PostHog and Google Analytics offer distinct approaches to product analytics. PostHog emphasizes customization and data control through its open-source nature, while Google Analytics prioritizes ease of use and integration with the broader Google marketing suite. PostHog is better for development-focused teams seeking in-depth product insights, while Google Analytics suits marketing-oriented businesses focused on broader website and campaign performance.
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PostHog is an all-in-one product development platform. It helps you understand user behavior, run A/B tests, and manage features. With tools like session recording and product analytics, PostHog helps you build better products. It's open-source, scalable for any size team, and offers a generous free tier.
Google Analytics is a free tool that gives you insights into your website and app users. Understand what content is popular, track your marketing campaigns, and see how people behave on your site. Use this data to improve your website, create better content, and make smarter marketing decisions.
Summary
Main difference
PostHog is a comprehensive, open-source product analytics platform ideal for teams prioritizing data control and customization. Google Analytics is a widely used, free analytics platform deeply integrated with the Google ecosystem, best suited for businesses seeking a user-friendly solution with broad marketing integrations.
Relative strengths of PostHog (compared to Google Analytics)
PostHog offers session recording and advanced product analytics features like autocapture and SQL access, providing deep insights into user behavior.
Being open-source, PostHog allows for self-hosting, extensive customization, and community-driven development.
PostHog's generous free tier makes it accessible for smaller businesses and allows for experimentation before committing to paid plans.
Relative weaknesses of PostHog (compared to Google Analytics)
PostHog's self-hosted version has limitations, and community support can be inconsistent.
Documentation can be fragmented, and the larger JS bundle size may impact website performance.
PostHog's integrations primarily focus on developer tools, lacking the extensive marketing integrations available with Google Analytics.
What companies are using PostHog and Google Analytics?
PostHog is an open-source product analytics platform ideal for startups and growing product teams. It offers session recording, feature flags, A/B testing, and product analytics. Users praise its easy setup and insightful session recordings, while some note areas for improvement in documentation and community support.
Google Analytics offers comprehensive website and app analytics to understand user behavior, track campaigns, and improve online performance. Users praise its detailed reports and integration with other Google products. However, some find GA4 less intuitive than the previous version and dislike the limited customer support. Ideal for businesses seeking data-driven insights to optimize their online presence.
Ideal for startups and growing product teams seeking an open-source, all-in-one product analytics platform.
Suitable for software development teams across various industries looking to improve product development.
Ideal for businesses of all sizes seeking in-depth website and app analytics.
Highly relevant for e-commerce, retail, marketing, and other data-driven industries.
PostHog and Google Analytics features
Supported
Partially supported
Not supported
Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need
Advanced Google Analytics reporting
10
sources
Partially supported
PostHog integrates with Google Analytics 4 via Zapier, but does not support its advanced reporting.
Supported
Google Analytics, especially GA4, supports advanced reporting, custom reports, and API integration.
Session Replay
10
sources
Supported
PostHog offers session replay with features like event timelines and console logs.
Partially supported
Google Analytics does not offer session replay natively but can integrate with other tools that do.
Product Analytics
10
sources
Supported
PostHog supports product analytics, including autocapture and SQL access.
Supported
Google Analytics supports event tracking, funnels, cohorts via explorations, and SQL access via BigQuery.
Google Analytics integration
10
sources
Partially supported
PostHog integrates with Google Analytics 4 via third-party tools like Zapier, RudderStack, and n8n.
Supported
Google Analytics has a wide range of integrations, including integrations with other Google products.
Conversion tracking
10
sources
Supported
PostHog supports conversion tracking with funnels, dashboards and filtering.
Supported
Google Analytics 4 fully supports conversion tracking using events, allowing you to track actions like purchases and newsletter sign-ups.
User behavior tracking
10
sources
Supported
PostHog supports user behavior tracking, including clicks, scrolls, mouse movements, and form submissions.
Supported
Google Analytics offers robust user behavior tracking, including clicks, form submissions, and events. While it doesn\'t inherently track mouse movements, additional configurations or tools can address this.
