# Countly vs PostHog

> PostHog scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Countly's 54.8 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do analytics query. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/countly-vs-posthog
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/countly-vs-posthog.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/countly-vs-posthog.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/countly-vs-posthog.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

PostHog scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Countly's 54.8 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do analytics query.

- Countly: grade C, 54.8/100, rank #607 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/countly.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/countly.json
- PostHog: grade B, 68.4/100, rank #204 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/posthog.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/posthog.json

## Which one, for what

### Countly (C)

Good for: An agent whose owner runs Countly on its own infrastructure or a dedicated Flex server and wants analytics, crash and remote-config data through MCP with per-category permissions.

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where PostHog loses 7 points for them

Watch for: No public status page or incident history was found for Flex servers or for mcp.count.ly

### PostHog (B)

Good for: An agent that answers product questions in SQL or with funnel, retention and trends queries, and that manages feature flags, experiments and error tracking in the same project.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 74 against 28
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 75
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 66
- Security & auth, 84 against 63
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 17
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 80
- Transparency & trust, 83 against 70

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: 31 incidents on the status page between 9 July and 6 October 2026, four of them analytics query timeouts or failures


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Countly | PostHog | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 28 | 74 | PostHog +46 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 81 | PostHog +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 78 | PostHog +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 84 | PostHog +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 17 | 40 | PostHog +23 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 89 | PostHog +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 83 | PostHog +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -7 | |
| **Total** | | **54.8 · C** | **68.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Countly | PostHog |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Countly Ltd | PostHog Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.count.ly/mcp` | `https://us.posthog.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Countly Lite is AGPL-3.0 with added branding terms under Section 7. Enterprise plugins are proprietary. Flex is a hosted service under Countly's terms. The MCP server is MIT | MIT for the repository outside the `ee` directory, which has its own licence. PostHog Cloud is a hosted service under PostHog's terms |
| Tools exposed | 209 | 1096 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.PostHog/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-25 | 2026-06-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-25 | 2026-06-29 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 28k npm/wk | 40k stars, 15.2M npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Countly.** Countly suits an agent working against a server its owner already runs. The official MCP server filters its 209 tools by edition, plugin and permission and has per-category read-only settings. No status page, OpenAPI document or published API rate limit was found, and the Flex trial needs a credit card.

**PostHog.** PostHog suits agents that need to query product data and manage flags or experiments. Its hosted MCP server has OAuth scopes, a read-only mode and a one-tool CLI mode over 1,096 tools. The status page shows 31 incidents in 90 days, four on analytics queries, and three security incidents were disclosed in the last year.

## Before you call either

### Countly

1. Create a dedicated token in the Token Manager, limited to the apps and endpoints the task needs, and send it in the `countly-token` header, not the URL
2. Set `COUNTLY_TOOLS_ALL=R` unless the task needs writes. The token's own permissions still apply and the stricter of the two wins
3. Call `apps_list` first. Most tools need `app_id` or an exact `app_name`
4. Check `get_version` for the detected edition before planning funnel, retention or cohort queries, which need Enterprise plugins
5. Set `ENABLE_ANALYTICS=false` to stop usage reports to stats.count.ly, and prefer the stdio server to mcp.count.ly so the server URL and token stay local

### PostHog

1. Add `?readonly=true` or the `x-posthog-read-only` header to the MCP URL unless the task needs writes
2. Pin the session with `x-posthog-project-id`, which also removes the `switch-project` and `switch-organization` tools
3. In CLI mode run `info <tool>` once before `call`, and send one `exec` command per request
4. On a 429 with code `api_queries_budget_exceeded`, wait for `Retry-After` and read `X-PostHog-Query-Budget-Remaining-Bytes`
5. Page SQL results by keyset on `timestamp`. `OFFSET` returns 400 for personal API keys, and results cap at 50,000 rows

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Countly or PostHog?

PostHog scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Countly's 54.8 (C), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Countly and PostHog need an API key?

Countly needs an API key. PostHog takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Countly and PostHog without installing anything?

Yes. Countly has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.count.ly/mcp and PostHog at https://us.posthog.com.

### Are Countly and PostHog open source?

Yes. Countly is open source (Countly Lite is AGPL-3.0 with added branding terms under Section 7. Enterprise plugins are proprietary. Flex is a hosted service under Countly's terms. The MCP server is MIT). PostHog is open source (MIT for the repository outside the `ee` directory, which has its own licence. PostHog Cloud is a hosted service under PostHog's terms).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/countly-vs-posthog.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/countly-vs-posthog.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "countly", "b": "posthog"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare countly posthog`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/countly.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/posthog.json

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