Heap is a product analytics platform known for its comprehensive autocapture – it starts collecting clicks, pageviews, and form submissions the moment you install it, no manual instrumentation required.

PostHog also supports autocapture, but goes much further – combining product analytics with session replay, A/B testing, feature flags, surveys, error tracking, and more in one developer platform.

In this guide, we break down how PostHog and Heap compare across analytics, session replay, experimentation, pricing, and compliance – so you can decide which is the better fit for your team.

How is PostHog different?

1. We're built for engineers

What does this mean?

• It means we ship fast and iterate based on user feedback.
• It means engineers do support – all product teams have a weekly support hero.
• It means we have extensive public and private API endpoints, and a powerful SQL query builder.
• It means we built SDKs for all popular (and many unpopular) client-side, backend, and mobile languages and frameworks.
• It means we make it easy to test in production, conduct phased rollouts, run beta programs, and so much more.

2. We're an all-in-one platform

Heap is mainly focused on product analytics. This means you need to adopt additional tools for things like feature management, experiments, and surveys. They're all built into PostHog – we even have a built-in data warehouse that integrates with Stripe and Hubspot. You can replace half a dozen tools with PostHog, save money, and get more from your data.

3. We're totally transparent

• How much will PostHog cost? Use our pricing calculator.
• What are we working on? It's on our public roadmap?
• How does sales work? We have a whole page on it.
• What do we care about? We explain everything in our public company handbook.
• How do we make money? That's in the handbook, too.

Oh, we're open source, too. Go take a peak at our code if you like on our GitHub repo.

Comparing PostHog and Heap

Platform

💡 Good to know: PostHog can replace multiple tools, such as Hotjar, Google Analytics, and LaunchDarkly. This makes it a lot easier to extract usable insights, since you don't have to constantly switch between tools. Running PostHog on both your product and website makes it easier to understand how marketing activity influences signups and usage, too.

Product analytics

💡 Good to know: Every PostHog user gets 1 million events for free each month. You can also save money by sending us anonymous events for non-identified users, which are up to 80% cheaper than identified product analytics events. Anonymous events are ideal for tracking behavior on marketing websites, or mobile apps with large consumer audiences. See our docs on anonymous vs identified events for more.

Session recordings

💡 Good to know: Session replays are an essential tool for understanding how people use your product, especially for early-stage companies searching for product-market fit. Both Heap and PostHog offer session replay, though Heap lacks many developer-facing features like a DOM explorer, performance monitoring, and network events, which are useful for fixing bugs and performance issues.

Feature flags

💡 Good to know: Feature flags make it easy to roll out features to specific users or groups, and safely test in production. Our feature flags are also tightly integrated with other features so you can target session replays, surveys, and more using existing feature flags. See our guide on the benefits of feature flags for more.

Experiments

💡 Good to know: Our experiments integrate seamlessly with our feature flag product. This means you can easily deploy the winning variant of an experiment with a single click from the experiment UI.

Security and compliance

💡Good to know: Additional compliance features, such as HIPAA Business Associate Agreements, advanced permissions, and audit logs are available on some of our platform packages, which also includes white labelling for surveys and shared dashboards.

When to choose PostHog vs Heap

Choosing the right product analytics tool depends on what your team needs beyond basic analytics. Here's a quick guide:

• Want to understand user behavior, debug issues, and ship experiments – all without switching tools? Go with PostHog.
• Need comprehensive autocapture with minimal engineering effort and a simple, low-density UI? Heap is a solid choice.

Recommendations by team type

For engineering-led product teams

• PostHog – SQL access, public APIs, SDKs for every major platform, and tight integration between analytics, feature flags, and experiments, error tracking, logs, AI Observability, and more. Built by engineers, for engineers.

For non-technical product managers

• Heap – Autocapture and a visual event editor mean you can define and track events without writing code. The low-density interface is designed for PMs who want insights without complexity.

For growth and experimentation teams

• PostHog – Run A/B tests, roll out features incrementally with feature flags, and measure impact on conversion and retention – all in one workflow.

For marketing and CRO teams

• Heap – Multi-touch attribution and analysis suggestions help surface friction points and optimize conversion funnels. Its Contentsquare integration adds deeper ecommerce and marketing analytics.

For teams building AI products

• PostHog – Native LLM observability for tracking model performance, token costs, and user interactions. Heap doesn't offer AI observability.

For privacy-conscious and regulated organizations

• Both are SOC 2 certified and GDPR-ready. PostHog is also HIPAA-ready, offers EU hosting, and provides raw data access via its built-in data warehouse. Heap does not currently offer EU data residency.

For early-stage startups

• PostHog – One platform that scales from first users to product-market fit without swapping tools as you grow. The generous free tier includes 1 million events, 5,000 replays, and 1 million feature flag requests per month. Startups can also qualify for $50k in free credits.