The open-source, self-hostable PostHog alternative
Looking for a PostHog alternative you can actually own? Pug is open-source product analytics that self-hosts on a single Go binary. Here’s an honest, side-by-side look — including where PostHog is still the better pick.
- You want to truly own and self-host your analytics
- You’d rather run one Go binary than a multi-service stack
- Focused product analytics + unified profiles is enough
- You need session replay, feature flags, or experiments
- You want surveys and a SQL data warehouse in one place
- You want a large SDK and integration ecosystem
Pug vs PostHog, feature by feature
The short version: choose Pug to own and self-host focused product analytics. PostHog may be the better fit depending on what you need — the honest detail is below.
| Capability | Pug this page | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership & operations | ||
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Production-supported self-hosting | Yes | Limited |
| Deployment footprint | One Go binary | Multi-service |
| Self-host price | Free forever | Free (community) |
| Product analytics | ||
| Trends, funnels, retention | Yes | Yes |
| Unified person profiles | Yes | Yes |
| User-flow Sankey & Top K | Yes | Yes |
| Beyond analytics | ||
| Session replay | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Feature flags | Not in Pug | Yes |
| A/B experiments | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Surveys | Not in Pug | Yes |
| SQL / data warehouse | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Practical | ||
| SDKs | Web, Flutter, Node | Many languages |
| Maturity | Open beta | Mature |
PostHog capabilities reflect its publicly documented product; verify the latest on the vendor’s site.
Why look for a PostHog alternative
Self-hosting that stays first-class
PostHog steers production users toward its cloud; its self-hosted deploy is a community “hobby” setup not supported at scale. Pug is built to be self-hosted — the same code runs our cloud and your servers.
Far less to run
One Go binary runs the API and every worker, backed by PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, and NATS. No sprawling multi-service stack to operate just to see your own events.
Own your data, under AGPL-3.0
Read the code, run it anywhere, keep every event on your own infrastructure. Self-hosting is free forever — no per-event metering on your own hardware.
Where PostHog is still the better choice
Pug is a focused tool, not a platform. If your team needs any of the following, PostHog is the better fit — these don’t ship in Pug:
- Session replay of real user sessions
- Feature flags and gradual rollouts
- A/B experiments
- Surveys
- A SQL-queryable data warehouse
- A large SDK and integration ecosystem
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 PostHog 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 — native mobile and React Native are on the roadmap. Point your tracking calls at Pug, identify users where you already identify them in PostHog, and anonymous history merges into a single profile. For setup steps and the API, see the SDKs page and the docs.
PostHog alternative — your questions
Is Pug really open source?
Yes — Pug is licensed under AGPL-3.0. You can read the code, modify it, and self-host it. PostHog is open source too, under the more permissive MIT license; the difference is copyleft (AGPL) versus permissive (MIT), not open versus closed.
Can I self-host Pug for free?
Yes. Self-hosting is free forever — the entire stack (Go server, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, NATS) runs on your own infrastructure with no event limits or licensing fee.
Is Pug a full replacement for PostHog?
No, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Pug is focused product analytics with unified profiles. It does not have session replay, feature flags, experiments, or surveys. If you need those in one platform, PostHog is the better fit.
How mature is Pug?
Pug is in open beta — live and usable, with the cloud free for everyone while we harden it for general availability. PostHog is a mature, established product.
Does my data stay on my servers?
When you self-host, yes — every event stays inside your own deployment. That is the core reason teams choose an open-source, self-hostable analytics tool.
Own your product analytics.
Open source, self-hostable on one Go binary, and free during open beta. Start a project and see live events in minutes.