Mixpanel vs OpenPanel (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Mixpanel grades higher than OpenPanel: 3.0 against 2.6 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Mixpanel grades higher on value for money and the free plan. They get the same grade on features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Mixpanel
Event-based product analytics with replays, flags and experiments
OpenPanel
Open-source web and product analytics, cloud or self-hosted
Which one is for you
Pick Mixpanel if
- Fits if you want to see where people drop out of sign-up and who comes back
- Works for startups that stay under 1M events a month, with any number of seats
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you just want page counts for a blog or a shop
- Pricey if you outgrow 1M events, at $100 a month for 1.5M and $840 at 10M on yearly billing
- Tight if you stay free and need saved cohorts or more than 5 saved reports each
- Watch out: group analytics and Data Pipelines exports are paid add-ons, and Growth stops at 20M events
- Not for you if you need anomaly detection, HIPAA tools or custom data retention without an Enterprise deal
Pick OpenPanel if
- Fits if you want web and product analytics in one tool
- Works for developers who'd self-host or pay by events
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you want free Cloud, since there's only a 30-day trial
- Watch out: past your plan's limit, new events stop showing until the next period
- Watch out: self-hosted releases come a little after Cloud
- Watch out: yearly billing is ten months for twelve, and prices exclude VAT
- Not for you if you want an open-source free Cloud, which asks for a link back
How we grade them
| 3.0GPAMixpanelVery good | 2.6GPAOpenPanelGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AA site with 10,000 visitors a month fits inside the free 1M events, so the figure is $0, with unlimited seats and 10,000 replays. Past that, Growth is $100 a month for 1.5M events billed yearly ($140 monthly), and $840 at 10M. | BCloud starts at $2.50 a month for 5K events and $20 for 100K. The free self-hosted route needs a server. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree forever with no card: 1M events, 10,000 replays, 1,000 experiment users and 10 feature flags, with unlimited seats. The caps: 5 saved reports per seat, and cohorts you can build but not save. | C30-day Cloud trial with no card, or self-hosting for free. There's no permanent free Cloud plan. |
| Features | BFunnels, retention, cohorts, replays with console logs, heatmaps, flags, experiments, AI summaries and warehouse connectors. That's the whole product analytics job. Anomaly detection and HIPAA tools are Enterprise only, and group analytics is a paid add-on. | BWeb and product analytics, funnels, retention, cohorts, replay and revenue, with every feature on every Cloud plan. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. Autocapture works on web and mobile, but you'll still want a tracking plan, and building useful funnels and cohorts takes some learning. AI summaries and an MCP server take questions in plain words. | CNo rating read. Cloud is simple but you still add SDKs and set up events. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, no desktop or phone app, so it stops at B. It pulls data from BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift and Postgres, and works with Segment, mParticle, Braze, Iterable and Google Ads. | BWeb, with SDKs for web and mobile, and Next.js, React, Vue, Swift and Kotlin. |
| Best for | funnels and retention for apps and sites | web and product analytics, hosted or self-hosted |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Mixpanel and OpenPanel. How we grade
Price against what you get
Mixpanel starts at $100 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. OpenPanel starts at $2.50 a month and scores 2.7.
They score the same, and OpenPanel starts $97.50 a month lower. Of the other website and product analytics tools on the chart, 1 scores higher than Mixpanel for less, and none scores higher than OpenPanel for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- OpenPanel is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Mixpanel also covers a/B testing.
- OpenPanel also covers dashboards.
At a glance
| Mixpanel | OpenPanel | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $100 per month for 1.5M events, billed annually ($140 billed monthly) | $2.50 per month for 5K events, billed monthly |
| Free plan | Free forever, no card: unlimited seats, 1M events a month, 10,000 session replays, 1,000 experiment users, 10 feature flags, funnels and retention, 5 saved reports per seat. | Self-hosted edition is free with no event limits; the Cloud has a 30-day trial, and open-source projects can apply for free Cloud up to 2.5M events. |
| Free trial | None listed | 30-day free trial of Cloud, no credit card needed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Mixpanel | OpenPanel |
| Price read from | mixpanel.com | openpanel.dev |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Mixpanel
- Growth is billed per event after the first 1M a month and tops out at 20M; above that you need Enterprise, priced through sales.
- Anomaly detection, data quality monitoring, HIPAA tools with a BAA and cross-product analysis are Enterprise only.
