PostHog vs Snowplow (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, we pick PostHog: it is second in our ranking of website and product analytics tools, and it grades higher too, 3.2 against 2.2.
Checked Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 18, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
PostHog grades higher on value for money, the free plan, features and ease of use. They get the same grade on platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
PostHog
Open-source product analytics with replays, flags and surveys
Snowplow
Event data collection pipeline for your warehouse and AI agents
Which one is for you
Pick PostHog if
- Fits if you're a startup that wants analytics, replays and flags within the free allowance
- Works for developers who want to go from a broken session to the error behind it
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you just want simple visitor counts without learning a whole toolkit
- Pricey if you need SSO or a HIPAA BAA, which take Boost at $250 a month on top of usage; SAML takes Scale at $750
- Not for you if you want a fixed monthly bill, as everything past the free allowance is metered
- Tight if you stay free, with 1 project, recordings kept a month and events dropped past the limits
- Watch out: self-hosted PostHog is officially unsupported, with no tagged releases or paid support
Pick Snowplow if
- Fits if you have data engineers and want to own your event data in your own warehouse
- Works for a company that needs a tracking plan with validation
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a dashboard to open and read, as it's infrastructure
- Not for you if no one on your team writes data code
- Skip it if you want a price on the page, as none is published
- Watch out: the self-hosted pipeline is for former open-source users and drops the non-commercial limit in the SLULA 1.1 license
How we grade them
| 3.2GPAPostHogVery good | 2.2GPASnowplowFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AA site with 10,000 visitors a month fits in the free 1M events and 5,000 recordings, so the figure is $0. There's no base fee after that, just usage from $0.00005 an event. Boost, at $250 a month, is only for SSO, HIPAA and more projects. | CNo prices are published; rates depend on event volume, hosting or consumption, and you request a quote. |
| Free plan and trial | BNo card and no time limit: 1M events, 5,000 recordings, 1M flag requests and 1,500 survey responses every month, with unlimited members. Usage stops at the limit, so no surprise bill. You get 1 project, and recordings are kept a month. | C14-day trial of the full product with no card. No free plan. |
| Features | AAnalytics, web analytics, replays, flags, A/B tests, surveys, error tracking, logs and a data warehouse with pipelines in and out. Graded against Amplitude, Mixpanel and Heap, it covers the whole job, and none of them bundles errors, logs and a warehouse too. | BEvent tracking, validation, enrichment, delivery to warehouses and streams, modelling and event forwarding. It covers the pipeline but gives you no ready dashboard. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. The cloud version is a snippet and a sign-up, but there are a lot of products to learn and events to plan. The free self-hosted version is a Docker deploy PostHog doesn't officially support, which is a developer's job. | DNo store rating on record, and the listing says it suits teams with data engineering skills. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, so it can't reach an A. It pulls data in from Stripe, HubSpot, Salesforce and Postgres, sends events out to Braze, Klaviyo and others, and works with Snowflake, BigQuery and Zendesk. | BWeb only, but it delivers to Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, S3 and Kafka, and links to AI tools such as AWS Bedrock. |
| Best for | a whole product toolkit on one free allowance | event data infrastructure for data teams |
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: PostHog and Snowplow. How we grade
Where they differ
- PostHog is open source, according to its own site.
- PostHog also covers surveys, session replay and a/B testing.
- Snowplow also covers dashboards.
At a glance
| PostHog | Snowplow | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $0.00005 per analytics event past the free 1M (pay-as-you-go) | Not published |
| Free plan | Monthly allowance that resets: 1M analytics events, 5,000 recordings, 1M flag requests, 1,500 survey responses, 100K exceptions. Unlimited members, 1 project, 1-year retention. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | 14-day free trial with full product, no credit card required |
| Web | ||
| Made by | PostHog | Snowplow Analytics Ltd |
| Price read from | posthog.com | Not confirmed |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
PostHog
- Usage is metered per product, so the monthly bill moves with traffic; billing limits can be set for each product to cap it.
