---
title: Mixpanel Alternatives
description: Our top open-source picks if you want to move away from Mixpanel
date: 2025-07-18
tag: Comparison
team: OpenPanel Team
cover: /content/cover-mixpanel.jpg
---

> We have tried to keep this list as fair as possible, even though we compete with these tools.

Analytics tools fall into two main groups:  
- Web analytics gives you page views, sessions, referrers  
- Product analytics shows what users do inside your product

Mixpanel is best known for product analytics. Web tools like Google Analytics tell you about traffic, but a product analytics tool tells you how and when users use your features.

We start with the key features you need. Then we give you three open-source options.

## Key product analytics features

1. **Event tracking**  
   Record any action—signups, clicks, purchases—to see how users behave.

2. **Funnels**  
   Show each step in a process (for example signup → verify email → first purchase). Find where users drop off so you can improve that step.

3. **Retention analysis**  
   Find out how many users come back over days or weeks:  
   - **N-day retention**: percent who return after N days  
   - **Rolling retention**: percent active in a set time period  
   - **Cohorts**: compare groups of users who signed up at the same time

4. **User details**  
   Look at one user’s journey. This helps you fix issues and give users a better experience.

5. **Flexible dashboards**  
   Build charts and reports to answer any question about your product.

## How to choose an open-source alternative

Look at these points when you compare tools:

| Point             | What to check                                    |
|-------------------|--------------------------------------------------|
| License           | True open source (MIT, Apache) or source-only    |
| Resource needs    | CPU and memory for running the tool              |
| Features          | Funnels, retention, user view, session replay    |
| Setup             | Easy install or complex pipeline                 |
| Maintenance       | Updates, docs and community support              |
| Integrations      | SDKs for web, mobile, server; data exports       |

## 1. OpenPanel

You guessed it right, of course we'll promote OpenPanel, it was made solely because we wanted an alternative to Mixpanel. We have used Mixpanel a lot but for a startup we didn't have the cash flow needed to pay the bills. We also didn't need all Mixpanel's features so we decided to build our own platform that combined web & product analytics into one simple, affordable and self-hostable platform.

**License:** AGPL-3.0 license

**What you get**:  
  - You get a very good web analytics overview (similar to Plausible, Simple Analytics)
  - You can track custom events
  - You can track users
  - You can create any type of chart you want
  - You can create funnels and conversions for A/B testing and improve your product
  - You can create retention charts to understand how long your users stays

**Good points**:  
  - Low cost and self-hostable  
  - Web and product analytics together  
  - Fast setup and clean interface  

**Drawbacks**:  
  - Fewer third-party integrations  
  - No session-replay or heatmaps yet  

## 2. PostHog

A full-feature platform with both cloud and self-hosted options.

**License:** MIT License (core) + Enterprise License (ee/)

**What you get**:  
  - Funnels, trends, cohorts  
  - Session recordings, feature flags, A/B tests  
  - Plugins (Kafka, Snowflake exports)  
**Good points**:  
  - Lots of features, active community  
  - Free up to 1 million events per month  
  - Good docs and tutorials  

**Drawbacks**:  
  - Self-host needs high CPU and RAM  
  - Cloud costs rise fast after 1M events  
  - Some learning needed for plugins  

## 3. Snowplow Analytics

**Overview**  
A tool that sends event data into your own data warehouse.

**License:** Apache-2.0 license

**What you get**:  
  - Open collectors and pipelines  
  - Works with Redshift, BigQuery, Snowflake  
  - Custom schemas via Iglu registry  

**Good points**:  
  - Full control of raw events  
  - Scales to billions of events  
  - Good for teams with data-warehouse skills  

**Drawbacks**:  
  - Setup is complex (Kafka, Spark, Hadoop)  
  - No built-in dashboards (need Looker or similar)  