Traceten vs PostHog
PostHog is a broad product platform with its own AI channel, session replay, feature flags and experiments. Traceten goes deeper on one job: which AI assistant sent each visit, with a confidence and a method, what that visit earned, and which AI crawlers read your pages.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Traceten if
- You want every AI visit named down to the assistant, with a confidence score and the method that decided it.
- You want revenue per AI source straight from Stripe, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Polar or Paddle, with refunds netted out.
- You want AI crawlers logged by your own server and verified against IP ranges and reverse DNS.
- You want to see which AI answers mention your brand, and which of your pages they cite (Beta).
Every plan also includes
- AI traffic by assistant
- Revenue attribution
- Verified AI crawler logs
- AI visibility and citationsBeta
- Goals and funnels
- Real-time and visitor journeys
- API, MCP, CLI and webhooks
Choose PostHog if
- You want product analytics, session replay, feature flags and experiments in one tool.
- You want a free tier on every product, then pay-as-you-go pricing.
- You want open source you can self-host, or an EU cloud.
Side by side
Traceten and PostHog, row by row. Every PostHog fact links to its source.
AI traffic
Which AI assistant sent each visit, and how sure the classification is.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| AI referral channel out of the boxVisits from AI assistants are grouped as their own source with no setup. | Yes | YesThe "AI" channel typeSource |
| Named assistant on each visitWhich assistant sent the visit, not only that it came from AI. | 25+ assistantsChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and more | PartialFrom the referring domainThe channel groups them; the domain or utm_source names oneSource |
| Confidence and detection method on every visitA confidence score and the method behind it (referrer, UTM tag or user agent) on each AI visit. | YesReturned with every session in the API | Not published |
| AI traffic in real timeCurrent visitors, with the AI source that sent each one. | YesThe live view shows each current visitor's AI source | PartialLive tab, in alphaShows each visit's referrer and UTMSource |
Revenue
Which AI assistant sent the buyers, from your payment provider's own records.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| Native payment integrationsPayment providers that connect directly, with no events for you to send. | Stripe, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Polar and PaddlePlus a payment API for any other provider | StripeMore platforms are plannedSource |
| Revenue per AI sourceAttributed revenue broken out by the assistant that sent the buyer. | Yes | PartialBuilt from person propertiesThe revenue dashboard was removedSource |
| Refunds netted outRefunds come off revenue on the day they happen. | Yes | YesRefunds count as negative chargesSource |
| Multi-currencyRevenue in other currencies, converted at the rate for the day of the order. | 30 currenciesConverted at the order date's rate | YesConverted to your reporting currencySource |
AI crawlers
Which AI bots read your pages, and whether they are who they claim to be.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| AI crawler visit loggingCrawlers never run JavaScript, so they have to be seen on the server. | Server or edge middlewareNext.js, Express, Hono and Cloudflare | PartialFrom server logs you forwardThe JavaScript SDK blocks known botsSource |
| Crawler verificationChecks that a crawler comes from the network its vendor says it uses. | IP ranges and reverse DNSWhere the crawler's vendor supports them | PartialPublished IP rangesGoogle, OpenAI, Microsoft, Apple, Perplexity and AhrefsSource |
| Crawls includedAI crawler requests included before any limit applies. | 100,000 to 1,500,000 a monthStarter 100,000, Growth 650,000, Pro 1,500,000. Separate from your events. | Not published |
| Past the crawl allowanceWhat happens when AI crawlers use up the allowance. | Opt-in overage at $0.00004 / crawl hitOn Growth and Pro. Without it, totals stay exact with less detail. Starter pauses at the limit. | Not published |
AI visibilityBeta
Whether AI answers mention your brand, on prompts you choose.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| Brand presence in AI answersRuns your prompts on answer engines and records whether your brand appears. | Yes | Not published |
| Answer enginesWhich engines your prompts run on. | Perplexity, Google AI OverviewsClaude and ChatGPT through each vendor's API, as an add-on | Not published |
| Prompts includedPrompts tracked for you, shared across every site on the account. | 1, 5 or 20 by planStarter, Growth and Pro | Not published |
