Web analytics
Open-source alternatives to Mixpanel, priced
3 open-source tools that can replace Mixpanel, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Mixpanel on the Free tier costs $0.00 a month at that size.
The cheapest way to replace Mixpanel here is Plausible Analytics, at $121 a month against $0.00, with your own time already counted.
Start here
Mixpanel's free plan covers up to 1 million events a month, with no seat charge. Below that volume there is no licence cost to save, so this comparison is about who holds the data rather than what it costs.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Mixpanel | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plausible Analytics | $8.04 | $121 | -$4,789 | medium | AGPL-3.0 |
| Matomo | $8.04 | $121 | -$4,789 | medium | GPL-3.0 |
| PostHog | $22.15 | $247 | -$10,097 | hard | source-available |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Plausible Analytics 29,036 stars
Ships as Elixir plus ClickHouse plus PostgreSQL. ClickHouse sets the memory floor, so this stack does not usefully shrink below 2 GB. Disk scales with pageviews rather than with seats.
At 10 people it needs 2.6 GB of memory and 21 GB of disk, which fits the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $6.70 a month. Setting it up is roughly 6 hours of work, then 1.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Mixpanel versus Plausible Analytics breakdown · Plausible Analytics at every team size
Matomo 21,859 stars
The most feature-complete option and the heaviest. Report archiving is the expensive part and wants a cron job with real memory behind it.
At 10 people it needs 2.6 GB of memory and 26 GB of disk, which fits the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $6.70 a month. Setting it up is roughly 6 hours of work, then 1.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Mixpanel versus Matomo breakdown · Matomo at every team size
PostHog 39,757 stars
Kafka, ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, Redis and several workers. PostHog itself now discourages self-hosting below a substantial scale, and the sizing here reflects that honestly.
At 10 people it needs 10.2 GB of memory and 62 GB of disk, which fits the CX43 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $18.46 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Mixpanel versus PostHog breakdown · PostHog at every team size
How the pricing was established
Mixpanel pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.
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- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plausible Analytics | GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | Elixir | 6 h | 1.5 h a month | 29,036 |
| Matomo | GNU General Public License v3.0 | PHP | 6 h | 1.5 h a month | 21,859 |
| PostHog | Other | Python | 16 h | 3 h a month | 39,757 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Mixpanel?
There are 3 on this page. 2 of them are open source, published under AGPL-3.0, GPL-3.0, with no licence to buy. PostHog ships its source under its own licence rather than a standard open-source one, so check its terms before commercial use. None of them is free to run: the cheapest, Plausible Analytics, costs $121 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Mixpanel cost?
Mixpanel Free costs $0.00 a month at 10 people: free at the standard tier. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host Plausible Analytics?
$121 a month at 10 people. That is $6.70 for the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud, plus backups, plus 1.5 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before Plausible Analytics is cheaper than Mixpanel?
Never, counting $450 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $4,789.
Which Mixpanel alternative is the easiest to run?
Plausible Analytics, rated medium: about 6 hours to set up and 1.5 hours afterwards.