Before we start talking about Posthog and its alternative tools, it's essential to understand what product analytics is and how it works.
Product analytics is the data showing how and which of your users interact with the product. It helps to track, visualize and analyze user interaction data.
Posthog is a popular product analytics tool, but it has its drawbacks. In this article, we'll dive into Posthog and showcase a few alternatives that might suit you better.
- What is Posthog used for?
- Posthog pricing
- Alternatives to Posthog
- Things to Look for in an Analytics Tool
- Frequently Asked Questions
What is Posthog used for?
Posthog provides businesses with product analytics that assists in obtaining insights into their user behavior. It is a GDPR-compliant platform that empowers entities to monitor user interactions and scrutinize data instantly.
Using it, companies can establish personal events to track explicit actions on their website or app, like button clicks or page views. PostHog also integrates with well-known tools like Slack, Segment, and Zapier.
Posthog pricing
PostHog offers a paid plan starting at $0.0003068/event and $0.005/recording. There are also custom plans available for larger companies. It’s relatively affordable; however, if you want to have support, you’ll need to upgrade.
Alternatives to Posthog
Posthog is definitely one of the better analytics tools we came accross. However, it still might be to complex and too much of an overkill. If you are looking for a different (and maybe more straightforward solution), you might want to check out these alternatives.
Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics is a straightforward analytics tool that gives you the insights you need while being 100% GDPR-compliant. It's affordable tool that doubles as a web -and product analytics tool.
Now let's view the benefits of Simple Analytics.
Pros of using Simple Analytics
- Simplified UI - Using tools that are easy to navigate around is always preferred over complex ones. Simple Analytics offers a straightforward user interface that makes analysis easier. Working with it is, therefore, a smooth activity.
- Affordable Pricing- Simple Analytics is exceptionally cost-effective. They offer both product and web analytics tools at a reasonable price. They have plans starting at $9/month. It packs the tools and features from the most expensive tools for a friendly price.
- Automated Event Collection- Another feature that makes Simple Analytics stand out in its product category is automated event collection. While you must manually set additional tags for other tools, Simple Analytics does the job for you. Once you link it to your website, it lets you track the metrics of all action buttons just by hovering over them.
- Mini Websites- As a business with an online presence, you often get featured in the conversation of your users. You might get a mention on Twitter or a feature on a website. While most tools let you know where you got a mention, they don’t deliver the specifics. Simple Analytics stands out here. It gives you the specifics of your feature and helps you track it through a mini website.
Cons of using Simple Analytics
The user interface of Simple Analytics is made to look simple and easy to understand so everyone, be it the founder or marketing teams, can use it easily. The Product Manager may need a few more screens, but that is something that can be quickly built with goals.
Pricing of Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics is one of the most cost-efficient tools available in its segment. The product is perfect for businesses. It caters to companies and has plans for individuals and students. Therefore it ensures that the best features are available at a very reasonable price.
The pricing of Simple Analytics starts at a low $9/month, making it a pocket-friendly tool for businesses of all sizes.
Pendo
Pendo is a product analytics tool that enables product managers to proactively engage with customers and understand how their product is being used. Also, yes, tools like Pendo are better to be used by a PM and not the best choice for solopreneurs or small teams.
It also has many features that help you provide personalized user onboarding and in-app training, which is an added feature of Pendo. Furthermore, these features are available on mobile too
Pros
- Provides additional features such as an onboarding tool for SaaS
- Provides detailed product analytics
Cons
- Too many features make the UI cluttered
- Expensive tool
Pricing
Pendo is a software targeted towards enterprises, which also shows up in its pricing. You’ll have to pay $7000/year for up to 2000 monthly active users.
It’s indeed pricey and certainly not recommended if you are just starting. Better to stick to something affordable and simple.
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is one of the most popular product analytics tools out there and is used by companies like Netflix and CNN. The founders of Mixpanel believed that metrics like registered users, page views, and app downloads were just vanity metrics and could have been easily inflated. Mixpanel was built to solve this by providing absolute product clarity with their metrics.
It offers many ways to customize for the unique needs of businesses from different industries. With its customizable dashboard, Mixpanel allows its users a lot of room to keep track of their numbers.
Pros
- Provides in-depth product analytics
- Custom dashboards and charts can be created
Cons
- Using it is hard without dedicated product knowledge
- Expensive for most businesses if all features need to be unlocked
Pricing
Mixpanel offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different business needs, with options for startups, small businesses, and enterprises. Prices start at $20/month for the Growth plan, which includes unlimited reports and data pipeline add-ons. The Enterprise plan starts at a heavy $833/ month and includes advanced machine learning and predictive analytics features.
Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a product analytics tool that primarily focuses on even analytics. The provided solutions mainly target the analysis of customer behavior. It also focuses on providing data discovery and visualization support on its platform and also tracks keywords. In addition, Kissmetrics is also used for funnel analysis and goal tracking.
Pros
- Advanced tracking and segmentation capabilities
- Offers powerful automation and engagement tools
- Provides customer journey mapping and funnel analysis
- Easy to integrate with other platforms and tools
Cons
- It can be expensive for small businesses
- The steep learning curve for new users
- Limited reporting capabilities
Pricing
Kissmetrics offers three pricing plans: a Silver plan that starts at $299/month, a Gold plan that starts at $499/month, and a custom Platinum plan. Unfortunately, the price of the enterprise plan is private.
Things to Look for in an Analytics Tool
Selecting a tool for product analytics is a crucial decision. You might ask what could possibly go wrong when choosing one, yet you can miss out on a lot. Therefore, be sure to go through this checklist before making a choice. You're good to go if the tool provides these:
- Ease of Use: Regardless of your chosen product, it must be simple to use. You shouldn’t spend your precious time on a complex web analytics tool that takes time and experience to get familiar with.
- Accuracy: Getting an accurate picture of what’s happening on your website is important. Inaccurate data might lead to misjudged decisions that impact your business.
- Straightforward UI: Most of the time, you don’t need 75 custom dashboards (looking at you, Google). A straightforward overview of what’s happening on your website will give you the insights you need instantly. Look for a tool that gives you the insights you need without too many distracting bells and whistles.
- Lightweight: Your website is your storefront on the internet. Providing the best possible experience to your visitors matters. Installing an analytics script has an impact on your page speed. Choose an analytics tool that doesn’t slow your website down. This not only affects your visitors’ experience. Google will notice this as well.
- Privacy: The world is moving in a direction where privacy is becoming increasingly important. Google Analytics has been declared illegal in multiple EU countries. You don’t want to get caught up in this mess. Take privacy or compliance with regulation into account.
- Integration: To get a complete picture of your business, the tool should be able to integrate with other devices you use, such as your CRM or dashboarding tools.
- Pricing: Consider the tool's pricing and ensure it aligns with your budget. Take advantage of some companies' free trials or basic versions to ensure the product suits your needs before committing to a paying plan.
Although this checklist can assist you in getting started, there may be other factors for your organization that you need to consider.
Feel free to try Simple Analytics if you want a tool that checks these boxes. It provides the insights you need in a straightforward dashboard while being 100% GDPR compliant.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are PostHog's rate restrictions?
The restrictions for all your CRUD activities (create, read, update, delete) are set to 480 requests per minute and a healthy 4800 requests per hour. These analytics endpoints can handle up to 240 queries per minute and 1200 requests per hour.
What is Simple Analytics?
Simple Analytics is a privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative that gives you the insights you need without collecting personal data. If you care about the privacy of your users and want an intuitive dashboard with the most important website insights, Simple Analytics might be the tool you are looking for.