PostHog is an all-in-one product analytics suite — analytics, session recordings, feature flags, A/B tests, and surveys in a single platform. sourcebeam takes the opposite approach: do one thing exceptionally well. Simple, private, focused website analytics.
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PostHog does everything. That is both its strength and its weakness. PostHog bundles product analytics, session recordings, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, and a data warehouse into one platform. For engineering-led startups that want a single tool for everything, this is appealing. But for teams that just need website analytics — who visits, what they look at, where they come from, and whether they convert — PostHog's breadth creates unnecessary complexity. You end up navigating features you do not use to find the data you actually need.
The JavaScript footprint is heavy. PostHog's web SDK weighs over 60 KB gzipped. It includes autocapture logic, session recording infrastructure, feature flag evaluation, and survey rendering. Even if you only enable basic analytics, your visitors download the entire bundle. sourcebeam's tracking script is under 1 KB — roughly 60 times smaller. For marketing sites, landing pages, and content-driven businesses where page speed directly affects conversion rates and search rankings, this difference is significant. Every millisecond of load time matters, especially on mobile.
Autocapture generates noise. PostHog's autocapture feature records every click, input change, and page navigation automatically. In theory, this means you never miss an event. In practice, it generates enormous volumes of data — most of which is irrelevant. Teams spend time filtering out noise, creating custom events to override autocaptured ones, and managing event quotas. sourcebeam tracks what matters for website analytics automatically: pageviews, sessions, referrers, devices, and conversions. No noise, no filtering, no event budget anxiety.
Privacy requires configuration, not defaults. PostHog uses cookies by default and stores detailed user-level data including IP addresses, device fingerprints, and session recordings. While it offers privacy controls, they require explicit configuration: you need to enable cookieless mode, disable session recordings, configure IP anonymization, and set appropriate data retention policies. sourcebeam is private by default — no cookies, no personal data storage, no consent banners. You do not need to configure privacy; it is the foundation.
Pricing complexity matches feature complexity. PostHog bills separately for each product: analytics events, session recordings, feature flag evaluations, and survey responses. Each has its own free tier and per-unit pricing. Understanding your monthly bill requires tracking usage across multiple dimensions. sourcebeam has one number: events. Plans start at $5/month for 10,000 events, then you pay a simple, predictable rate. One metric to track, one bill to understand.
Under 1 KB. No npm packages. No build step.
Stripe revenue attribution. PostHog can track revenue events if you instrument them manually — you need to call their SDK with the right event name and properties when a purchase happens. sourcebeam connects directly to Stripe and attributes revenue automatically. Every checkout session is linked to the visitor, session, referrer, and UTM campaign that drove it. No custom instrumentation, no risk of missing revenue events because a developer forgot to add a tracking call.
AI-native data access. sourcebeam's read-only API is structured for LLM consumption. Connect it to Claude or ChatGPT and ask questions about your analytics in natural language. "What is my conversion rate from Google Ads this month?" "Which blog posts drive the most signups?" PostHog has HogQL (their SQL dialect) for custom queries, but that requires learning a query language and building reports manually. sourcebeam lets you get answers by asking questions.
Setup in seconds, not hours. Getting started with PostHog means installing an SDK, configuring which products to enable, setting up autocapture filters, defining your event taxonomy, and configuring privacy settings. sourcebeam is one script tag. Copy, paste, done. Your dashboard populates with real-time visitor data immediately. No configuration decisions to make, no SDK version to manage in your build process.
Clean visitor journeys. sourcebeam tracks multi-session visitor paths from first touch to conversion — without the data weight of session recordings. You can see how many visits it took, which pages mattered, and what triggered the conversion. PostHog can show you this through session recordings and event sequences, but at the cost of storing gigabytes of recording data and processing autocaptured events. sourcebeam achieves the same insight with a fraction of the data overhead.
| sourcebeam | PostHog | |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie-free tracking | ||
| No consent banner needed | ||
| Under 1KB script | ||
| One-line setup (no SDK) | ||
| Revenue tracking (Stripe) | ||
| AI-ready analytics API | ||
| Conversion goals | ||
| Real-time data | ||
| Visitor journeys | ||
| Affordable entry ($5/mo) | ||
| Pay-as-you-go pricing | ||
| Session recordings | ||
| Feature flags | ||
| A/B testing | ||
| Funnel analysis | ||
| Surveys | ||
| Open source |
PostHog's all-in-one platform includes session recordings, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, and more — genuine capabilities for product-led engineering teams.
Many teams use PostHog for in-app product analytics — session recordings, feature flags, and experiment results — while running sourcebeam on their marketing site, docs, and landing pages. This gives you the best of both worlds: deep product insights where you need them, and fast, private, lightweight analytics on customer-facing pages where performance and privacy matter most.
Your marketing site loads faster (sub-1 KB vs 60+ KB), you avoid consent banners on public-facing pages, and your analytics costs stay predictable. PostHog handles the in-app complexity, sourcebeam handles the top-of-funnel clarity.
Your marketing site loads faster with a sub-1 KB script. PostHog handles in-app complexity, sourcebeam handles top-of-funnel clarity.
If you need session recordings to watch exactly how users interact with your app, feature flags to control rollouts, A/B testing to run experiments, and surveys to collect user feedback — all in one platform — PostHog is the right choice. It is especially strong for engineering-led startups that want a single, open source tool to replace multiple point solutions.
But if your primary need is understanding website traffic, tracking conversions, and attributing revenue — without the weight of a full product analytics suite — sourcebeam gives you exactly that, at a fraction of the complexity and cost.
Starting at $5/month. Takes 30 seconds to set up.