Heap vs PostHog: What are the differences?

Introduction

Here, we will discuss the key differences between Heap and PostHog.

1. Data Collection Approach: Heap automatically captures all user interactions and events without requiring manual event tracking. It tracks every click, pageview, and form submission by default, providing a comprehensive dataset. On the other hand, PostHog offers a flexible event tracking system where developers explicitly define the events they want to track, requiring intentional event setup.

2. Pricing Model: Heap follows a usage-based pricing model, charging based on the number of monthly tracked users. In contrast, PostHog follows an open-source model, offering a self-hosted version with no per-user fees, which can be cost-effective for organizations with large user bases.

3. Event Analysis: Heap provides an automatic retroactive analysis that enables exploration and analysis of historical data, even for events that were not initially tracked. This feature allows retroactive funnel analysis and cohort analysis. PostHog, in contrast, doesn't offer automatic retroactive analysis, and historical data exploration is dependant on the events that were explicitly set up.

4. Event Querying and Segmentation: Heap offers a visual interface where users can easily query and segment data by dragging and dropping elements, simplifying the data exploration process. PostHog, on the other hand, offers a query builder that allows users to leverage SQL-like syntax to filter and segment data.

5. Collaboration and Sharing: Heap enables teams to collaborate by providing access control settings and the ability to easily share insights and reports with team members. PostHog also supports collaboration, allowing multiple team members to work on tracking and analyzing events simultaneously.

6. Third-party Integrations: Both Heap and PostHog offer various integrations with popular tools and platforms. However, Heap provides a larger number of pre-built integrations, allowing for easier data syncing between different systems.

In summary, Heap provides automatic event tracking, retroactive analysis, and visual querying, whereas PostHog offers more flexibility in event tracking, an open-source pricing model, and SQL-like query capabilities.