The short version
PostHog and Orwel are built on different ideas. PostHog puts many products behind one signup and bills each one by usage, with a free allowance that resets every month. Orwel does fewer things, decides more for you and charges one price.
If you want session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys and error tracking in one place, PostHog is the more complete choice and this page will not argue otherwise. If you mostly want to know which features people use, where they drop off before converting and which campaigns bring good leads, Orwel is built for exactly that.
What PostHog offers
Last checked October 21, 2026, on the PostHog pricing page.
PostHog lists a long set of products. Its free tier, which it says resets every month, includes:
| Product | Free every month |
|---|---|
| Analytics | 1M events |
| Session replay | 5K recordings |
| Feature flags | 1M requests (experiments are billed with flags) |
| Error tracking | 100K exceptions |
| Surveys | 1,500 responses |
| Data warehouse sources | 1M rows plus free historical |
| AI observability | 100K events |
| Logs | 10 GB ingested |
It also lists destinations, workflows, an AI assistant, an MCP server and a desktop app. PostHog says 97% of companies use it for free. The free plan needs no card and includes unlimited team members, 1 project and 1-year data retention. The pay-as-you-go plan keeps the same free tier, then charges for usage above it, with 6 projects, 7-year retention and billing limits on most products. Platform packages add SSO, audit logs, custom roles and project permissions. PostHog also says it has an MIT licensed open source product.
That is a lot of value, especially for engineering heavy teams that want one vendor for everything.
What Orwel does differently
Orwel is an event analytics SDK for startups, developers and vibe coders. It is narrower on purpose.
- Feature adoption as a first class report. Group events into features and see unique users, weekly usage and which features nobody touches. The dashboard generates the tracking code as a snippet, a typed TypeScript module or a prompt for your coding agent.
- Funnels that count steps in any order. A journey is a set of milestones that ends in a conversion, and each milestone counts whenever it happens within the period. See conversion funnels.
- Leads, not just users. When someone signs in or submits a form, Orwel attaches their history. Each lead gets a score from 0 to 100, intent signals and the full session history, and can go to HubSpot or your inbox. See lead scoring.
- Cost per qualified lead. First and last touch UTMs and ad click IDs are kept across sessions and joined with Google Ads and Meta Ads spend. See ad attribution.
- Built for agents. An agent skill installs the SDK, and an MCP server lets Claude, Cursor or your own agent read leads, visitors and campaigns.
- Dev mode. A development key keeps tests out of real data, and a live debugger shows each request and why anything was rejected.
Feature comparison
| PostHog | Orwel | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage based per product, free monthly allowance | One Pro plan, flat monthly or yearly price |
| Free option | Free plan, no card | 14-day trial with card |
| Product analytics | Yes | Yes, with a 257-event semantic catalog |
| Feature adoption report | Not listed on the pricing page | Built in |
| Funnels | Yes | Journeys with steps in any order |
| Lead score and intent signals | Not listed on the pricing page | Yes |
| Ad cost per qualified lead | Not listed on the pricing page | Google Ads and Meta Ads |
| Session replay | Yes | No |
| Heatmaps | Not listed on the pricing page | No |
| Feature flags and experiments | Yes | No |
| Surveys | Yes | No |
| Error tracking | Yes | Autocaptured JavaScript and network errors as events |
| Open source | MIT licensed product | No |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
Pricing compared
PostHog's model rewards low usage. If you stay inside the free tier you pay nothing, and above it you pay per unit for each product you use, with billing limits so a spike does not surprise you. The total depends on traffic and on how many products you turn on. PostHog's own advice is to install it, set a billing limit and look at the projection after a few days.
Orwel's model is one number. The Pro plan is 49 USD per month and drops 2 USD every month you pay on time, down to 35 USD, or 420 USD per year. It includes everything Orwel does, with no caps on leads or visitors under fair use (the plan covers up to 100,000 analyzed visitors per month). You know the bill before you install. See Orwel pricing.
For a side project with little traffic, PostHog's free tier is hard to beat. For a team that wants leads, funnels and ad attribution with a fixed budget, Orwel is simpler to plan around.
When PostHog is the better choice
- You need session replay, feature flags, experiments or surveys.
- You want to start free with no card.
- You want an open source option.
- You want one vendor for analytics, logs, error tracking and a data warehouse.
When Orwel is the better choice
- You are a small team or a solo builder and want the setup decided for you.
- Your main questions are feature adoption, funnel drop-off and lead quality.
- You run Google Ads or Meta Ads and want cost per qualified lead without building it yourself.
- You build with AI agents and want them to install the SDK and read real usage through MCP.
- You prefer a fixed monthly price over usage based billing.