Head to head · Analytics events · October 2026 research run
Heap vs PostHog
PostHog scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Heap's 53 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do analytics events.
Which one, for what
Heap D
Good for An agent that records backend events or enriches user and account properties in a company's existing Heap project, or that files privacy deletions.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where PostHog loses 7 points for them
Watch for
No query, export or definitions endpoint in the developer reference. Reading results needs the app, Heap Connect or the MCP server we couldn't read
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
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 57
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 49
- Security & auth, 84 against 41
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 63
- Transparency & trust, 83 against 64
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
- Open source
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 this run | Heap | PostHog | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 72 | 74 | PostHog +2 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 57 | 81 | PostHog +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 49 | 78 | PostHog +29 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 41 | 84 | PostHog +43 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 25 | 40 | PostHog +15 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 63 | 89 | PostHog +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 64 | 83 | PostHog +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -7 | |
| Total | 53 · D | 68.4 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Heap | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Contentsquare (Content Square, Inc.) | PostHog Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://heapanalytics.com | https://us.posthog.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for analytics events | not published | $0.0001 per transaction |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Contentsquare's master services agreement. The React Native bridge and the Node client on npm are 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 | none | 1096 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | io.github.PostHog/mcp |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-06-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-06-29 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 213 npm/wk | 40k stars, 15.2M npm/wk |
Verdicts
Heap
Heap's server-side API suits an agent that records events. Limits are published, bulk calls take 1,000 items and track accepts an idempotency key. The API returns no analytics, and ingest calls carry no secret beyond the environment ID. Heap's help centre lists a Heap MCP article, which a bot check stopped us reading, so the MCP server is ungraded.
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
Heap
- Send EU projects to https://c.eu.heap-api.com instead of https://heapanalytics.com. The path stays the same
- Pass one of
identityoruser_idon track, never both - Set
idempotency_keyon every track event so a retry doesn't duplicate it - Stay under 30 requests per 30 seconds per identity, or batch up to 1,000 events in one bulk call
- For deletion, exchange the app_id and API key of the Main Production environment for a token first. Any other environment ID returns Unauthorized
PostHog
- Add
?readonly=trueor thex-posthog-read-onlyheader to the MCP URL unless the task needs writes - Pin the session with
x-posthog-project-id, which also removes theswitch-projectandswitch-organizationtools - In CLI mode run
info <tool>once beforecall, and send oneexeccommand per request - On a 429 with code
api_queries_budget_exceeded, wait forRetry-Afterand readX-PostHog-Query-Budget-Remaining-Bytes - Page SQL results by keyset on
timestamp.OFFSETreturns 400 for personal API keys, and results cap at 50,000 rows
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Heap or PostHog?
PostHog scores 68.4 (B) on agent readiness against Heap's 53 (D), and leads in every scored category.
Do Heap and PostHog need an API key?
Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Heap and PostHog without installing anything?
Yes. Heap has a hosted endpoint at https://heapanalytics.com and PostHog at https://us.posthog.com.
Are Heap and PostHog open source?
No open-source release is listed for Heap. 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).
Other comparisons with Heap or PostHog
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/heap-vs-posthog.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/heap.json·/api/v1/tools/posthog.json - From a terminal
anchor compare heap posthog(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "heap", "b": "posthog"}at/mcp, no key