Aptabase vs PostHog
| Tagline | Privacy-first, open-source analytics for mobile and desktop apps | All-in-one product analytics, session replay, feature flags, and A/B testing |
| Category | Product & Web Analytics | Product & Web Analytics |
| Replaces | Mixpanel, Amplitude, Google Analytics | Mixpanel, Amplitude, Hotjar, Google Analytics |
| GitHub stars | 1.7k | 35k |
| Language | Docker | Python |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 5/5 Advanced |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 3 months ago | today |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Aptabase
- No funnel, retention, or cohort analysis out of the box
- Limited to event-based tracking; no session replay or heatmaps
- Smaller SDK ecosystem compared to Firebase Analytics or Mixpanel
- Self-hosted version may lag behind the cloud product in features
PostHog
- Self-hosting the full ClickHouse + Kafka + Postgres + Redis stack is heavy; the project actively steers smaller users toward PostHog Cloud.
- Some enterprise features live under a separate proprietary
eelicense, not pure MIT. - The all-in-one breadth means it is more complex to operate than a focused tool like Mixpanel.
Bottom line
Choose Aptabase if you want the lower-effort setup; choose PostHog for the larger community and ecosystem. PostHog has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
PostHog
All-in-one product analytics, session replay, feature flags, and A/B testing