Browse all features
Qualities
Value and Pricing Transparency
+0.75
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.9
Strongly positive sentiment
Customer Service
+0.2
Neutral sentiment
-0.33
Rather negative sentiment
Ease of Use
+0.76
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.3
Rather positive sentiment
Reliability and Performance
+0.31
Rather positive sentiment
+0.2
Neutral sentiment
Ease of Implementation
+0.83
Strongly positive sentiment
+0.18
Neutral sentiment
Scalability
+0
Neutral sentiment
+0.14
Neutral sentiment
PostHog and Google Analytics Pricing
PostHog offers a generous free tier that covers the needs of most companies. Paid plans are usage-based, allowing users to set billing limits for each product to avoid unexpected charges. Discounts are available for startups and non-profits.
Plans
FreeFree
Generous monthly free tier. Community support. 1 project, 1-year data retention. Unlimited team members.
FreeStarts at $0/mo
Generous monthly free tier. Usage-based pricing. Standard support (email, Slack-based over $2k/mo). 6 projects, 7-year data retention. Unlimited team members.
$2000 per project/monthEnterprise
SAML SSO. Custom MSA. Dedicated support. Training & onboarding. Advanced permissions. Audit logs. Unlimited projects. Custom data retention.
We couldn't find a pricing page for Google Analytics.
PostHog and Google Analytics review insights
Users love
Easy to set up and integrate with websites.
Excellent session recording for understanding user behavior.
The generous free tier makes it accessible for various projects.
Open-source nature allows for self-hosting and customization.
Detailed and comprehensive website traffic data and reports.
Seamless integration with other Google products like Google Ads and Search Console.
User-friendly interface for basic analytics.
Wide range of metrics and customization options for creating reports.
Users dislike
The self-hosted version lacks some features, like multi-domain monitoring.
Documentation can have duplicate or outdated information.
Community support could be more responsive.
Large JS bundle size impacts website performance.
GA4 is very confusing to use and less intuitive compared to the previous version.
Real-time data is often delayed or inaccurate.
The transition from Universal Analytics to GA4 is difficult, with data discrepancies and loss of historical information.
Customer support is limited and unhelpful, often with slow response times.
PostHog and Google Analytics Ratings
G2
4.4/5
(525)
Glassdoor
5.0/5
(5)
G2
4.5/5
(2516)
Glassdoor
3.5/5
(2)
Company health
Employee growth
45% increase in the last year
69% increase in the last year
Web traffic
31% increase in the last quarter
2% decrease in the last quarter
Financing
March 2021 - $27M
July 2018 - $16M
How do PostHog's session recordings compare to Google Analytics' user behavior analysis?
PostHog offers session recordings that allow you to replay individual user sessions, providing a detailed view of how users interact with your product, including clicks, scrolls, and form interactions. Google Analytics, while offering robust user behavior analysis through metrics and events, doesn't provide the same level of granular detail with session replays like PostHog. Google Analytics focuses on aggregated data and trends, while PostHog's session recordings allow you to see the specific actions of individual users, which can be more helpful for identifying usability issues and understanding user behavior on a micro level.
Which product best integrates into a developer-centric workflow, PostHog or Google Analytics?
PostHog better integrates into a developer-centric workflow. Its open-source nature, focus on feature flags, session recording, and direct integration with product development tools makes it easier for developers to directly access and utilize the data within their existing workflows. While Google Analytics provides valuable marketing and website traffic data, its focus is less directly aligned with the iterative development process. PostHog's features are designed to help developers understand user behavior in the context of product features and releases.
What are the advantages of PostHog?
PostHog's advantages include its all-in-one platform approach combining product analytics, session recording, feature flags, and A/B testing. Its open-source nature allows for flexibility, customization, and self-hosting. The generous free tier makes it accessible to smaller teams and projects. Users praise its ease of setup and insightful session recordings.
What are the disadvantages of PostHog?
PostHog's self-hosted version lacks some features available in the cloud version. The documentation can be inconsistent, containing outdated or duplicated information. Community support, while present, isn't always as responsive as needed. Finally, a large Javascript bundle size can negatively impact website performance.
Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT
management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs
of any business and find solutions to its problems.
TT
Tymon Terlikiewicz
CTO at Gralio
Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech
department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX,
HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.
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