In-depth: PostHog vs Google Analytics 4

Jul 09, 2024

Septemeber 2024 Update: We built our own, dedicated web analytics tool. Now PostHog is an even better alternative to Google Analytics 4!

How is PostHog different?

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

PostHog combines product analytics and web analytics with session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, and a baked in 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 Google Analytics

Analytics

Features like group analytics, which enables you analyze behavior at an account of company level, make PostHog ideal for B2B SaaS products.

PostHogGoogle Analytics

Group analytics

Track metrics at account or company level

Traffic breakdown

Gain insights into where your visitors and conversions are coming from

User profiles

View user demographic data such as country, language, and device type

UTM tracking

Track marketing campaigns with UTM tags

Funnels

Visualize conversion rates and drop-offs

User paths

Track user flows and where they drop-off

Retention

Analyze user and revenue retention

Monetization analytics

Track purchase value, LTV, and other revenue metrics

Advertising analytics

Track ROI on Google Ads and other marketing campaigns

Real-time view

Monitor activity on your site or app as it happens.

Predictive insights

AI-powered alerts when metrics change

You can also go deeper on user behavior by utilizing heatmaps, scrollmaps, formulas, and the custom SQL insights.

PostHogGoogle Analytics

Heatmaps

Visualize how users navigate your app or website

Clickmaps

Visualize where users click in your app or website

Scrollmaps

Visualize how far users scroll in your app or website

Correlation analysis

Automatically highlight factors affecting funnel conversion rates

Lifecycle insights

Break down events from new, returning, resurrecting, and dormant users

Stickiness insights

See how many times users perform an event in a period of time

Formulas

Use custom formulas to create unique insights

SQL access

Write your own queries in SQL

Toolbar

View insights on your live website or app with an overlay

Platform

When you choose PostHog, you get more than analytics.

PostHogGoogle Analytics

Analytics

Track events and conversion, analyze user behavior

Session replay

Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs

Feature flags

Roll out features safely, toggle features for cohorts or individuals

A/B testing

Run tests on new features, optimize conversion funnels

Surveys

Collect and analyze feedback, run NPS and PMF surveys

Customer data platform

Sync data with third-party tools

Beta

Data warehouse

A single source for all your important data

Notebooks

Ad-hoc analysis and collaboration

Dark mode

Choose between light and dark UI

Integrations

It's hard to import data into Google Analytics because:

  1. The data type and format you're allowed to import is restrictive.
  2. You either need to constantly upload CSV files manually, or set up an SFTP server to automatically do this for you.

In contrast, PostHog is built to be your single source of truth, so it's simple to import data from other sources using our built-in data warehouse, or send PostHog data to other tools using our realtime destinations.

Below is a comparison of some of the most popular apps – see our data pipeline and warehouse docs for a complete list of integrations.

PostHogGoogle Analytics

Stripe

Import charges, customers, invoices, subscriptions, and more

Zapier

Trigger Zaps with events

Hubspot

Import contacts, companies, deals, and more

Salesforce

Sync event and person data

Intercom

Extract and load data to external platforms

Customer.io

Sync data between platforms

Sentry

Ingest Sentry errors for analysis

Google Ads

Track Google Ads ROI

Google Search Console

Seamlessly import data from your search console

Google BigQuery

Automatically export data to BigQuery

Security and compliance

PostHog makes GDPR compliance easy by letting you choose where your data is hosted: EU or US. Google also offers various privacy controls, but you can't choose where your data is stored.

PostHogGoogle Analytics

EU hosting available

HIPAA

Data anonymization

Security certification

SOC 2 Type IIISO 27001

Role-based access control

SAML/SSO available

2FA available

Frequently asked questions

Does PostHog have reports, dimensions, and other GA4 features?

Yes, PostHog has much of the same functionality as Google Analytics, but we different terminology. Here’s a quick comparison of the two:

GA namePostHog equivalent
ReportInsightQuery and filter analytics data and visualize results. Types include trends, funnels, retention, and more.
DimensionsPropertiesAdditional details added to events, persons, and groups such as location, browser, and status.
ViewDashboardA collection of insights displayed together.
AudiencePersonsRepresents a user or set of users who create events, potentially filtered by properties or behaviors.
SegmentFilterA way to create a subset of your data.
Goals and conversionsActionsAn event or collection of events representing a target behavior.
Client IDDistinct IDA unique identifier for a user.
Measurement IDProject API keyThe unique identifier for your project, used to send data to your PostHog instance.

See our guide to PostHog for Google Analytics users for more help on making the switch.

How much do PostHog and Google Analytics cost?

Google Analytics has a free tier that's sufficient for most startups. Larger enterprises with higher data collection and export requirements will need to upgrade to GA360, which starts at $50,000 per year.

A good rule of thumb is that if you're exporting more than 1 million events per day, or querying data with more than 10 million events, you'll need to upgrade to GA360. See Google's breakdown for more.

PostHog has transparent pricing based on the usage. It's free to get started and completely free for the first 1 million analytics events. After this free monthly allowance you're charged based on usage – we charge progressively less per event the more you use.

We recommend trying our pricing calculator to estimate your costs.

Does PostHog offer a free trial?

With PostHog, it's free to get started, with a generous monthly allowance of events, replays, and feature flag requests. If you’re within this allowance, PostHog is free to use forever.

Can I migrate from Google Analytics to PostHog?

Yes, see our Google Analytics to PostHog migration guide for more details.

Does PostHog block bots by default?

Yes. See the full blocklist 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 have reverse proxy setup guides for AWS Cloudfront, Caddy, Cloudflare, Netlify, Vercel, and more, in our docs.

Are there discounts for non-profits and startups?

Yes, PostHog offers both. Non-profit organizations can contact our team and are usually eligible for a 50% discount, while startups can sign up for $50,000 of free credit (and a host of other perks) in the PostHog for Startups program.

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