Mixpanel Alternatives

We have tried to keep this list as fair as possible, even though we compete with these tools.

Analytics tools fall into two main groups:

• Web analytics gives you page views, sessions, referrers
• Product analytics shows what users do inside your product

Mixpanel is best known for product analytics. Web tools like Google Analytics tell you about traffic, but a product analytics tool tells you how and when users use your features.

We start with the key features you need. Then we give you three open-source options.

Key product analytics features

1. Event tracking
   Record any action—signups, clicks, purchases—to see how users behave.

2. Funnels
   Show each step in a process (for example signup → verify email → first purchase). Find where users drop off so you can improve that step.

3. Retention analysis
   Find out how many users come back over days or weeks:

   • N-day retention: percent who return after N days
   • Rolling retention: percent active in a set time period
   • Cohorts: compare groups of users who signed up at the same time

4. User details
   Look at one user’s journey. This helps you fix issues and give users a better experience.

5. Flexible dashboards
   Build charts and reports to answer any question about your product.

How to choose an open-source alternative

Look at these points when you compare tools:

Point	What to check
License	True open source (MIT, Apache) or source-only
Resource needs	CPU and memory for running the tool
Features	Funnels, retention, user view, session replay
Setup	Easy install or complex pipeline
Maintenance	Updates, docs and community support
Integrations	SDKs for web, mobile, server; data exports

1. OpenPanel

You guessed it right, of course we'll promote OpenPanel, it was made solely because we wanted an alternative to Mixpanel. We have used Mixpanel a lot but for a startup we didn't have the cash flow needed to pay the bills. We also didn't need all Mixpanel's features so we decided to build our own platform that combined web & product analytics into one simple, affordable and self-hostable platform.

License: AGPL-3.0 license

What you get:

• You get a very good web analytics overview (similar to Plausible, Simple Analytics)
• You can track custom events
• You can track users
• You can create any type of chart you want
• You can create funnels and conversions for A/B testing and improve your product
• You can create retention charts to understand how long your users stays

Good points:

• Low cost and self-hostable
• Web and product analytics together
• Fast setup and clean interface

Drawbacks:

• Fewer third-party integrations
• No session-replay or heatmaps yet

2. PostHog

A full-feature platform with both cloud and self-hosted options.

License: MIT License (core) + Enterprise License (ee/)

What you get:

• Funnels, trends, cohorts
• Session recordings, feature flags, A/B tests
• Plugins (Kafka, Snowflake exports)
  Good points:
• Lots of features, active community
• Free up to 1 million events per month
• Good docs and tutorials

Drawbacks:

• Self-host needs high CPU and RAM
• Cloud costs rise fast after 1M events
• Some learning needed for plugins

3. Snowplow Analytics

Overview
A tool that sends event data into your own data warehouse.

License: Apache-2.0 license

What you get:

• Open collectors and pipelines
• Works with Redshift, BigQuery, Snowflake
• Custom schemas via Iglu registry

Good points:

• Full control of raw events
• Scales to billions of events
• Good for teams with data-warehouse skills

Drawbacks:

• Setup is complex (Kafka, Spark, Hadoop)
• No built-in dashboards (need Looker or similar)