The open-source, self-hostable Amplitude alternative
Amplitude is a broad, mature product-analytics platform — but it’s proprietary, cloud-only SaaS. Pug gives you the same core shape — autocapture, trends, funnels, retention, flows, and profiles — open source and self-hostable. Here’s the honest comparison.
- You want to own your data and self-host, not rent a SaaS
- You want the core product-analytics shape, open source
- You’d rather avoid event-volume pricing and vendor lock-in
- You need experimentation, session replay, or a built-in CDP
- You want the broadest, most mature analytics platform
- You’d rather not run any infrastructure at all
Pug vs Amplitude, feature by feature
The short version: choose Pug to own and self-host focused product analytics. Amplitude may be the better fit depending on what you need — the honest detail is below.
| Capability | Pug this page | Amplitude |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership & operations | ||
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Own your raw event data | Yes | No |
| Self-host price | Free forever | Cloud only |
| Product analytics (same category) | ||
| Autocapture | Yes | Yes |
| Trends | Yes | Yes |
| Funnels | Yes | Yes |
| Retention cohorts | Yes | Yes |
| User-flow Sankey | Yes | Yes |
| Unified person profiles | Yes | Yes |
| Platform breadth | ||
| Experimentation & feature flags | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Session replay | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Customer data platform (CDP) | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Warehouse-native pipelines | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Integration marketplace | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Practical | ||
| SDKs | Web, Flutter, Node | Many platforms |
| Maturity | Open beta | Mature |
Last updated June 2026. Amplitude capabilities reflect its publicly documented product; verify the latest on the vendor’s site.
Why look for a Amplitude alternative
Open source, not a black box
Amplitude is proprietary, cloud-only SaaS — your raw events live on their infrastructure. Pug is AGPL-3.0: read the code, run it anywhere, and keep every event on your own servers.
Self-host the whole thing
One Go binary plus PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, and NATS runs the entire product on your infrastructure. Amplitude has no self-host option — the platform is cloud only.
The same core insights
Autocapture, trends, funnels, retention cohorts, user-flow Sankeys, and unified profiles — the product-analytics shape you already use, without the event-volume metering.
Where Amplitude is still the better choice
Pug is a focused tool, not a platform. If your team needs any of the following, Amplitude is the better fit — these don’t ship in Pug:
- A broad platform: experimentation, feature flags, and session replay
- A built-in customer data platform and warehouse-native pipelines
- Mature data governance, ML-driven insights, and forecasting
- A large integration ecosystem and broad SDK coverage
- Fully managed scale with no infrastructure to run
Focused product analytics, fully yours
Everything below ships today and runs the same whether you self-host or use the free cloud.
Autocapture out of the box
Page views, clicks, scrolls, form submits, plus rage and dead clicks — captured after one init(), then enriched with geo, device, and UTM on ingest.
Six insight types
Trends, Funnels, Retention cohorts, Segmentation, User-flow Sankey, and Top-K — all over raw events, filterable by any property.
Unified profiles
Anonymous events merge into one person on identify(). Traits like plan or email live on the profile and filter every insight, across devices.
Dashboards
KPI, line, area, bar, table, and Sankey tiles on one shared time window, with period-over-period comparison and threshold coloring.
Moving from Amplitude to Pug
Pug’s model is straightforward: events with properties, a person per user via identify(), and traits that filter every insight.
SDKs available today are Web (TypeScript), Flutter (Dart), and Node, with native Android, iOS, and React Native SDKs in active development — landing by launch while Pug is in open beta. Point your tracking calls at Pug, identify users where you already identify them in Amplitude, and anonymous history merges into a single profile. For setup steps and the API, see the SDKs page and the docs.
Analytics history doesn’t transfer between tools — Pug starts collecting the day you add the SDK, so most teams run it alongside Amplitude during cutover and switch once the dashboards they rely on are covered. There’s no rip-and-replace, and your raw events are exportable from day one.
Amplitude alternative — your questions
Is Pug an Amplitude alternative?
Yes — it’s a direct fit by category. Amplitude and Pug are both product analytics tools with autocapture, trends, funnels, retention, user flows, and unified profiles. The key difference is that Amplitude is proprietary, cloud-only SaaS, while Pug is open source (AGPL-3.0) and self-hostable.
Can I self-host Pug instead of using a SaaS?
Yes. The whole stack runs on your own infrastructure for free, forever. Amplitude has no self-hosting option — it’s a managed cloud platform.
Is Pug cheaper than Amplitude?
Self-hosting Pug is free forever — no event-volume or tracked-user metering — and the cloud is free during open beta. Amplitude has a free plan, but paid tiers scale with monthly tracked users and event volume. Our analytics cost calculator estimates the difference for your numbers.
Does Pug have autocapture like Amplitude?
Yes. After a single init(), the Web SDK captures page views, clicks, scrolls, form submits, plus rage and dead clicks, then enriches each event with geo, device, and UTM on ingest — no manual instrumentation required.
Is Pug as feature-rich as Amplitude?
No, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Amplitude is a broad platform with experimentation, session replay, a CDP, data governance, and ML-driven insights. Pug focuses on the core insight types and unified profiles, open and self-hostable.
Do I own my data with Pug?
When self-hosted, yes — every raw event stays inside your deployment, and the data is exportable either way. With Amplitude your events live in their cloud.
Other Pug comparisons
Own your product analytics.
Open source, easy to self-host on a single Go binary, and free during open beta. Start a project and see live events in minutes.