PostHog is a toolbox. GrainQL is an analyst.
PostHog suits engineering teams who build their own analysis and ship behind flags. GrainQL suits the founder or marketer who wants to ask why and get the cause.
14 days free, no card. Runs next to PostHog.
Which one fits you.
Pick PostHog if
You have engineers who want analytics, flags, experiments and SQL in one place, and you like a free plan.
- You ship behind feature flags and test changes with experiments
- Someone on the team is happy writing SQL against raw events
- You are small enough to stay inside the free monthly allowances
Pick GrainQL if
You run growth or marketing with no data team, and you want the cause of a drop without building the query.
- The person asking the question will never write a query
- You want to hear about a drop before you think to look for it
- You want a bill that follows visitors, not events and recordings
What actually differs.
Three situations where the choice shows.
The question comes from marketing.
Signups dropped this week. The person who noticed runs the ad account. They have never opened a query editor and do not plan to.
PostHog
PostHog AI answers plain-English questions, builds the insight and writes the SQL. It sits inside a deep toolbox that an engineer usually sets up and maintains.
GrainQL
Neo is the front door of GrainQL. Ask in plain words and get a first answer in about 3 seconds, with the cause named and the session recordings attached.
Nobody asked the question yet.
A form broke on Saturday. Nobody looked at a dashboard until Monday. Two days of visitors hit the same dead end.
PostHog
PostHog can alert you with thresholds or anomaly detection. Someone first has to save the insight and set the alert on it.
GrainQL
Neo sends a daily digest and flags drops and spikes without being asked. One customer found 700+ form interactions and zero submissions in 4 minutes.
The bill follows a different number.
A campaign lands and traffic doubles for a week. You want to know what that does to the invoice before it arrives.
PostHog
PostHog bills each product by usage: events, recordings, flag requests, AI credits. The free allowances are generous. Past them, the total moves with volume.
GrainQL
GrainQL bills by monthly visitors, with unlimited events per visitor and no overages. Neo, replay and heatmaps are on every plan.
Row by row.
Checked against PostHog's own site in October 2026.
Finding the cause
Seeing the evidence
Shipping and testing
Setup and data
What it costs.
For a small site PostHog costs nothing and GrainQL starts at $29. Pick GrainQL for the analyst, not for the lower bill.
PostHog
Free every month: 1 million events, 5,000 recordings and 1 million flag requests. Past that, each product bills by usage, from $0.00005 per event.
GrainQL
From $29 a month for 50,000 monthly visitors. Billed by visitors, with unlimited events per visitor. Every feature is on every plan.
See every planWhen PostHog is the better pick.
Fair is fair.
Your engineers want one toolbox.
Flags, experiments, surveys, error tracking and a data warehouse sit next to the analytics. GrainQL has none of those. If you ship behind flags, PostHog is the right home.
You need a real free plan.
PostHog is free every month up to 1 million events and 5,000 recordings. GrainQL has a 14-day trial and no free plan.
You want open source and SQL.
PostHog is MIT licensed and gives you SQL on your raw events. GrainQL is closed source, and self-hosting exists only as an Enterprise private deployment.
Try both for two weeks.
The two scripts run on the same page without conflict. A common split: engineering keeps PostHog for flags and experiments, and marketing runs GrainQL beside it.
- 1
Add the GrainQL tag next to PostHog.
One script tag in the head, or through GTM. About two minutes. Leave PostHog, your flags and your experiments exactly as they are.
- 2
Ask both the same question.
Take one real drop from the last two weeks. Ask PostHog AI and ask Neo. Compare how fast a non-engineer gets to a cause they can act on.
- 3
Decide who uses what.
At day 14, check who opened each tool. If marketing only opened GrainQL, keep both. If engineers covered it all in PostHog, stay there.
Get the side-by-side test plan.
One page on running GrainQL next to PostHog: what to install, what to compare, how to decide.
Questions.
Yes. The GrainQL tag is one script in the head or in GTM, and it runs next to the PostHog snippet. A sensible split is PostHog for flags, experiments and SQL, and GrainQL for marketing and growth.
Keep PostHog. Add the analyst.
Start the 14-day trial with no credit card, paste one tag next to PostHog, and ask Neo about your last drop.