Mixpanel vs Amplitude vs Heap vs PostHog - Comparison

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If you're trying to choose between Mixpanel, Amplitude Analytics, Heap, and PostHog for your product analytics needs, you've come to the right place. We used QBack to analyze G2 reviews, dug through Reddit discussions, and compared current pricing across all four platforms to give you a clear picture of which one might work best for you.

This comparison covers everything from pricing and features to what real customers are saying. Whether you're a product manager looking for detailed user insights, a startup needing cost-effective analytics, or an enterprise requiring robust data governance, we break down the strengths, weaknesses, and true costs of each platform so you can make an informed decision.

Which product analytics platform has the best G2 rating?

G2 Performance Metrics

PlatformG2 RatingTotal ReviewsKey Sentiment
Mixpanel4.6/51,247 reviewsStrong ratings; concerns about pricing and data accuracy
Amplitude Analytics4.5/52,590 reviewsLarge user base; praised for real-time analytics
Heap4.4/51,095 reviewsAuto-capture feature highlighted
PostHog4.5/5951 reviewsOpen-source alternative; good for startups

Source: Mixpanel G2 Reviews, Amplitude Analytics G2 Reviews, Heap G2 Reviews, PostHog G2 Reviews

How much do product analytics platforms really cost?

Mixpanel Pricing

Source: Mixpanel Pricing

Free Tier: Up to 1 million monthly events free

Growth: Usage-based pricing

  • 1M monthly events free, then $0.28 per 1K events (volume discounts available)
  • Unlimited reports
  • 20K monthly session replays free
  • Cohorts and advanced analytics features
  • Funnel analysis
  • Retention reports

Enterprise: Custom pricing (contact sales)

  • Custom event volumes
  • Annual contracts available
  • Dedicated support
  • Advanced security features

Reddit Feedback: "Mixpanel pricing model based on monthly tracked users (MTU) can be very expensive" - Mixpanel Reddit Discussion

Reddit Concern: "Pricing model based on monthly tracked users (MTU) can be very expensive" - Toksta Mixpanel Review

Amplitude Analytics Pricing

Source: Amplitude Pricing

Starter (Free): Free plan available

  • 50K MTUs (monthly tracked users)
  • Up to 10M events
  • Out-of-the-box analytics and templates
  • Session Replay
  • Unlimited feature flags
  • Web Experimentation
  • AI Feedback

Plus: Starting at $49/month (billed annually)

  • Up to 300K MTUs
  • Per-MTU pricing (e.g., $0.049 per MTU)
  • Unlimited product analytics
  • Behavioral cohorts
  • Feature tagging
  • Segmentation for Web Experimentation
  • Custom audiences and syncs
  • Online customer support

Growth & Enterprise: Custom pricing (contact sales)

  • Custom MTU volume
  • Advanced behavioral analysis
  • Causal insights and monitoring
  • Feature Experimentation
  • Real-time streaming and syncs
  • Predictive audiences

Reddit Insight: "Amplitude is based on events. If you expect to have a ton of users who do very little then churn (like if you have blog posts that may get read by a user who then disappears, and you want to track those views) then Amplitude may end up cheaper" - Amplitude vs Mixpanel Reddit Discussion

Heap Pricing

Source: Heap Pricing

Free: Available

  • Up to 10K monthly sessions
  • Core analytics charts
  • Unlimited enrichment sources
  • Guides integrations
  • 6 months data history
  • SSO

Growth: Starting at $3,600/year

  • All Free features, plus:
  • Sense Contentsquare's AI: AI Powered Assistant
  • Unlimited users & reports
  • Chart customization
  • CSV exports
  • 12 months data history
  • Email support
  • Sign up and install the free snippet to get an estimate

Pro & Premier: Custom pricing (contact sales)

  • Custom session pricing
  • All Growth features, plus:
  • Account analytics
  • Engagement matrix
  • Report alerts
  • Session Replay as add-on
  • Data warehouse integration (Premier)
  • Behavioral targeting (Premier)
  • Unlimited projects (Premier)
  • Advanced user permissions (Premier)
  • Dedicated CSM (Premier)

Reddit Insight: "Heap promises a lot of auto-tracking capabilities... I am not sure why I would go for Mixpanel if Heap can track event data retroactively" - Heap vs Mixpanel Reddit Discussion

PostHog Pricing

Source: PostHog Pricing

Free Tier: Generous free tier available

  • First 1 million events/month free
  • 5K session recordings/month free
  • 1M feature flag requests/month free
  • 100K exceptions/month free (Error Tracking)
  • 1,500 survey responses/month free
  • Open-source option
  • Self-hosted available
  • 1-year data retention on free plan

