FAQ
About PostHog
What is PostHog?
PostHog is a product analytics suite built for the modern enterprise, with the differentiators of being open source and having a broader view of the tools needed to make a product successful.
As a result, PostHog has an open-source version which can be deployed on your own infrastructure, or can be run in the Cloud with either EU or US hosting options. We provide a large set of tools to help improve your product, such as session recording, heatmaps, and feature flags, that are unique to PostHog in the product analytics space.
What does it do?
We track user behavior across your website and applications.
Features Overview
- Event capture for both frontend and backend events.
- Event tracking at an identifiable user level (if you choose to identify your users).
- A full product analytics UX, including:
- Data visualization and product experimentation tools, such as:
You can read more about our features on the Product page.
Does it work for mobile and web?
Yes. We support any kind of application.
Does it work with my stack?
Yes. PostHog can be used via:
- An HTML snippet that goes inside your
<head></head>tags. - One of our 15+ libraries covering the main programming languages and tools
- Our API
This means that it doesn't matter what your stack is - you can use PostHog with it.
Is this supported properly?
Yes. We are in very active development.
PostHog is a well-funded project with thousands of stars on GitHub, and dozens of PRs being worked on weekly, by both our core team and our active community.
About the Software
How popular is the software?
Very. We have thousands of users, thousands of stars on GitHub (Star to be precise), and supportive investors.
Is the software updated regularly?
Yes. We release new versions about every two weeks and have a world-class team working daily on making the product better. It's easy to update, and the software will alert you to new updates within the application.
Pro-tip: follow us on Twitter or join our Slack to keep up with our latest features.
How many companies use it / How many well-known companies use it?
We have thousands of users including very large enterprises.
We have case studies available and dozens of testimonials.
If you would like to be featured, please email hey@posthog.com.
Is the software buggy?
While there's always room for improvement, the software works well and we use it ourselves every day.
If you have any issues or feature requests, we are live on Slack nearly 24 hours a day during the week to help.
Is this hard to set up?
No. If you want to get started quickly you can use our cloud version, but we also have various 1-click deployment options if you decide to self-host.
Additionally, if your company has a very large userbase and you need help with scalability and managing your setup, we can offer paid help here.
Deployment
Can I self-host?
Yes, the open source version of PostHog can be deployed with Docker Compose and is available with no event limits. We believe it's an ideal solution for hobby projects or users who need to track up to 100k events per month. You have full access to PostHog's code, so it's fully flexible how you run the software.
How do I deploy?
There are two options:
Can I get it live with my favorite hosting method?
See our Deployment page for more information about how to deploy PostHog's open source version.
Want to set it up differently? Raise an issue in the repo.
Will this scale?
Yes. Check out Scaling PostHog for more information on this.
Is there an enterprise offering?
Yes. Our enterprise offering is designed for companies with massive event volumes who need a more scalable version of PostHog. It includes:
- ClickHouse as the underlying database for fast analytics at scale
- Integrations with services like Zapier
- Permissioning and multiple projects
- Dedicated support
- SSO/SAML
- Export to data lakes
Email sales@posthog.com to talk to us about this.
Will this make me better at my job?
If you work at a software company, understanding user behavior is critical to driving growth. That's what we can help you with.
The cool thing about PostHog is that you can go live into production without having to send all your user data to a SaaS company.
Community
What's the community like?
Active and growing! We have thousands of stars on GitHub (Star to be exact). There is a Slack group with daily conversations, and our repos have issues raised every day.
How is this different from the other product analytics tools?
PostHog is the only open source product analytics tool. There are plenty of SaaS options (Mixpanel/Amplitude/Heap), but all of them require you to send your data to third-parties, and they all charge based on volume. We have written out a features comparison if you want to understand what we do better.
There are multiple open source analytics offerings - Metabase, Matomo, etc. However, PostHog is the only open source software that gives you:
- Full event capturing functionality
- Full identifiable user histories
- A complete product analytics UX, including additional features such as session recording and heatmaps.
Contributing
How can I contribute?
We love contributions big or small. See docs for a guide on how to get started. Not sure where to start? Book a free, no-pressure pairing session with one of our core contributors.
What are the Docs like?
Our Docs are a top priority to us and are updated daily. Check them out for yourself!
General Questions
Can I suggest new features?
Absolutely!
You can suggest new features by adding them as issues in our GitHub repo. You can search through already existing issues and see if your feature has already been requested. If it has, you could leave a reaction on the existing issue than to file a new one. The reactions would be used to measure how interested our community is in the new feature, so it’s better to have all of it captured on one issue.
I'm having trouble setting up PostHog. What should I do?
If you’re having trouble setting up PostHog you can send a message to our community Slack group, you can also contact PostHog Support. If its a bug you can raise an issue through our GitHub repo.
Are you hiring?
Yes, come help us make PostHog even better. We're growing like crazy, and we would love to have you join us.