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PlausiblevsPostHog

TL;DR

Plausible sells one thing: privacy-friendly website analytics. A single script, no cookies, an EU-hosted dashboard, and three published prices - Starter $9 a month for one site, Growth $14 for three sites and three team members, Business $19 for ten sites, ten members, five years of retention and a Stats API - with yearly billing taking two months off. PostHog is a product suite that includes web analytics as one module: its free monthly allowance covers 1M events, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests and 100K error-tracking exceptions with no card, and paid usage above that is billed per product. Choose Plausible if the job is pageview analytics for a marketing site and you want a bill that stays between $9 and $19 a month; choose PostHog if web analytics sits alongside product analytics, replay and flags in the same account.

PostHog's web analytics product lives inside a much larger account. The free tier resets every month and covers 1M events across its products, 5K session recordings, 1M feature flag requests, 100K error-tracking exceptions, 1,500 survey responses and 10GB of logs, with one project and one year of retention. Adding a card moves the account to pay-as-you-go: the same free allowance, then charges only above it, six projects, seven years of retention, and a billing limit per product so traffic spikes stop at a number you set.

The choice tracks what you are measuring. For a content site, a documentation site or a marketing property, Plausible's pageview-first model and flat $9 to $19 pricing keep the tool out of the budget conversation; the Stats API and embedded dashboards exist for teams that publish metrics. PostHog makes sense when the same team ships a product and wants pageviews, product events, replays and flags under one project - the free tier absorbs the traffic of most early products, and the bill only moves when a specific product passes its allowance.

Pros & cons

👍 Plausible Pros

  • Three published prices: Starter $9/month, Growth $14/month, Business $19/month at the 10k pageviews tier shown
  • One script covers pageviews, goals, custom events, funnels and revenue tracking
  • Vendor states no cookie banner or GDPR consent is needed, and the dashboard runs on European-owned infrastructure
  • Yearly billing takes two months off the listed monthly price, and the 30-day trial needs no card
  • Business adds a Stats API at 600 requests an hour, custom properties and five years of data retention

👎 Plausible Cons

  • Prices shown are for up to 10k monthly pageviews; heavier sites move to custom pricing
  • Team features - shared links, embedded dashboards, three team members - start at the $14 Growth tier
  • No session replay, feature flags or error tracking; those jobs need another tool
  • Starter covers one site only; three sites begin at Growth, ten at Business

👍 PostHog Pros

  • Web analytics sits inside a free monthly allowance of 1M events, with 5K recordings and 1M flag requests alongside
  • No card required for the free tier, and the same allowance resets every month
  • Per-product billing limits cap what extra usage can cost
  • Pay-as-you-go adds six projects, seven years of retention and email support while keeping the free allowance
  • Warehouse syncs from 900+ sources, so site and product data can sit in one account

👎 PostHog Cons

  • One project and one year of data retention on the free tier
  • Usage pricing means the bill follows event volume across several products rather than a flat monthly figure
  • Community support is the only channel without a paid plan
  • Web analytics is one module in a larger product; teams wanting only pageviews carry the rest of the suite

Side by side

FeaturePlausiblePostHog
Core jobWebsite analytics: pageviews, goals, funnels, revenue trackingProduct suite with web analytics as one module among analytics, replay, flags, errors
Free tierNone listed; 30-day trial without a card1M events/month, 5K recordings, 1M flag requests, 100K exceptions, no card
Entry priceStarter $9/month for one site, up to 10k monthly pageviews shownPay-as-you-go after the free allowance, per product, with billing limits
Mid tierGrowth $14/month: three sites, three team members, embedded dashboardsSame usage model; six projects and seven-year retention once a card is added
Top tierBusiness $19/month: ten sites, five years retention, Stats API at 600 requests/hourAnnual plans and volume discounts for heavy usage, arranged with an engineer
Privacy postureVendor states no cookie banner or consent needed; EU-made and hostedCloud or self-hosted; data handling is set by your own configuration
Data retentionThree years on Starter and Growth, five years on BusinessOne year on free, seven years on paid
Extra toolsNone - the script is the productSession replay, flags, experiments, surveys, warehouse, error tracking, logs

Verdict

Pick Plausible if

Choose Plausible if the job is pageviews

Plausible suits marketing sites, blogs and documentation where the question is which pages people read and which funnels they fall out of. At $9 a month for one site the price never needs defending, the dashboard is shareable with clients without training, and the vendor's EU posture removes the cookie-banner discussion. Teams that publish metrics will also value the Stats API and embedded dashboards on the $19 tier.

Pick PostHog if

Choose PostHog if the site is half the story

PostHog fits teams whose website includes a logged-in product: the same account carries pageviews, product events, replays, flags and errors, and the free monthly allowance covers the traffic of most early products with no card. It is the stronger pick when you expect to ask why a signup converted, not just that a page was viewed - and when a per-product billing limit is a better answer to cost control than a flat fee.

What the vendors say, and what we did not measure

No independent ratings or user quotes are reproduced here; we collected none for this pair. Plausible's site carries a customer quote from Cyrus Shepard calling it his favorite GA4 alternative and states 21k paying subscribers and 313B tracked pageviews - vendor-published claims. Prices were read from plausible.io and posthog.com/pricing on 2026-10-13.

Who Should Use Which?

Use Plausible if you...

  • you run a marketing site, blog or docs property and want flat pricing from $9/month
  • you need to share analytics with clients or stakeholders through embedded dashboards
  • your compliance answer to cookies is that you would rather not have one

Use PostHog if you...

  • the same team ships a web app and wants site plus product data in one account
  • you want session replay and feature flags without paying for three tools
  • your traffic is variable and you prefer per-product billing limits to a flat overage

FAQ

Does Plausible have a free plan?

The pricing page lists no free plan - Plausible runs a 30-day trial without a credit card, then Starter at $9 a month. PostHog's free tier has no time limit and resets monthly.

Which is cheaper for a small site?

Plausible at $9 a month is a fixed figure; PostHog's free tier covers 1M events a month at $0, so a site under that volume costs nothing. Above the free allowances PostHog bills usage per product, while Plausible moves to custom pricing past the 10k monthly pageviews tier shown.

Can PostHog replace Google Analytics for a marketing site?

PostHog's web analytics product tracks pageviews inside the same account as product events, replay and flags, and its free tier includes 1M events a month. Plausible is narrower by design: one script, one dashboard, no session replay or flags.

How do the privacy approaches differ?

Plausible states its dashboard needs no cookie banner or GDPR consent because it processes no personal data, and it is made and hosted in the EU on European-owned infrastructure. PostHog is cloud-hosted or self-hosted, with data controls set by your own configuration.

What retention does each give?

Plausible lists three years of data retention on Starter and Growth and five years on Business. PostHog retains data one year on the free tier and seven years on any paid plan.

Spot an outdated price or feature? Let us know and we'll verify it.

Heraldware analysis engine

reviewed · data sourced from official product pages · sources: plausible.io, posthog.com