Usage-Based Pricing: Pay-as-you-go after free tier

  • Product Analytics (anonymous events): From $0.00005/event (after 1M free events/month)
  • Identified events: From $0.000248/event (after 1M free events/month)
  • Session Replay: From $0.0030/recording (after 5K free/month)
  • Feature Flags: From $0.0001/request (after 1M free/month)
  • Prices reduce with scale
  • No minimums or annual commitments
  • Pay nothing if you stay within free tier limits

Enterprise: Custom pricing

  • Advanced features
  • Dedicated support
  • Custom contracts

Reddit Note: "PostHog is an open-source product analytics platform" - PostHog Alternatives Discussion

What are the top pain points for each platform?

Mixpanel: Top 3 Complaint Categories

1. Data Accuracy Issues ⚠️ Critical Issue

Severity: High - impacts trust in analytics data

  • Specific issue: Discrepancies between Mixpanel and other analytics tools (like Firebase)
  • Another issue: Mixpanel tracking fewer unique users compared to other platforms

Evidence:

  • "I find that there are discrepancies in the data held in firebase and the events tracked by mixpanel... mixpanel will have an event that tracks the first time a unique user opens the app. However, the number of unique users in firebase will be different" - Mixpanel Inaccuracies Reddit Discussion
  • "Mixpanel appears to be tracking fewer unique users compared to Firebase" - Statsig Comparison

2. Pricing Concerns

Severity: High - expensive for growing companies

  • Specific issue: Event-based pricing can become very expensive at scale
  • Another issue: Monthly tracked users (MTU) pricing model penalizes detailed tracking

Evidence:

  • "Pricing model based on monthly tracked users (MTU) can be very expensive" - Toksta Mixpanel Review
  • "Mixpanel's event-based pricing penalizes detailed tracking - teams often reduce instrumentation to save money, losing valuable insights in the process" - Statsig Comparison

3. Complex Query Limitations

Severity: Medium - limits advanced analysis

  • Specific issue: Struggles with complex queries and date-based analysis
  • Another issue: Difficult to debug specific user sessions

Evidence:

Amplitude Analytics: Top 3 Complaint Categories

1. Event Setup Complexity

Severity: Medium - time-consuming implementation

  • Specific issue: Setting up event tracking can be tedious
  • Another issue: Manual event implementation required

Evidence:

  • "Setting up event tracking can be tedious" - FullSession Blog
  • "I think our Amplitude events are garbage and it's ruining product decisions... inconsistent event names, broken user IDs that don't unify across devices or sessions" - Amplitude Events Reddit Discussion

2. Data Governance Challenges

Severity: High - impacts data quality

  • Specific issue: Lack of governance processes leads to inconsistent data
  • Another issue: Missing instrumentation for important features

Evidence:

  • "We never set up any sort of governance or audit process, so now I'm discovering that some of our most important features don't even have clear instrumentation" - Amplitude Events Reddit Discussion

3. Limited Marketing Attribution

Severity: Medium - not ideal for marketing teams

  • Specific issue: Better for product analytics than marketing attribution
  • Another issue: Limited traffic source focus

Evidence:

Heap: Top 3 Complaint Categories

1. Auto-Capture Limitations

Severity: Medium - may not capture all needed events

  • Specific issue: Auto-capture may miss some custom events
  • Another issue: Still requires some manual setup for complex tracking

Evidence:

2. Pricing Concerns

Severity: Medium - can be expensive at scale

  • Specific issue: Volume-based pricing can scale quickly
  • Another issue: Enterprise pricing requires custom quotes

PostHog: Top 3 Complaint Categories

1. Learning Curve

Severity: Medium - requires technical knowledge

  • Specific issue: Steeper learning curve for non-technical users
  • Another issue: Open-source setup requires more technical expertise

Evidence:

2. Limited Retention on Free Plan

Severity: Low - affects historical data analysis

  • Specific issue: Free plan has limited data retention
  • Another issue: May need to upgrade for historical analysis

Evidence:

3. UI Complexity

Severity: Low - affects ease of use

  • Specific issue: UI can be complex for beginners
  • Another issue: Missing some features compared to paid alternatives

Evidence:

How do these tools position themselves for different buyers?

