PostHog vs Amplitude: the honest comparison
The short answer
Edition v2026.Q3 · pricing and status verified 2026-08-06.
Choose PostHog for startups that want analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys, and error tracking as one instrumented stack from day one — free until real traction. Choose Amplitude for scale-ups and enterprises that need governed, deep behavioral analytics — cohorts, monitoring, RBAC — plus experimentation, on a vendor procurement already trusts.
On the elems table, PostHog holds seat #1 of the Analytics element and Amplitude holds #2 — this is the closest call in the category, and the honest answer depends on which trade-off you can live with.
The case for each
1PostHogPostHog
Free 1M events/mo · usage-based from $0.00005/event (volume discounts to $0.000009) · Boost $250/mo · Scale $750/mo · Enterprise customBest for Startups that want analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys, and error tracking as one instrumented stack from day one — free until real traction.
Watch Act 2 sprawl risk — 19 products and a stated pivot toward broader dev tooling stretch focus, and the UI shows it. ARR is still a seventh of Amplitude's, and usage-based bills surprise teams who never set billing limits.
2AmplitudeAmplitude (NASDAQ: AMPL)
Free 2M events/mo · Plus usage-based from $0 (scales to 70M events) · Growth & Enterprise custom, event-based · unlimited seats all plansBest for Scale-ups and enterprises that need governed, deep behavioral analytics — cohorts, monitoring, RBAC — plus experimentation, on a vendor procurement already trusts.
Watch Free tier is generous but the cliff to custom-priced Growth/Enterprise is steep and opaque — small teams routinely bounce off sales-led pricing. Still GAAP-unprofitable, and the Statsig integration ('full interoperability' promised, data-layer only in phase 1) is unfinished.
PostHog vs Amplitude: side by side
Edition v2026.Q3 · verified 2026-08-06.
| PostHog | Amplitude | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based per product | Usage-based |
| Free tier | 1M events + 5K replays/mo | Generous free tier |
| Open source | Yes (MIT core) | Partly (SDKs) |
| Session replay | Yes (bundled) | Yes |
| Flags & experiments | Yes (bundled) | Yes (core strength) |
| Cookieless default | Optional | No |
| SQL / warehouse access | Yes (SQL + built-in warehouse) | Warehouse-native mode |
| AI features | MCP · AI observability · agents | AI knowledge graph · MCP |
What each side won't tell you
PostHog: Act 2 sprawl risk — 19 products and a stated pivot toward broader dev tooling stretch focus, and the UI shows it. ARR is still a seventh of Amplitude's, and usage-based bills surprise teams who never set billing limits.
Amplitude: Free tier is generous but the cliff to custom-priced Growth/Enterprise is steep and opaque — small teams routinely bounce off sales-led pricing. Still GAAP-unprofitable, and the Statsig integration ('full interoperability' promised, data-layer only in phase 1) is unfinished.
If it's neither
The rest of the top five: Mixpanel (analytics craft, ai agents) · Plausible (privacy-first web stats) · Vercel Web Analytics (zero-setup, if on vercel). The complete field — 20 more tools including the graveyard — is on the element page.
This analysis is drawn from the Analytics element dossier — the ranked top 5, the comparison matrix, and the complete field of 20 more tools live there, with every source. Data: an.json (CC BY 4.0).
Every claim above is dated and sourced from the elems dossiers — 1,421 tools tracked across 58 categories, verified 2026-08-06, including the 276 we found dead, renamed, acquired, or sunsetting. Rankings are editorial, never paid — the charter.
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