- Group (account-level) analytics and Data Pipelines exports are paid add-ons on Growth and Enterprise.
- Data is kept 2 years by default on every plan; a custom retention policy needs Enterprise.
OpenPanel
- Going past the plan limit does not bill extra: new events stop showing until the next period.
- Cloud has no permanent free plan; free use means self-hosting or the open-source program, which asks for a link back.
- Self-hosted releases arrive a little after Cloud.
- Yearly billing costs ten months instead of twelve; prices are shown excluding VAT.
Key features
Mixpanel
- Funnels, retention and cohorts
- Reports built from tracked events, with autocapture for web and mobile. Saved cohorts, custom properties and unlimited saved reports start on Growth.
- Session replay and heatmaps
- Web and mobile replays with console logs and network calls, plus heatmaps and clickmaps. Free includes 10,000 replays a month and Growth 20,000, expandable to 500,000.
- Feature flags and experiments
- Feature flags and A/B experiments counted by monthly experiment users: 1,000 on Free and 5,000 on Growth, which can buy up to 100,000.
- AI analysis and MCP server
- AI summaries and agent-style analysis on every plan, and an MCP server so AI assistants can query your Mixpanel data.
- Warehouse connectors
- Growth and Enterprise can bring in data from BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift and Postgres; those rows count toward the event limit.
OpenPanel
- Web and product analytics together
- Visitors, referrers and pages without cookies, alongside funnels, retention, cohorts and user profiles in the same dashboard.
- Session replay
- Session replay and session tracking are listed as features in the product, with no separate add-on price on the pricing page.
- Revenue tracking
- Revenue figures can be shown next to traffic and events in the same views.
- AI observability
- Tracks cost, tokens and latency for AI model calls, and lets you pull numbers from your own AI assistant or agent.
- Cloud or self-hosted
- The cloud is hosted in the EU. The same code runs on your own infrastructure under the AGPL license.
- SDKs for web and mobile
- Install through a script tag or an SDK. The docs list SDKs including React, Next.js, Vue, React Native, Swift and Kotlin.
Plans
Mixpanel
Free$0
1M events a month, 10,000 session replays, unlimited seats. Cohorts can be built but not saved.
Growth$100
per month for 1.5M events, billed annually ($140 billed monthly)
First 1M events free, then $0.00028 an event with volume discounts, up to 20M. $840 a month at 10M events, billed annually. 20,000 replays.
EnterpriseCustom
Sold through sales: up to 1T events a month, custom replay and experiment volumes, anomaly detection, HIPAA tools and a success team.
OpenPanel
Self-hosted$0
The same open-source code on your own servers with Docker Compose, with no event limits. You host it yourself.
Cloud 5K$2.50
per month for up to 5K events, billed monthly ($25 per year)
Smallest Cloud step. Every feature is included; websites, team members and dashboards are unlimited.
Cloud 100K$20
per month for up to 100K events, billed monthly ($200 per year)
Same features as every Cloud plan; only the monthly event allowance changes.
Cloud 1M$90
per month for up to 1M events, billed monthly ($900 per year)
Price rises with events; the page also lists 10M at $350 a month and 50M at $900 a month.
CustomCustom
For more than 50M events a month, by request.
Ways to pay less
Mixpanel
- Annual discount
About 29% off Growth with annual billing
Billed annually, Growth costs $100 a month at 1.5M events instead of $140, and $840 instead of $1,176 at 10M events; the page puts the saving at $480 a year at 1.5M.
- Startups
First year free for early-stage startups
Companies under 5 years old with up to $8M in funding get a free first year on the Startup Plan: 1 billion events, 1 million session replays and unlimited experiments.
OpenPanel
- Annual discount
Two months free on yearly billing
Paying yearly costs ten months instead of twelve, for example $200 a year instead of $20 a month at 100K events.
- Other savings
Free Cloud for open-source projects
Open-source projects can get Cloud free up to 2.5M events in exchange for a link back to OpenPanel.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Mixpanel or OpenPanel?
As of Nov 13, 2026, OpenPanel is cheaper to start with: $2.50 a month, against $100 a month for Mixpanel. Mixpanel starts at $100 per month for 1.5M events, billed annually ($140 billed monthly), and OpenPanel starts at $2.50 per month for 5K events, billed monthly.
Which has a free plan, Mixpanel or OpenPanel?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Mixpanel and OpenPanel have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.