- SSO enforcement, a HIPAA BAA and unlimited projects need the $250-a-month Boost package on top of usage; SAML sign-in needs Scale at $750.
- The free plan keeps recordings for 1 month and data for 1 year, allows 1 project, and drops events past its limits.
- Self-hosted PostHog is officially unsupported and has no tagged releases; PostHog recommends always running the latest image.
Snowplow
- No prices are published; the page says rates depend on event volume, hosting, consumption or destinations, and asks you to request a quote.
- The self-hosted pipeline is aimed at previous open-source users and removes the non-commercial restriction in the SLULA 1.1 license.
- It is data infrastructure rather than a ready-made dashboard tool, so it suits teams with data engineering skills.
Key features
PostHog
- Product and web analytics
- Funnels, trends, retention, user paths and a web analytics dashboard, built from events. The first 1M events a month are free.
- Session replay
- Recordings of real visits to see where people get stuck, linked to funnels and errors. 5,000 recordings a month are free; recordings are kept 90 days on pay-as-you-go.
- Feature flags and experiments
- Roll features out to chosen users and run A/B tests, billed together by flag requests, with 1M requests free each month.
- Surveys
- In-app surveys with 1,500 free responses a month, and white-labeled surveys on the Boost package.
- Error tracking and logs
- Captures exceptions (100K free a month) and ingests logs (10 GB free), so you can go from a replay to the error behind it.
- Data warehouse and pipelines
- Syncs data in from Stripe, HubSpot, Salesforce, Postgres and others, and sends events out to tools such as Braze and Klaviyo.
Snowplow
- Event tracking
- More than 20 first-party trackers and webhooks collect events from web, mobile and server sources.
- Validation and enrichment
- Events are validated and enriched in stream as they arrive, with data quality monitoring.
- Warehouse and stream delivery
- Data goes to destinations such as Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Amazon S3 and Kafka.
- Modeling and analytics
- Digital analytics and ecommerce analytics models run on data in your warehouse.
- Signals and event forwarding
- Signals serves live customer context to apps and agents; event forwarding sends events to other tools.
Plans
PostHog
Free$0
Full free allowance on every product, unlimited team members, 1 project, community support. Usage stops at the limits, so no surprise bill.
Pay-as-you-go$0
plus usage above the monthly free allowance
No base fee. Analytics from $0.00005 an event and replays from $0.005 a recording, cheaper at volume. 6 projects, 7-year data, email support.
Boost$250
per month, plus usage
Platform package: unlimited projects, SSO enforcement, 2FA enforcement, white labeling, HIPAA BAA and 12 months of replay retention.
Scale$750
per month, plus usage
Everything in Boost plus SAML and OIDC sign-in, approval workflows, real-time alerts and priority support with an 8-hour target.
EnterpriseCustom
Sold through sales: role-based access, a dedicated account manager, training, and up to 5 years of replay retention.
Self-hosted (hobby deploy)$0
MIT-licensed Docker Compose deployment you host yourself. Officially unsupported, with no paid support plan.
Snowplow
Pricing could not be confirmed. See snowplow.io.
Ways to pay less
PostHog
- Startups
$50,000 in credits for early-stage startups
Companies under 2 years old that have raised less than $5M get $50,000 of PostHog credit for 12 months, plus partner perks. A company email domain is required.
- Nonprofit
Discount for nonprofits
PostHog says it gives nonprofits a discount in most cases: create an account, then contact sales with details of the organization.
Snowplow
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, PostHog or Snowplow?
As of Nov 12, 2026, PostHog starts at $0.00005 per analytics event past the free 1M (pay-as-you-go), and Snowplow has no price we could confirm.
Which has a free plan, PostHog or Snowplow?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only PostHog has a free plan. Snowplow does not, though it has a free trial.
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.