Amplitude vs Heap: What are the differences?

Key differences between Amplitude and Heap

1. Data Collection and Integration: Amplitude provides a JavaScript library that captures and sends event data from web and mobile apps, while Heap automatically captures all user interactions without requiring any code implementation. Heap's approach allows for retroactive data analysis, as it captures data from the time of integration rather than starting from the implementation date.

2. Event Tracking: Amplitude focuses on tracking specific events that are predefined by the developer, allowing for a more granular analysis of user actions. On the other hand, Heap automatically captures all interactions, enabling a more comprehensive analysis of user behavior without the need for explicit event tracking.

3. Analytical Capabilities: Amplitude offers a wide range of analysis features, including funnels, retention analysis, cohort analysis, and user segmentation. These features allow for in-depth user behavior analysis and cohort comparisons. In contrast, Heap focuses more on retroactive analysis and exploration of user behavior, providing flexibility in exploring data and seeking insights without predefined analyses.

4. Data Accessibility and Visualization: Amplitude provides a visually appealing and intuitive interface with a dashboard that allows users to easily create and customize visualizations, charts, and reports. Heap, on the other hand, offers a more exploratory interface with robust querying capabilities, allowing users to query and explore raw event data more flexibly.

5. Privacy and Compliance: Amplitude offers data privacy controls, including opt-out and deletion options to ensure compliance with privacy regulations. Heap also provides privacy features but places more emphasis on anonymization and data security, integrating brazen privacy controls that allow users to manage and govern their data more transparently.

6. Pricing and Scalability: Amplitude offers tiered pricing plans based on usage, with options for startups and enterprises, and elastic pricing to scale with data volume. Heap, on the other hand, follows a flat pricing model based on the number of monthly active users, which may be more cost-effective for smaller companies but may not as easily scale for larger enterprises.

In Summary, Amplitude focuses on data collection flexibility, event tracking, and in-depth analysis features, while Heap provides retroactive data capture, exploratory querying, granular privacy controls, and a different pricing model based on active users.