In-depth: PostHog vs Mixpanel

Jul 19, 2024

How is PostHog different?

1. We're an all-in-one platform

PostHog combines product analytics with web analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, and a data warehouse into one tightly integrated platform. Everything you need from a single app with a single contract. A genuine single source of truth for your product and customer data.

2. It's built for developers

This means you get support from the engineers who actually build the product, extensively documented APIs, and a SQL query builder, so you can analyze data how you want. We're open source, so you can inspect our source code and vote on what we should build via our public roadmap.

3. Transparent and cheap pricing (forever)

We default to charging as little as possible while still making a profit – we also have a generous free tier on all our products. We can do this because we're efficient. We don't splurge on massive sales teams, or D-list comedians to host an annual convention you'll never attend. Want to know how much we'll charge? See our pricing calculator.

Comparing PostHog and Mixpanel

Platform

PostHog can replace multiple tools, such as Mixpanel for product analytics, Hotjar for session replay and surveys, and LaunchDarkly for A/B tests and feature flags.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Product analytics Track events and conversion, analyze user behavior	✔	✔
Web analytics Easy to use analytics for marketing websites	✔	✔
Session replay Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs	✔	Closed beta
Feature flags Roll out features safely, toggle features for cohorts or individuals	✔	✖
A/B testing Run tests on new features, optimize conversion funnels	✔	Analysis only*
User surveys Collect and analyze feedback, run NPS and PMF surveys	✔	✖
Data pipelines Export event data to data warehouses	✔	✔
Customer data platform Sync cusomter data between third-party tools	Beta	✖
Data warehouse Centralized data storage for business intelligence	✔	✖
Heatmaps Visualize where users click in your app or website	✔	✖
Scrollmaps Visualize how far users scroll in your app or website	✔	✖
Notebooks Ad-hoc analysis and collaboration	✔	✔
Dark mode Choose between light and dark UI	✔	✔
Open source Build your own apps and contribute code	✔	Libraries only

*You can't run A/B tests using Mixpanel, only analyse the results of tests created using third-party integrations.

Product analytics

There are two key differences here:

PostHog supports autocapture, which makes it much faster to implement as you don't have to manually instrument every event. Don't want autocapture? Just turn it off and rely on one of our many SDKs – we offer the best of both worlds.
PostHog has a SQL-based query builder for power users, which enables you to generate custom data analyses using PostHog event data. In future, our query builder will let you analyze data as you would in a business intelligence tool, like Metabase, inside PostHog.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Autocapture Capture frontend clicks and events automatically	✔	✖
Query editor Write your own queries in SQL	✔	✖
Managed reverse proxy Send events from your own domain, managed by us	✔	✖
Dashboards Combine insights into shareable dashboards	✔	✔
Graphs and trends Build custom insights and visualizations	✔	✔
Funnels Track users through a sequence of events	✔	✔
Retention Visualize which users stay, for how long	✔	✔
User paths Track user flows and where they drop-off	✔	✔
Cohorts Combine users based on properties and events for group analysis	✔	✔
Group analytics Track metrics at a company and account level	✔	✔
Lifecycle analysis Understand who is dormant, churning, and thriving	✔	✔
Stickiness insights See how many times users perform an event in a period of time.	✔	✔
Custom formulas Use formulas to calculate unique insights	✔	✔
Correlation analysis Suggested events and properties that lead to success or failure	✔	✔

Feature flags

Feature flags make it easy to roll out features to specific users or groups, and safely test in production. Our feature flags are also tightly integrated with other tools, meaning you can target session replays, surveys and other features using existing feature flags. See benefits of feature flags for more.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Boolean flags Simple flags returning true or flag	✔	✖
Multivariate flags Flags with multiple customizable values	✔	✖
Payloads Flags with string, number, or JSON payloads	✔	✖
Local evaluation Store flag definitions locally	✔	✖
Percentage rollouts Target percentages of a group	✔	✖
Custom targeting Target users based on user properties, custom contexts	✔	✖
Scheduling Schedule flags to turn on or off	✔	✖
Environments Manage flags for dev, staging, prod	Partial	✖
Scheduling Schedule flags to turn on or off	✔	✖
Bootstrapping Flags available on frontend application load	✔	✖
Early access Manage betas, test features	✔	✖

A/B testing

PostHog's A/B testing are billed with feature flags. You can't run A/B tests using Mixpanel, but you can analyze the results of experiments created using third-party A/B testing tools.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Built-in A/B testing Setup and run A/B tests using feature flags	✔	✖
Experiment analysis Analyze results of A/B tests	✔	✔
Custom goals Customize metrics that a test tracks	✔	✔
Secondary metrics Monitor impact on unrelated metrics	✔	✔
Statistical significance Automatically checks for statistical significance	✔	✔
Split testing Split participants into groups	✔	✖
Multivariate (A/B/n) testing Test multiple variants of a change	✔	✖
Recommended run time Automatically calculate the recommended run time and sample size	✔	✖
Dynamic cohorts Add new users to an experiment automatically by setting a user property	✔	✖
Holdout testing Withhold multiple features to measure cumulative impact	Partial	✖
Statistics engine How the results of an experiment are calculated	Bayesian	Frequentist

