PostHog vs Snowplow
PostHog
Open-source platform bundling product analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, and surveys on a single ClickHouse-backed event store.
Full directory entry →Snowplow
A behavioral data pipeline that collects schema-validated events and delivers them raw to your own warehouse or lake.
Full directory entry →Facts, side by side
| PostHog | Snowplow | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Pricing notes | Usage-based per product with monthly free allowances on Cloud (1M analytics events, 5K replays, 1M flag requests, 1.5K survey responses); per-unit rates fall with volume and anonymous events are billed cheaper than identified ones. The open-source Docker deploy is free. | Community Edition is free to run in your own cloud (you pay infrastructure) but is licensed for testing/evaluation only under SLULA 1.1 — production self-hosting requires a paid Self-Hosted Pipeline license. The managed Snowplow platform is quote-based, priced on event volume, hosting, and consumption; a 14-day full-product trial is available. |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Partial — A Docker Compose hobby deploy is supported at small scale; large self-hosted instances are no longer sold or supported as a paid product. | Yes — Community Edition deploys into your own AWS, GCP, or Azure account; recent core releases ship under the source-available Snowplow Limited Use License (trackers/SDKs and pre-2024 Apache 2.0 releases remain genuinely open source). |
| Categories | Product analytics, Session replay, Experimentation | Analytics |
| Who it's for | implementation engineers, data engineers, measurement managers | data engineers, implementation engineers |
| Integrations listed | 5 | 6 |
Directory entries last updated: PostHog 2026-07-18 · Snowplow 2026-07-18.
In brief
PostHog — Open-source platform bundling product analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, and surveys on a single ClickHouse-backed event store. Pricing: freemium. Usage-based per product with monthly free allowances on Cloud (1M analytics events, 5K replays, 1M flag requests, 1.5K survey responses); per-unit rates fall with volume and anonymous events are billed cheaper than identified ones. The open-source Docker deploy is free. Self-hosting: Partial — A Docker Compose hobby deploy is supported at small scale; large self-hosted instances are no longer sold or supported as a paid product.. Listed integrations: segment, rudderstack, bigquery, snowflake, hightouch.
Snowplow — A behavioral data pipeline that collects schema-validated events and delivers them raw to your own warehouse or lake. Pricing: freemium. Community Edition is free to run in your own cloud (you pay infrastructure) but is licensed for testing/evaluation only under SLULA 1.1 — production self-hosting requires a paid Self-Hosted Pipeline license. The managed Snowplow platform is quote-based, priced on event volume, hosting, and consumption; a 14-day full-product trial is available. Self-hosting: Yes — Community Edition deploys into your own AWS, GCP, or Azure account; recent core releases ship under the source-available Snowplow Limited Use License (trackers/SDKs and pre-2024 Apache 2.0 releases remain genuinely open source).. Listed integrations: bigquery, snowflake, databricks, redshift, dbt, gtm-server-side.
Which one, when
Derived mechanically from the structured facts above — deltas only, not an editorial verdict. Where the facts tie, read both entries.
- you want an open-source codebase — Snowplow is not open source
- you also need Product analytics, Session replay, Experimentation — not a listed category for Snowplow
- its entry lists measurement managers in "who it's for"; Snowplow's does not
- you need full self-hosting — PostHog is only partially self-hostable
- you also need Analytics — not a listed category for PostHog
Also compare
POSTHOG VS: Amplitude · Fullstory · GrowthBook · Heap · Hotjar · LogRocket · Microsoft Clarity · Mixpanel · Optimizely · RudderStack · Segment · Statsig · VWO
SNOWPLOW VS: Adobe Analytics · Google Analytics 4 · Google Tag Manager (Server-Side) · Heap · mParticle · Piwik PRO · RudderStack · Segment