In-depth: PostHog vs Fathom

Nov 08, 2024

Posted by

Bijan Boustani

On this page

How is PostHog different?
1. PostHog offers web analytics, and a lot more
2. PostHog has a generous free tier
Is Fathom simpler than PostHog?
Web analytics
Product analytics
Platform
Integrations
Security, compliance, privacy
Frequently asked questions
How much do PostHog and Fathom cost?
Does PostHog offer a free trial?
Can I migrate from Google Analytics to PostHog?
Further Reading

PostHog and Fathom Analytics are both alternatives to Google Analytics. In fact, both explicitly call this out on their websites with marketing copy like "Switch to a better Google Analytics alternative."

Both products have web analytics dashboards with an emphasis on simplicity and privacy. They're ideal choices for customers that want to analyze and understand web traffic but find Google Analytics to be too complicated.

How is PostHog different?

1. PostHog offers web analytics, and a lot more

Web analytics is a core feature of PostHog, but we offer many more tools to help you analyze, test, and observe your site and your product.

These include product analytics, session replay, surveys, experiments, feature flags, a data warehouse, and more.

2. PostHog has a generous free tier

PostHog's "ridiculously cheap" tier includes all of our features for free with an allowance of 1M events per month. For Fathom, pricing starts at $15 per month for 100K data points, increases to $60 per month for 1M data points, and more from there.

Beyond PostHog's free tier, we try to be as cheap as possible and transparent. Want to know how much we'll charge? See our pricing calculator. PostHog also does not require a credit card to sign up and try the free tier.

Is Fathom simpler than PostHog?

Although PostHog has more features than Fathom, it isn't necessarily more complicated.

If you look at the web analytics dashboard for both products, they're pretty similar in appearance and the data provided:

Fathom Analytics dashboard

Web analytics

Both Fathom and PostHog are Google Analytics alternatives, so they're ideal for tracking and analyzing your website.

	PostHog	Fathom
Pageviews Track visitors and their views	✔	✔
Sessions Track unique sessions and their durations	✔	✖
Traffic breakdown See where your visitors and conversions are coming from	✔	✔
Conversions Track actions you want users to take	✔	✔
Bounce rate See the percentage of users that leave after one pageview	✔	✔
Entry and exit paths See the pages users first visit and the last ones before they leave	✔	✖
Outbound clicks See the links that take users away	✔	✖
UTM tracking Track marketing campaigns with UTM tags	✔	✔
Cookieless tracking Track users without cookies	✔	✔
Snippet install Install HTML snippet	✔	✔
Migration Migrate data from Google Analytics	✔	✔
Script size Size of the script that runs on your site	50.6 kb	<2 kB

Product analytics

Teams rely on product analytics when they need more customization in both capturing and analyzing data. Although not a focus of Fathom, it does have offer some basic product analytics features with event tracking.

	PostHog	Fathom
Custom events Capture and analyze any type of event	✔	✔
Custom properties Add more data to custom events or users	✔	✔
Autocapture Capture frontend clicks and events automatically	✔	✖
Custom graphs and trends Build custom insights and visualizations	✔	✖
Funnels Track users through a sequence of events	✔	✖
Retention Visualize which users stay, for how long	✔	✖
Custom dashboards Build a custom dashboard of your own or use a template	✔	✖
Cohorts Combine users based on properties and events for group analysis	✔	✖
User profiles View user demographic data such as country, language, and device type	✔	✖
Group analytics Track metrics at a company and account level	✔	✖
Paths Track user flows and where they drop off	✔	✖
SQL Query your data with SQL	✔	✖

Platform

Beyond web analytics is where PostHog really shines. We provide all of the tools developers need to build a successful product (and they all work together).

	PostHog	Fathom
EU hosting Access and store your data in the EU	✔	✔
API Capture events, get stats, and make changes via API	✔	✔
Collaboration Share your projects and sites with teammates	Invite teammates to collaborate on all features	Share web analytics with or without a password
Open source View code, comment on roadmap, and contribute	✔	✖
Heatmaps Visualize where users click in your app or website	✔	✖
Session replay Watch real users use your product, diagnose bugs	✔	✖
Experiments Run A/B/n tests on new features, optimize conversion funnels	✔	✖
Surveys Collect and analyze feedback, run NPS and PMF surveys	✔	✖
Feature flags Roll out features safely, toggle features for cohorts or individuals	✔	✖
Server-side SDKs Capture events and use features from Python, Node, and more	✔	✖
Mobile SDKs Capture events and use features from Android, iOS, and more	✔	✖

Integrations

	PostHog	Fathom
CSV exports Export your data as a CSV	✔	✔
Email Send reports to email	✔	✔
Warehouse exports Export data to warehouses like S3 and BigQuery for storage and analysis	✔	✖
Data warehouse Query customer and product data together	✔	✖
Warehouse import Import data from third-party sources like Postgres, S3, and GCS	✔	✖
Slack Send events, reports, and anomalies to Slack	Events, reports	✖
Stripe Import charges, customers, invoices, subscriptions, and more	✔	✖
HubSpot Import contacts, companies, deals, and more	✔	✖
Zapier Trigger Zapier automations	✔	✖
Zendesk Import organizations, tickets, users, and more	✔	✖
Sentry Send and receive error data with Sentry	✔	✖
WordPress Easily capture data from your Wordpress site	✔	✔

Security, compliance, privacy

Fathom prides itself on being privacy-friendly, but PostHog stands toe-to-toe with it in terms of features. On top of that, PostHog includes many of the features enterprises need for compliance.

	PostHog	Fathom
Data retention The length of time event data is retained	7 years	Forever (as long as you're a customer)
Bot blocking Block scrapers, crawlers, and other unwanted traffic from stats	✔	✔
Reverse proxy Avoid tracking blockers and capture more data	✔	✖
HIPAA-ready Can be compliant with HIPAA	✔	✖
GDPR-ready Can be compliant with GDPR	✔	✔
SOC 2 SOC 2 security certification	✔	✖
2FA Enforce login with two-factor authentication	✔	✔
SAML/SSO Use SAML or single sign-on authentication	Enterprise	✖

Frequently asked questions

How much do PostHog and Fathom cost?

Fathom is a monthly subscription based on usage. Plans start at $15 per month for 100k data points. 1M data points is $60 per month. Price maxes out at $470 per month for 25M data points, beyond which you need to contact them.

PostHog is entirely usage-based. Its free tier includes:

Feature	Free usage per month	Additional cost
Product analytics	1 million events	From $0.00005/event
Session replay	5,000 recordings	From $0.005/recording
Surveys	250 responses	From $0.20/response
Feature flags and A/B testing	1 million API requests	From $0.0001/request
Data warehouse	1 million synced rows	From $0.000015/row

Basically, we aim to give you the tools you want for as cheap as possible. We split out the products, and features like group analytics and pipelines within products, to do this.

Does PostHog offer a free trial?

Fathom offers a free trial, but PostHog doesn't, what gives?

Instead of a free trial, PostHog offers a free forever tier as long as you stay under the free limits. You don't even need a credit card, but adding one unlocks all the features (we have billing limits you can use too).

Can I migrate from Google Analytics to PostHog?

Yes, see our Google Analytics to PostHog migration guide for more details.