Self-host Mixpanel

Product analytics · Category: observability & analytics

Mixpanel pioneered event-based product analytics. Self-host alternatives have caught up on funnels, cohorts, and retention; the gap is mostly the polish of formulas and the breadth of integrations.

Mixpanel pricing anchor: Free up to 1M events/mo; Growth from $20/mo and scales fast.

PostHog PostHog/posthog alive

GitHub: ★ 34.5k · last commit today · 4052 open issues
License: MIT (core) / Functional Source (cloud-only modules)
Self-host (open-source edition) covers product analytics, session replay, feature flags, and experiments. A few cloud-only modules are not in the OSS edition.
Setup time: 30min docker-compose (single-node)
Monthly cost: $20-40 VPS — ClickHouse is the heavy process, wants 4GB+ RAM.

Migration sketch. Run the PostHog and Mixpanel SDKs side-by-side for 1-2 weeks. PostHog ships a Mixpanel historical-import plugin (Pipelines → Sources → Mixpanel) that pulls past events via Mixpanel's Raw Data Export API. Map distinct_id → person properties.

Full migration guide →

Good fit forProduct teams who want analytics, session replay, and flags in one tool.

Weak atSingle-node ClickHouse setup is finicky to scale beyond a few million events/day.

Plausible plausible/analytics alive

GitHub: ★ 24.8k · last commit today · 71 open issues
License: AGPL-3.0
Setup time: 15min docker-compose
Monthly cost: $5 VPS for a typical small site.

Migration sketch. Plausible is page-view + custom events, not full event analytics. Replace Mixpanel only if your usage is pageviews + a handful of named events. No Mixpanel importer; track forward.

Good fit forMarketing sites and lightweight product analytics.

Weak atNo funnels / cohorts / retention surface like Mixpanel — different category.

Countly Countly/countly-server alive

GitHub: ★ 5.86k · last commit today · 16 open issues
License: AGPL-3.0
Setup time: 30min (their installer or docker-compose)
Monthly cost: $10 VPS — Mongo-backed, plan for 4GB RAM.

Migration sketch. No first-class Mixpanel importer. Use the Countly REST API to backfill events from a Mixpanel Raw Data Export, scripted; or just dual-track going forward.

Good fit forMobile-first product teams (their SDKs are strong on iOS/Android).

Weak atMany of the polished features (push, A/B, funnels) live in their Enterprise edition.

In a terminal? npx os-alt mixpanel prints this table — how the CLI works →