Documentation
Set up Privatrak, name what matters to you and read every report.
PostHog alternative
Privatrak is a PostHog alternative for teams that want clear answers to product questions without a cookie banner. It works without cookies for every visitor and every report, finds click problems for you and is quick to learn. Here you see how the two compare, where Privatrak is stronger, and when PostHog is the better choice.
Privatrak and PostHog compared
Last checked: 9 October 2026.
| Topic | Privatrak | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| Cookies and cookie banner | No cookies and nothing stored in the browser. In many countries, no banner is needed. | A first-party cookie and localStorage by default, which need consent in the EU. An optional cookieless mode. |
| Complete numbers | Visitors who would decline a banner are counted too. | With the cookie, visitors who decline are missing. In cookieless mode they are counted, but as a new person every day and without location data. |
| Learning curve | A few reports, each for one product question. No query language, and no events to define before you start. | Many products and settings, and its own query language, HogQL. |
| What it answers | Which features people use, where they drop off, where they go next and where clicks go wrong. Plus pages, sources, campaigns and how each variant of an A/B test converts. Revenue and average order value per day, product, campaign or version, from the amounts your site sends. | Product analytics on automatically captured clicks, page views and form submissions, plus HogQL for your own queries. |
| Click problems | A ready report for each button and link: no effect, repeated clicks, errors and slow responses. Shown on your site, and flagged again when clicks fail again. | Repeated clicks and clicks with no effect, recorded as events you analyse yourself. |
| AI assistant | Sign in from Claude, Codex or Cursor. It answers questions, sets up features, funnels and a dashboard, and you undo its changes in one step. | An official hosted MCP server that can read and write, for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex and others. |
| Hosting and privacy | On servers in the EU. IP addresses are never stored, and a visitor is recognised for one day only. | Cloud in the US or the EU, or self-hosted. |
| Other tools in the package | Analytics only, with the Click Map, Insights and dashboards. | Session replay, feature flags, built-in experiments that split visitors into variants and report the result, surveys, error tracking and a data warehouse. Session replay and surveys rely on its cookie. |
| How long data is kept | 30 days on Free, 90 days on Starter and 180 days on Pro. On Enterprise, it is agreed with us. Older data is deleted automatically. | 1 year on the free plan, 7 years on pay-as-you-go. |
| Price | Free plan with 10,000 events a month. Paid plans are on the pricing page. | 1 million product analytics events and 5,000 session recordings free each month. Above that, you pay per event. |
Cookies and what works without them
By default, PostHog stores its state in a first-party cookie and in localStorage. In the EU, storing or reading these for analytics needs consent, as for any analytics cookie, so sites show a banner.
PostHog also has a cookieless mode that you switch on in the project settings. For visitors who haven’t consented, session replay and surveys are then turned off, because both rely on the cookie or localStorage. Such a visitor counts as a new person every day, PostHog has no location data or bot detection for them, and feature flags can load with a delay.
Privatrak works without cookies for every visitor and every report. Like PostHog’s cookieless mode, it counts a visitor once per day. In many countries you need no cookie banner for Privatrak.
This is general information, not legal advice. Privacy lists exactly what Privatrak stores.
Where Privatrak is stronger
- Complete numbers without a cookie banner. Every visitor who declines a banner is missing from your funnels and conversion rates, so the numbers you decide on are smaller than reality. Privatrak needs no cookie, so in many countries it needs no banner, and those visitors are counted too.
- Answers product questions without an analyst. You name a feature by clicking the button on your own site with the Element Picker. Features then shows how often it is used, including clicks from before you named it. This takes no code and no query language, so the people who ask the questions can answer them themselves.
- Click problems as a ready report. You don’t need to know what to look for. Click Problems finds the buttons and links where clicks fail, and you open each one on your own site in the Click Map. If you mark one resolved and clicks on it have no effect or cause an error again, it comes back as Happened again, so a fix that didn’t work doesn’t go unnoticed.
- An AI assistant that sets it up for you. You sign in from Claude, Codex or Cursor, without copying a key. If you allow it, your assistant names the buttons and links that matter, creates funnels and builds a starter dashboard. Everything it changed is listed under AI assistant changes in Settings, and you undo a whole set of changes in one step.
- Privacy by design, not by setting. Privatrak never stores IP addresses and deletes each day’s key and visitor codes once the day is counted. After that nobody, Privatrak included, can link two days. Your data is on servers in the EU on every plan, with nothing to choose.
When PostHog fits better
PostHog is the better choice in these cases:
- You want session replay, feature flags, surveys or error tracking in the same tool, and a cookie banner is fine for you.
- You want the tool itself to split visitors into variants and report the result of an experiment.
- You want to host the software yourself.
- You need profiles of identified users across several days.
- You need data older than 180 days. Privatrak keeps data longer only on Enterprise, by agreement.
Switch from PostHog to Privatrak
- Create a free account and a project, as shown in Getting started.
- Add the Privatrak script tag to your site. Leave PostHog in place for now.
- Create the funnels you care about. A funnel counts from the day you create it.
- Compare both for a few weeks. When Privatrak covers what you need, remove PostHog.
Your PostHog data stays in PostHog. Privatrak counts from the day you add it.
If you used PostHog with its cookie and nothing else on your site needs consent, your cookie banner may be able to go as well. Read Do you need a cookie banner? on the Privacy page before you remove it.
Next steps
- Getting started: add Privatrak to your site in four steps.
- Element Picker: name the clicks that matter on your own site, without code.
- Connect an AI assistant: ask Claude, Codex or Cursor about your visitors.