Session replay

Replays enable you watch how users experience your app, diagnose issues, improve support, and understand real user behavior in a way raw data can't. You get 5,000 recordings for free every month, so you'll pay nothing if you remain below this limit.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Web app recordings Capture recordings from single-page apps	✔	Closed beta
Mobile app recordings Capture recordings in iOS and Android apps	Beta	✖
Identity detection Link recordings to user IDs	✔	✖
Console logs Capture extra content from a user's browser	✔	✖
Playlists Sort recordings into static and dynamic playlists	✔	✖
Performance monitoring Track network events within a session	✔	✖
Privacy masking Censor personal information from playback	✔	✔
Conditional recording Only capture the sessions you want	✔	✖
DOM explorer Explore an interactive snapshot of replays	✔	✖
Export recordings Save important recordings offline	✔	✖
Minimum duration Only record sessions longer than the minimum duration	✔	✖
Sample recorded sessions Restrict the percentage of sessions that will be recorded	✔	✔
Record via feature flag Only record sessions for users that have the flag enabled	✔	✖

Note: Mixpanel's session replay tool is currently a closed, invite-only beta for customers on its Enterprise plan.

Surveys

Surveys are great for tracking customer satisfaction scores like Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction (CSAT), and customer effort score (CES). We include survey templates for all these and more. Read our guide comparing NPS, CSAT, and CES to see which survey type you should use and when.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Open text Free text answers and feedback	✔	✖
Product rating Rank using emojis or number	✔	✖
Single choice Select one answer from multiple	✔	✖
Multiple choice Select more than one answer from multiple	✔	✖
NPS surveys Net Promoter Score survey template	✔	✖
PMF surveys Product-market fit survey template	✔	✖
User property targeting Target users based on any of their user properties	✔	✖
Custom colors & positioning Customize the colors of your surveys to match your brand	✔	✖
Custom HTML Add custom HTML to your survey text	✔	✖
API mode Create surveys via the API	✔	✖

Data integrations

PostHog and Mixpanel diverge here:

PostHog has a built-in data warehouse, so you can import and query data directly from our other sources like Stripe and Zendesk, or from an existing warehouse.
Mixpanel relies on data warehouse connectors to combine customer and product data. This means you don't import data directly from third-party tools. You need to get them into a third-party warehouse and then import that data into Mixpanel for analysis.

	PostHog	Mixpanel
Data warehouse Query customer and product data together	✔	✖
Warehouse import Import data from third-party warehouse	✔	✔
Stripe Stripe customer data connector	✔	✖
Zendesk Send and receive data from Zendesk	✔	✖
Hubspot Send and receive data from Hubspot	✔	✔
Sentry Send and receive data from Sentry	✔	✖
Segment Send events via Segment	✔	✔
Rudderstack Send events via Rudderstack	✔	✔
Zapier Trigger Zapier automations	✔	✔
Customer.io Messaging and marketing automation	✔	✔
Intercom Messaging and marketing automation	✔	✔

See our docs for full lists of destinations and data warehouse connectors.

Security and compliance

	PostHog	Mixpanel
User privacy options Anonymize users, drop personal data	✔	✔
History, audit logs Manage and view flag edits and related users	✔	✔
GDPR-ready Can be compliant with GDPR	✔	✔
HIPAA-ready Can be compliant with HIPAA	✔	✔
SOC 2 SOC 2 security certification	✔	✔
2FA Enforce login with two-factor authentication	✔	✔
SAML/SSO Use SAML or single sign-on authentication	Enterprise	Enterprise

Frequently asked questions

Can I migrate my data from Mixpanel to PostHog?

Yes. See our Mixpanel to PostHog migration guide.

Can PostHog replace Google Analytics?

Yes. PostHog can replace Google Analytics for many use cases – our marketing team uses PostHog, for example. You can also integrate PostHog into your website using Google Tag Manager.

See our comparison of PostHog and Google Analytics 4 and An intro to PostHog for Google Analytics users for more.

How much does PostHog cost?

Every PostHog user gets a generous amount of free usage each month:

	Free usage per month
Product analytics	1 million events
Data warehouse	1 million synced rows
Session replay	5,000 recordings
Feature flags	1 million API requests
A/B testing	1 million API requests
Surveys	250 responses

You'll never pay anything if you stay within these limits and you can set billing limits to avoid surprise bills.

A full breakdown and pricing calculator is on our pricing page.

Can I use PostHog with a CDP? (Segment, Rudderstack, etc.)

Yes. See Using PostHog with a CDP in our docs.

What about ad blockers?

We recommend all users deploy a reverse proxy, which enables you send events to PostHog Cloud using your own domain. Events sent from your own domain and are less likely to be intercepted by tracking blockers, ensuring you capture the best data possible.

We make this super easy by offering a managed reverse proxy – a no code solution that takes minutes to setup. We also have reverse proxy setup guides for AWS Cloudfront, Caddy, Cloudflare, Netlify, Vercel, and more in our docs.

How do PostHog and Mixpanel compare to Amplitude?

Amplitude is closer to Mixpanel than PostHog – it doesn't support features like session replays or surveys, and doesn't offer autocapture. Read our PostHog vs Amplitude comparison for information.