)
PostHog supports multi-step funnels with step-to-step drop-off analysis, breakdowns, and timings.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue tracking (monetary values on events) is a Business plan feature ($19/mo+)
PostHog supports revenue tracking: capture monetary values on events, Stripe integration, currency conversion, MRR/ARPU dashboards.
Heatmaps
No
PostHog includes click heatmaps, scroll maps, and rage-click detection as part of the platform (toolbar overlay).
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
No cookies or persistent identifiers used by default; daily-rotating anonymous hash only
PostHog supports cookieless tracking mode (cookieless_mode: always) where no persistent ID is stored in the browser.
Consent Banner Required
No cookie banner needed — Plausible collects no personal data and sets no cookies
Default PostHog configuration uses cookies/localStorage and requires a consent banner. Cookieless mode removes the requirement but is not the default.
GDPR Compliant
Yes
PostHog explicitly claims GDPR compliance with EU Cloud hosting, DPA, cookieless option, and data anonymization.
EU Data Residency
Data stored in Falkenstein, Germany on Hetzner servers; CDN via Bunny (Slovenia)
PostHog Cloud EU stores all data in AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt, Germany). Available at no extra cost.
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Community Edition (CE) is AGPLv3; cloud product is built on same open-source codebase
PostHog is open source under MIT license (with a proprietary EE directory). A fully FOSS mirror (posthog-foss) is also published.
License
AGPLv3
MIT Core product is MIT-licensed; /ee directory with enterprise features uses a separate proprietary license.
Self-Hostable
Plausible Community Edition (CE) is officially supported for self-hosting
PostHog supports self-hosting via Docker Compose with documented install guides. Free for self-hosters.
Data Retention (Months)
36 mo Starter and Growth plans retain 3 years (36 months) of data; Business/Enterprise retain 5+ years
84 mo Paid plans retain event data for 7 years (84 months); after 1 year data may move to cold storage (slower queries).
Unlimited Data Retention
Starter/Growth: 3-year retention; Business: 5-year retention
Data retention is 7 years (84 months) on paid plans — finite, not unlimited.
Google Analytics Import
Official GA4 import supported (up to 5 GA4 properties); Universal Analytics (UA) not supported
PostHog documents a GA-to-PostHog migration path via BigQuery export + Python SDK import, with official step-by-step docs.
Raw Data Export
CSV/ZIP exports available on all plans; Stats API on Business plan; raw event-level export requires Enterprise
PostHog supports raw event-level data export via Exports API, batch exports to S3/Postgres, and real-time pipeline destinations.
Platform & integrations
Has API
Stats API is a Business plan feature; Events API (for sending data) available on all plans
PostHog provides a comprehensive REST API for querying analytics data, dashboards, exports, and more.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
1.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
66.7 KB Initial array.js payload; PostHog lazy-loads additional modules.
Official WordPress Plugin
Official WordPress plugin maintained by Plausible
No official PostHog-published WordPress plugin. PostHog docs describe manual snippet insertion; multiple third-party community plugins exist.
Email Reports
Weekly (every Monday) and/or monthly (1st of month) email reports; analytics embedded in email
PostHog supports scheduled email subscriptions for dashboards and insights (weekly, monthly, or custom schedule).
Public Dashboard Sharing
Shared links (optionally password-protected) and fully public dashboards supported
PostHog supports fully public dashboard sharing via a shareable link, no account required to view. Embeddable via iframe.
The verdict
Plausible Analytics Best for lightweight, consent-free privacy analytics
Plausible is cookieless by default and needs no consent banner, where PostHog requires one unless reconfigured. Its tracking script is 1.2 KB against PostHog's 66.7 KB, and it ships an official WordPress plugin PostHog lacks. Paid plans start at $9/mo with a 30-day trial. Trade-off: no heatmaps, and funnels are a Business-plan feature.
Full profile PostHog Best for product analytics depth and a large free tier
PostHog adds heatmaps, included funnels, and Stripe-backed revenue tracking that Plausible either lacks or gates behind its Business plan. Its perpetual free tier covers 1M events/month versus Plausible's free option being self-host only, and it retains data 84 months vs 36. Trade-offs: a 66.7 KB script, a consent banner by default, and no official WordPress plugin.
Full profileSources · 42 verified references
plausible.io posthog.com tracxn.com github.com us-assets.i.posthog.com
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