The open-source, self-hostable Heap alternative
Heap pioneered autocapture-first product analytics — but it’s proprietary, cloud-only SaaS, now part of Contentsquare. Pug gives you the same autocapture model — clicks, scrolls, forms, plus funnels, retention, flows, and profiles — open source and self-hostable. Here’s the honest comparison.
- You want to own your data and self-host, not rent a SaaS
- You want autocapture product analytics, open source
- You’d rather avoid usage-based cloud pricing and lock-in
- You want to define events retroactively over everything captured
- You need session replay and a broader experience suite
- You’d rather not run any infrastructure at all
Pug vs Heap, feature by feature
The short version: choose Pug to own and self-host focused product analytics. Heap may be the better fit depending on what you need — the honest detail is below.
| Capability | Pug this page | Heap |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership & operations | ||
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Own your raw event data | Yes | No |
| Self-host price | Free forever | Cloud only |
| Product analytics (same category) | ||
| Autocapture | Yes | Yes |
| Trends | Yes | Yes |
| Funnels | Yes | Yes |
| Retention cohorts | Yes | Yes |
| User-flow Sankey | Yes | Yes |
| Unified person profiles | Yes | Yes |
| Platform breadth | ||
| Retroactive event definition | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Session replay | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Auto-surfaced insights | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Digital-experience suite (Contentsquare) | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Integration marketplace | Not in Pug | Yes |
| Practical | ||
| SDKs | Web, Flutter, Node | Many platforms |
| Maturity | Open beta | Mature |
Last updated June 2026. Heap capabilities reflect its publicly documented product; verify the latest on the vendor’s site.
Why look for a Heap alternative
Open source, not a black box
Heap is proprietary, cloud-only SaaS (now part of Contentsquare) — your raw events live on their infrastructure. Pug is AGPL-3.0: read the code, run it anywhere, and keep every event on your own servers.
Self-host the whole thing
One Go binary plus PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, and NATS runs the entire product on your infrastructure. Heap has no self-host option — it’s cloud only.
The autocapture model, owned
After one init(), Pug autocaptures page views, clicks, scrolls, form submits, plus rage and dead clicks, enriched with geo, device, and UTM — the autocapture-first approach Heap popularized, open and self-hostable.
Where Heap is still the better choice
Pug is a focused tool, not a platform. If your team needs any of the following, Heap is the better fit — these don’t ship in Pug:
- Retroactive event definition over everything it captured
- Session replay of real user sessions
- Auto-surfaced insights and data-science features
- The broader Contentsquare digital-experience suite
- A large integration ecosystem and fully managed scale
Focused product analytics, fully yours
Everything below ships today and runs the same whether you self-host or use the free cloud.
Autocapture out of the box
Page views, clicks, scrolls, form submits, plus rage and dead clicks — captured after one init(), then enriched with geo, device, and UTM on ingest.
Six insight types
Trends, Funnels, Retention cohorts, Segmentation, User-flow Sankey, and Top-K — all over raw events, filterable by any property.
Unified profiles
Anonymous events merge into one person on identify(). Traits like plan or email live on the profile and filter every insight, across devices.
Dashboards
KPI, line, area, bar, table, and Sankey tiles on one shared time window, with period-over-period comparison and threshold coloring.
Moving from Heap to Pug
Pug’s model is straightforward: events with properties, a person per user via identify(), and traits that filter every insight.
SDKs available today are Web (TypeScript), Flutter (Dart), and Node, with native Android, iOS, and React Native SDKs in active development — landing by launch while Pug is in open beta. Point your tracking calls at Pug, identify users where you already identify them in Heap, and anonymous history merges into a single profile. For setup steps and the API, see the SDKs page and the docs.
Analytics history doesn’t transfer between tools — Pug starts collecting the day you add the SDK, so most teams run it alongside Heap during cutover and switch once the dashboards they rely on are covered. There’s no rip-and-replace, and your raw events are exportable from day one.
Heap alternative — your questions
Is Pug a Heap alternative?
Yes — it’s a close fit. Heap and Pug are both autocapture-first product analytics tools with funnels, retention, user flows, and unified profiles. The key difference is that Heap is proprietary, cloud-only SaaS (now part of Contentsquare), while Pug is open source (AGPL-3.0) and self-hostable.
Does Pug autocapture like Heap?
Yes. After a single init(), the Web SDK captures page views, clicks, scrolls, form submits, plus rage and dead clicks. The difference in approach: Heap records everything and lets you define events retroactively from that history; Pug autocaptures a defined set of interactions plus the custom events you track.
Can I self-host Pug instead of using a SaaS?
Yes. The whole stack runs on your own infrastructure for free, forever. Heap has no self-hosting option — it’s a managed cloud product.
Is Pug as feature-rich as Heap?
No, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Heap (now part of Contentsquare) adds retroactive event definition, session replay, auto-surfaced insights, and a broad digital-experience suite. Pug focuses on the core insight types and unified profiles, open and self-hostable.
Do I own my data with Pug?
When self-hosted, yes — every raw event stays inside your deployment, and the data is exportable either way. With Heap your events live in their cloud.
Other Pug comparisons
Own your product analytics.
Open source, easy to self-host on a single Go binary, and free during open beta. Start a project and see live events in minutes.