SHSelfHostIndex

Countly Community Edition vs PostHog

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted web analytics options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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CO Countly Community Edition Product analytics for web, mobile, and desktop VS PostHog Open-source product analytics platform
FeatureCountly Community EditionPostHog
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score90 · Excellent99 · Excellent
CategoryWeb AnalyticsWeb Analytics
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageJavaScriptPython
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM2,048 MB4,096 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes
GitHub stars★ 5,907★ 39,909
First released20122020
ReplacesMixpanel, Firebase AnalyticsGoogle Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude

What are Countly Community Edition and PostHog?

Countly Community Edition

Countly Community Edition is an open-source product analytics platform that tracks user behavior across web, mobile, and desktop applications. It offers funnels, retention, and crash analytics in a self-hosted package.

  • Cross-platform tracking
  • Funnels and retention
  • Crash analytics
  • Custom events

Read the full Countly Community Edition guide →

PostHog

PostHog is an open-source product analytics platform with event tracking, session replay, feature flags, and A/B testing. It targets product teams wanting an all-in-one analytics suite. It is deployed via Docker or Kubernetes.

  • Product analytics and funnels
  • Session replay
  • Feature flags and experiments
  • Self-hostable all-in-one

Read the full PostHog guide →

Countly Community Edition vs PostHog: key differences

Countly Community Edition is written in JavaScript, while PostHog is built with Python. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Countly Community Edition versus MIT for PostHog. Countly Community Edition is the lighter option, starting around 2,048 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for PostHog. Countly Community Edition is the more established project (first released 2012), while PostHog arrived in 2020. PostHog has the considerably larger community, at 39,909 GitHub stars versus 5,907.

Why pick each one

Choose Countly Community Edition if…

  • Mature product analytics
  • Strong mobile support

Watch out for

  • MongoDB-based stack
  • Heavier resource needs
Countly Community Edition details

Choose PostHog if…

  • Comprehensive product suite
  • Session replay included
  • Open-core model

Watch out for

  • Heavy to self-host
  • Self-host edition is scaled down
PostHog details

Frequently asked questions

Is Countly Community Edition or PostHog better?

Neither is universally better. PostHog has the larger community, while Countly Community Edition is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Countly Community Edition and PostHog free and open-source?

Yes. Countly Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PostHog under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Countly Community Edition and PostHog with Docker?

Countly Community Edition: yes. PostHog: yes.

Which is lighter on resources, Countly Community Edition or PostHog?

Countly Community Edition has the smaller minimum footprint at 2,048 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for PostHog. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.

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