Product analytics
Where the product suites go deeper than Traceten does.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| FunnelsSee where visitors drop off between steps. | Up to 8 steps | YesSource |
| GoalsCustom events and page matches you want to count. | 200 per site | YesConversion goals and actionsSource |
| Retention cohortsHow often users come back after a first action. | No | YesSource |
| Session replayRecordings of what individual visitors did on the page. | No | YesSource |
| Feature flagsTurn features on for some users and not others. | No | YesSource |
| ExperimentsTest a change against a control and measure the result. | No | YesSource |
| HeatmapsWhere visitors click and scroll on a page. | No | YesSource |
Privacy
Cookies, IP addresses and where the data lives.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| CookiesWhat the tracking script stores in the visitor's browser. | First-party only | Cookieless mode availableSource |
| IP addressesWhat happens to a visitor's IP address when it arrives. | Hashed on arrivalHMAC-SHA-256 under a per-site derived key | Captured, or discarded per projectEU organizations discard by defaultSource |
| EU data hostingWhether your analytics data can be stored in the EU. | NoEU data residency is not available yet | YesEU Cloud in FrankfurtSource |
| Open source or self-hostedWhether you can read the code or run it yourself. | NoA hosted service | YesMIT, self-hosted with Docker ComposeSource |
Developer
Build on your data, or hand it to an agent.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| REST APIRead your data over HTTP. | YesDocumented with OpenAPI | YesSource |
| MCP serverAsk an AI agent about your data through the Model Context Protocol. | Yes | YesHostedSource |
| CLIUse your data from a terminal or a coding agent. | Yes | YesSource |
| Server SDKsSend events and payments from your backend. | Node, Python, Go | Node, Python, Go and moreSource |
| Outbound webhooksSend events to your own endpoint as they happen. | YesSigned with HMAC-SHA-256 | YesThrough data pipeline destinationsSource |
| API rate limitsWe link each vendor's own rate-limit docs and print no figures, ours included. | Scales with plan | PublishedSource |
Pricing
What it costs to start, and what you pay for.
| Feature | Traceten | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| Free planA plan you can stay on without paying. | Starter, $060,000 events and 100,000 AI crawl hits a month | 1M events a monthPlus a free allowance on each productSource |
| Entry paid planThe cheapest paid plan. | Growth, $49 a month | Pay as you go from $0Past each free allowanceSource |
| What you pay forThe unit a plan is measured in. | Events, plus AI crawl hitsPageviews, custom events and goals on one meter; crawls on their own | Usage on each productEvents, recordings, flag requests and moreSource |
| Data retentionHow long visit data is kept. | 2 yearsOn every plan | 1 year free, 7 years paidSource |
Checked 24 September 2026. Product names and logos belong to their owners; used here only to identify them.
Running both
Many teams keep PostHog for product analytics and add Traceten for AI attribution. The two snippets are independent, so nothing in PostHog changes. PostHog covers replay, flags and experiments; Traceten covers which assistant sent a visit, what it earned and which crawlers read your pages.
Questions
01Does PostHog track AI traffic?
Yes. PostHog has an AI channel type that matches known AI sources by utm_source or referring domain. Traceten names the assistant on every visit and records a confidence score and a detection method with it.
02Can PostHog show revenue per AI source?
PostHog's native revenue source is Stripe, and revenue is exposed as person properties you build insights from. Traceten connects Stripe, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Polar and Paddle and reports revenue per AI source, net of refunds.
03How do the two handle AI crawlers?
PostHog's JavaScript SDK blocks known bots, so crawlers appear once you forward your server access logs. It checks IP ranges published by Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Apple, Perplexity and Ahrefs. Traceten records crawls with server or edge middleware and checks published IP ranges and reverse DNS where the crawler's vendor supports them.
04Does Traceten do session replay or feature flags?
No. Traceten has no session replay, feature flags, experiments or heatmaps. If you rely on those, keep PostHog alongside it.
05Which one can I self-host?
PostHog offers a free self-hosted deployment under the MIT license. Traceten is a hosted service only.
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