Hotjar vs PostHog
Thinking of swapping Hotjar for the open-source PostHog? Here’s the honest trade-off.
35k Python MIT 3 days ago
What you give up vs Hotjar
- 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.
What you gain
- • Full data ownership — self-host PostHog on your own infrastructure.
- • No per-seat SaaS bill (Hotjar: session-capped paid plans).
- • Open-source code you can audit and extend (MIT).