Mixpanel: Product Analytics for Product Teams

Core Positioning: "User analytics solution" focused on event tracking and funnel analysis

Target Audience: Product managers and product teams needing detailed user behavior insights

Key Differentiators:

  • Event-based tracking for granular insights
  • Funnel analysis to identify drop-off points
  • Cohort analysis for segmented user behavior
  • Detailed retention reports

Weaknesses:

  • Expensive pricing model
  • Data accuracy concerns
  • Limited advanced statistical capabilities

Reddit Sentiment: "Easier and more pleasant to use compared to Google Analytics (initial impression)" but "Struggles with complex queries and date-based analysis" - Toksta Mixpanel Review

Amplitude Analytics: Real-Time Product Intelligence

Core Positioning: "Product analytics platform for tracking user behaviors" with real-time analytics

Target Audience: Product teams, data analysts, and marketers needing real-time insights

Key Differentiators:

  • Real-time analytics capabilities
  • Flexible dashboard customization
  • Powerful segmentation tools
  • Automated insights and anomaly detection

Weaknesses:

  • Event setup can be tedious
  • Data governance challenges
  • Limited marketing attribution

Reddit Insight: "Amplitude is a bit more sophisticated but Mixpanel is easier to use" - Amplitude vs Mixpanel Reddit

Heap: Auto-Capture Analytics Platform

Core Positioning: "Automatic event tracking" - capture everything, analyze later

Target Audience: Teams wanting to avoid manual event tracking setup

Key Differentiators:

  • Automatic event capture
  • Retroactive event tracking
  • No need to define events upfront
  • Historical data analysis

Weaknesses:

  • May miss some custom events
  • Pricing can scale quickly
  • Less control over what gets tracked

Reddit Insight: "Heap just collects every interaction and then you can go back and define metrics for clicks etc, even using historical data from before you defined it" - Heap vs Mixpanel Reddit

PostHog: Open-Source Product Analytics

Core Positioning: "Open-source product analytics platform" with self-hosted option

Target Audience: Startups and companies wanting open-source, self-hosted analytics

Key Differentiators:

  • Open-source and self-hostable
  • Transparent pricing
  • Product analytics, session replay, experiments, feature flags
  • Good for startups on a budget

Weaknesses:

  • Learning curve
  • Limited retention on free plan
  • UI complexity

Reddit Note: "What's an open-source alternative to Mixpanel for SaaS product analytics?" - PostHog is commonly recommended - PostHog Alternatives Reddit

Feature Comparison

FeatureMixpanelAmplitudeHeapPostHog
Event Tracking✅ Manual✅ Manual✅ Auto-capture✅ Manual
Funnel Analysis
Cohort Analysis
Retention Reports✅ Advanced
Real-Time Analytics✅ Strong
Session ReplayLimited
A/B Testing✅ Basic
Feature Flags
Open Source
Self-Hosted
Free Tier✅ (1M events)✅ Limited✅ Limited

Strengths and Weaknesses Summary

Mixpanel

Strengths:

  • Easy to use interface
  • Good for simple product analytics requests
  • Strong funnel and retention analysis
  • Recognized as dedicated product analytics tool

Weaknesses:

  • Expensive pricing model (MTU-based)
  • Data accuracy concerns
  • Struggles with complex queries
  • Limited advanced statistical capabilities

Proof Point: "Easier and more pleasant to use compared to Google Analytics" but "Pricing model based on monthly tracked users (MTU) can be very expensive" - Toksta Mixpanel Review

Amplitude Analytics

Strengths:

  • Real-time analytics capabilities
  • Flexible dashboard customization
  • Strong segmentation tools
  • Automated insights and anomaly detection

Weaknesses:

  • Event setup can be tedious
  • Data governance challenges
  • Limited marketing attribution
  • Can be expensive at scale

Proof Point: "Amplitude is a bit more sophisticated but Mixpanel is easier to use" - Amplitude vs Mixpanel Reddit

Heap

Strengths:

  • Automatic event capture
  • Retroactive event tracking
  • No need to define events upfront
  • Historical data analysis

Weaknesses:

  • May miss some custom events
  • Pricing can scale quickly
  • Less control over tracking
  • Enterprise pricing requires custom quotes

Proof Point: "Heap just collects every interaction and then you can go back and define metrics" - Heap vs Mixpanel Reddit

PostHog

Strengths:

  • Open-source and self-hostable
  • Transparent pricing
  • Includes session replay, experiments, feature flags
  • Good for startups on a budget

Weaknesses:

  • Learning curve
  • Limited retention on free plan
  • UI complexity
  • Missing some features compared to paid alternatives

Proof Point: "Open-source alternative to Mixpanel for SaaS product analytics" - PostHog Alternatives Reddit

Competitor Pricing Pages

Mixpanel:

Amplitude Analytics:

Heap:

PostHog:

G2 Reviews

Reddit Discussions

Additional Resources