In-depth: PostHog vs Heap

Jan 10, 2024

Want to know how PostHog and Heap compare? If you remember nothing else, remember these two points:

Heap is a product analytics tool designed for non-technical users.
PostHog is an all-in-one platform built for engineers that replaces Heap and numerous other tools.

How is PostHog different to Heap?

1. PostHog is an all-in-one platform

Heap, like Amplitude and Mixpanel, focuses mainly on product analytics. That means you need to adopt additional tools for things like feature management, A/B testing, and surveys. PostHog combines all these features into one platform, so you can spend less time integrating different tools and more time

2. PostHog's built for engineers

We support all popular (and some unpopular) SDKs, have extensively documented APIs, and a powerful SQL query builder, so you can analyze data how you want. We make it easy to test in production, conduct phased rollouts, run beta programs, and so much more.

3. Self-serve vs talk to sales

Signing up to PostHog is as simple as creating an account and adding our JavaScript snippet to your site or app. That's it. Want more features? Just put in a card and pay for what you use. We have a generous free tier, so you may not pay anything at all. No mandatory sales calls. No boring white papers in exchange for your email.

Comparing PostHog and Heap

Platform

PostHog includes everything you need to rollout, analyze, test, and observe new features – and gather feedback from your users.

	PostHog	Heap
Product analytics Track events and conversion, analyze user behavior	✔	✔
Web analytics Easy to use analytics for marketing websites	Beta	✖
Session replay Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs	✔	✔
Feature flags Roll out features safely, toggle features for cohorts or individuals	✔	✔
Experiments 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	Beta	✖
Heatmaps Visualize where users click 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	✔	✖

Product analytics

Heap and PostHog offer similar product analytics features, but PostHog's SQL query editor makes it a more useful tool for power users. PostHog also has a more generous free tier.

	PostHog	Heap
Free usage How much free usage do you get each month?	1 million events	10k monthly tracked users
Autocapture Capture events without manual logging	✔	✔
Query editor Write your own queries in SQL	✔	✖
Group analytics Track metrics at a company and account level	✔	✔
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	✔	✔
Lifecycle analysis Understand who is dormant, churning, and thriving	✔	✔
Stickiness Find out what events keep users coming back.	✔	✖
Custom formulas Use formulas to calculate unique insights	✔	✖
Data retention Use formulas to calculate unique insights	7 years	1 year (pay for more)

Session replays

Session replays are an essential tool for understanding how people use your product, especially for early-stage companies searching for product-market fit. Both Heap and PostHog offer session replay, though Heap lacks many developer-facing features like a DOM explorer and network events.

	PostHog	Heap
Free usage How much free usage do you get each month?	5,000 recordings	None
Web app recordings Capture recordings from single-page apps	✔	✖
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 users' browser environment	✔	✖
Playlists Sort recordings into static and dynamic playlists	✔	✖
Performance monitoring Track network events within a session	✔	✖
Privacy masking Censor personal information from playback	✔	✔
Conditional capture 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	✔	✖

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 features, so you can target session replays, surveys, and more using existing feature flags. See our guide on the benefits of feature flags for more.

	PostHog	Heap
Free usage How much free usage do you get each month?	1 million API requests	n/a
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	Beta	✖
Environments Manage flags for dev, stage, prod	Partial	✖
Bootstrapping Flags available on frontend application load	✔	✖
Early access Manage betas, test features	✔	✖

Experimentation

PostHog's offers a generous free 1 million A/B testing events. Heap doesn't support A/B testing, instead opting to integrate with several third-party tools.

	PostHog	Heap
Free usage How much free usage do you get each month?	1 million API requests	n/a
Custom goals Customize metrics that a test tracks	✔	✖
Secondary metrics Monitor impact on unrelated metrics	✔	✖
Split testing Split participants into groups	✔	✖
Multivariate (A/B/n) testing Test multiple variants of a change	✔	✖
Statistical significance Automatically checks for statistical significance	✔	✖
Recommended run time Calculates the recommended run time and sample size	✔	✖
Holdout testing Withhold multiple features to measure cumulative impact	Partial	n/a
Statistics engine How the results of an experiment are calculated	Bayesian	n/a

Integrations

PostHog and Heap both offer a wide range if integrations, but only PostHog enables you to build you own custom integrations thanks to our open-source license. Below is snapshot of integrations, see our data pipeline docs for a full list of PostHog integrations.

	PostHog	Heap
Imports Import data from data warehouses and other sources	✔	✔
Exports Export data to data warehouses other destinations	✔	✔
Community integrations Build your own integrations	✔	✖
Segment Send events via Segment	✔	✔
Rudderstack Send events via Rudderstack	✔	✖
Zapier Trigger Zapier automations	✔	✔
Sentry Connect to Sentry data	✔	✖
Zendesk Two-way integration for customer support	✔	✔
Slack Alerts for Slack	✔	✔
Hubspot CRM and marketing tools	✔	✔
Customer.io Marketing automation	✔	✖
Intercom Marketing automation	✔	✔

Security and compliance

	PostHog	Heap
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	✔	✔

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to deploy PostHog?

Deploying PostHog takes mere minutes. Just include our tracking snippet in your product or website and (thanks to autocapture) you're immediately capturing events. Once up and running, you can enable session replays and other features via your project settings. See our guide to getting started on PostHog Cloud for more info.

Can PostHog also replace Google Analytics?

Yes. PostHog can replace Google Analytics for many use cases – our marketing team uses PostHog, for example. You can 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 can I estimate my usage?

The easiest way is to sign up to PostHog, integrate our snippet, then check the projection on your billing page after a few days. Alternatively, you can guesstimate by multiplying your current monthly active users by an estimate of events generated per user – 50 to 100 per user is a good starting point. See Estimating usage & costs in our docs for more.

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.

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

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

Can you use PostHog on e-commerce websites?

Absolutely. PostHog is easy to integrate with Shopify. You can easily install PostHog on other e-commerce platforms using our Javascript snippet – see our guides to setting up Webflow analytics and Wordpress.

How does PostHog compare to Amplitude and Mixpanel?

Amplitude and Mixpanel offer similar features to Heap. Read our PostHog vs Mixpanel and PostHog vs Amplitude guides for more info. You may also find guide to the most popular Heap alternatives useful.

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