PostHog
1M analytics events free / month
PostHog’s monthly free allowances also include 5,000 recordings and 1 million flag requests. Model paid usage separately for each product you enable.[6]
PostHog vs Mixpanel.
Two capable product analytics platforms. Compare how you’ll investigate behavior, run experiments, and pay as usage grows.
Shortlist PostHog if in-app SQL and the path from analytics to product changes fit how your team works. Shortlist Mixpanel if you want to organize your team’s work around visual event reports and cohorts. Both now offer autocapture, replay, feature flags, and experiments. The choice needs a closer look than a list of checkmarks.
Compare the essentials.
A comparison of the hosted services. Shared capabilities do not mean identical workflows or identical billing.
| What matters | PostHog | Mixpanel |
|---|---|---|
| Product analysis | Trends, funnels, retention, paths, and SQL insights.[1] | Event reports, funnels, and retention. Saved-report and cohort limits vary by plan.[2] |
| Autocapture | Automatic interaction capture alongside explicitly tracked business events.[3] | Available on all plans. The web SDK supports automatic pageviews, clicks, forms, and scroll events.[4] |
| Session replay | Recordings connect to the product analytics workflow.[3] | Web and mobile replay. Default recording retention is 30 days; custom Enterprise options are available.[5] |
| Feature flags | Usage is measured in flag requests, separately from analytics events.[6] | Free includes 10 active flags. Flag API requests are unlimited; active-flag and targeting limits still apply.[7] |
| Experiments | Experiments use the feature-flag billing model.[6] | Available on all plans. Free includes 1,000 monthly experiment users, measured by users exposed to experiments.[8] |
| SQL & exports | SQL insights are available within the analytics workspace.[1] | Data Pipelines is a paid add-on for exporting to your storage or warehouse, where you can run your own queries.[2] |
| Sharing ongoing analysis | Save insights to dashboards so the team can revisit the same analysis.[1] | Free allows 5 saved reports per seat. Growth removes that limit and supports saving cohorts.[2] |
Feature flags and experiments are no longer an exclusive point of difference. Compare targeting, rollout behavior, analysis, and the usage meter for your actual experiment.
What will it cost?
Start with the allowance, then estimate your full monthly usage.
Mixpanel
1M events free / month
Mixpanel Free includes 10,000 monthly replays, 1,000 monthly experiment users, and 10 active feature flags. Report-saving limits still matter for a team.[9]
Mixpanel counts billable events across projects in an organization, with documented exclusions for certain system and profile operations. Estimate each platform’s bill from its own definitions; equal traffic does not guarantee equal billable usage.[2]
Where the choice gets practical.
Build the report your team will actually use.
Both can support a signup-to-activation funnel and a report on whether those users return. In PostHog, you can work with visual insights or SQL. Mixpanel’s plans include funnels and retention, but the free plan limits how much analysis you can save for repeated use.[1][2]
Ask a product manager and an engineer to answer the same question: where did activation fall last week, and for which users? Evaluate the time needed to get a trustworthy answer, explain it, and save it. A tool that suits one person may be awkward for the people who maintain the reports.
Both can collect more than manual events.
The old distinction that PostHog autocaptures while Mixpanel requires every event to be coded is outdated. Both support autocapture. Mixpanel documents web capture for clicks, forms, scrolling, and pageviews; PostHog also combines captured interactions with custom events.[4][3]
Use that convenience carefully. A click on a button is not always proof that a project was created or a payment succeeded. Track business outcomes explicitly, keep event names stable, and review captured properties before rolling collection out widely. This work matters in either platform.
Compare an experiment, not just a feature flag.
Mixpanel now offers both flags and experiments on all plans. Its experiment allowance counts monthly exposed users, while PostHog experiments follow feature-flag usage billing. Ten active flags and one million requests describe different things; neither tells you the other platform’s equivalent cost.[7][8][6]
Try a small onboarding change with a defined success event. Check targeting, exposure tracking, the person responsible for the rollout, and how a failed change gets turned off. Include the experiment’s expected audience and request volume in the cost estimate.
Try it with your own data.
A useful trial includes the people, data, and repeatable reports you will rely on after the first week.
- 1
Use a shared event specification
Define signup, activation, and return events once. Include user identity, account membership, and the properties needed to segment the funnel.
- 2
Rebuild one recurring report
Create a funnel and a retention view, save the results, and ask a teammate to use them. Test the actual plan you intend to pay for.
- 3
Price a normal month and a busy one
Estimate events, recordings, and experiment usage. Check limits, add-ons, and data exports before choosing based on the free allowance alone.
Connect Google Analytics, Plausible, Fathom, or PostHog. Available metrics and required API access depend on your source and plan. Explore connections ↗
A few common questions.
Is PostHog or Mixpanel better for a small team?
Does Mixpanel have autocapture and session replay?
Does Mixpanel include feature flags and experiments?
Can I migrate without losing my reporting history?
Do not assume a new SDK transfers existing history or recreates reports. Inventory your event schema, identities, saved reports, and export requirements. Verify a historical import separately, then run both on one important journey before changing the reports your team relies on.
Sources & review notes
Reviewed October 1, 2026 against the official documentation below. Plan details describe the hosted services at the time of review and can change. Recommendations are editorial assessments of documented capabilities; we have not run a performance benchmark.
This guide is published by TinyKPI. Our app is a companion for checking selected business metrics on your Mac; the comparison above covers the platforms that collect and analyze the data.