Why consider OpenPanel over Heap?
Heap made its name with autocapture — the ability to automatically record every user interaction and analyze it retroactively. It's a compelling feature for teams that want to ask questions about user behavior without planning instrumentation in advance. But Heap's acquisition by Contentsquare, opaque enterprise pricing, and cloud-only architecture have many teams looking for alternatives.
OpenPanel takes a different approach with explicit event tracking, giving you precise control over what you measure and how. While you lose Heap's retroactive analysis capability, you gain transparency — both in your data collection and your costs. OpenPanel's pricing is publicly listed and event-based, starting at just $2.50 per month, compared to Heap's sales-required pricing that reportedly starts at $3,600 per year.
For teams that value data sovereignty, OpenPanel offers full self-hosting via a simple Docker deployment — something Heap doesn't provide at all. Being open source under the MIT license means you can inspect every line of code, contribute improvements, and avoid the vendor lock-in risk that comes with Heap's proprietary, now-Contentsquare-owned platform.
If you prefer intentional, controlled analytics over autocapture-everything, want transparent pricing without sales calls, and need the option to self-host — OpenPanel gives you solid product analytics with full ownership of your data.
