PostHog session replay vs Faintrail

See why visitors leave, without learning a whole product toolkit

PostHog gives software teams analytics, experiments, surveys and replay in one place. If what you need is to watch visits and see where people get stuck, Faintrail does that one job, in words anyone in the team can read.

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In short

PostHog is an all-in-one toolkit for software teams: session replay sits beside product analytics, feature flags, experiments, surveys, error tracking and heatmaps. Its cloud gives 5,000 website recordings a month free, keeps data in the US or the EU (Frankfurt), and its open-source version can be run on your own servers. Faintrail does only session replay, for owners and marketers: each visit plays beside a plain-words log, typed text is never recorded, email addresses, phone and card numbers on the page are hidden, and you choose the EU, the UK or the US. Faintrail can't be self-hosted yet.

Faintrail plays a visit back on the left and lists every page and click in plain words on the right, here for a demo shop's checkout.

PostHog session replay and Faintrail side by side

	Faintrail	PostHog session replay
What you see	Each visit replayed beside a plain-words log; rage clicks, clicks that did nothing, forms not sent and errors marked for you	Replay with clicks, console logs and network requests, on websites and mobile apps; heatmaps, analytics, surveys and experiments are other PostHog products
Privacy defaults	Typed text never recorded; email addresses, phone and card numbers on the page hidden; pages you mark private left out; sets no cookies, though in "record unless they say no" mode it keeps a visit number in the browser's storage, which privacy rules can treat like a cookie	On websites, form fields are masked by default and "general text is not masked by default". Its website script sets a cross-domain cookie by default
Where data is kept	Hosted by Faintrail in the EU, the UK or the US: you choose	PostHog Cloud in the US or the EU (Frankfurt), or its open-source version on your own server (MIT licence, "officially unsupported")
AI	Download up to 100 visits as one text file for the assistant you already use. Nothing is sent to an AI automatically	PostHog AI can summarise recordings in its in-app chat; Replay Vision has AI watch recordings and turn them into data; recordings readable over MCP
How long visits are kept	Replays 30 days and logs 90 days by default, up to a year if you choose	Up to 30 days on the free plan, 90 days pay-as-you-go, a year on Boost and Scale, five years on Enterprise
Price	Not set yet	First 5,000 website and 2,500 mobile recordings a month free, no credit card. Then from $0.0050 per website recording, falling to $0.0015 with volume
Set-up	One small script, pasted in once. Nothing to host	A website snippet (PostHog's recommended way) or a code package; running it yourself needs a server of at least 4 CPUs and 16 GB of memory

Prices in US dollars, as PostHog shows them. Sources, checked 15 November 2026: Session replay pricing; PostHog pricing; Replay privacy controls; Replay data retention; Data storage; Self-host; JavaScript library; Replay Vision.

Why teams choose Faintrail

One job, in plain words. PostHog is built for software teams who want analytics, flags, experiments and replay together. Faintrail is a list of visits you can open, filter and read, so an owner or marketer can use it without learning a toolkit.
Read a visit like a story. Every visit has a plain-words log, such as Opened /pricing or Clicked button "Book a call" ⚠ No response, with the problems marked. You can skim a visit in seconds and watch only the moment that matters.
Personal details on the page are hidden from the start. Both tools keep form fields out by default. PostHog leaves other page text visible unless someone changes a setting; Faintrail hides email addresses, phone and card numbers shown on any page, and sets no cookies (in "record unless they say no" mode it keeps a visit number in the browser's storage, which privacy rules can treat like one).
Keep visits in the UK, if that's where you work. PostHog Cloud offers the US or the EU. Faintrail offers the EU, the UK or the US, and never sells or shares your visitors' data.
Use the AI you already trust. PostHog's AI works inside PostHog. Faintrail gives you the visits as a text file for the assistant your business already uses, and you can read exactly what it was given.

When PostHog is the better choice

Choose PostHog if you want product analytics, feature flags, experiments, surveys and heatmaps in the same tool as your recordings, or if you record mobile apps. It's also the better choice if you must run everything on your own servers and have developers to look after it, since its open-source version is free to self-host (unsupported by PostHog), and Faintrail can't be self-hosted yet. And its free allowance is generous today: 5,000 website recordings a month, with low prices beyond that. Faintrail has no prices yet.

Switching from PostHog session replay

Add Faintrail beside PostHog. Both scripts can run at once. You can keep PostHog for analytics and experiments, and turn its recordings off later if you no longer need them.
Set what to record. Choose your private pages, the pages always recorded and how many visitors to record (one in ten to start with). PostHog's masking settings don't carry over.
Compare a week of visits. Check that Faintrail shows you what you opened PostHog's replays for.
Keep what you need. Recordings stay in PostHog; Faintrail can't import them. PostHog lets you export a recording to a file that PostHog can read back later.

Questions people ask

Is PostHog free?

PostHog has a free plan with monthly allowances for each product, and no credit card is needed. For session replay that's the first 5,000 website recordings and 2,500 mobile recordings a month; after that, website recordings start at $0.0050 each. Faintrail has no prices yet.

Is PostHog GDPR compliant?

That depends on how it's set up on your site as much as on the tool. PostHog offers a cloud in the EU, hosted in Frankfurt, and recommends it if you need "robust GDPR compliance". We don't judge another company's compliance. Faintrail is designed to collect less: no typed text, personal details on the page hidden, and data kept in the EU, the UK or the US, as you choose.

Does PostHog session replay record what users type?

On websites, PostHog masks form fields by default, but its documentation says "general text is not masked by default", so names and other details shown on a page appear in the replay unless a developer changes a setting. Faintrail never records typed text, and hides email addresses, phone and card numbers shown on any page. Other text on ordinary pages does appear in Faintrail's replays too, so mark pages private if they show personal details.

Is PostHog open source? Can I self-host it?

Yes. PostHog offers a free Docker version under the MIT licence that you run yourself; PostHog calls it "officially unsupported", and paid features are cloud-only. Faintrail is hosted for you and can't be run on your own servers yet. If you need that, contact us.

Can I keep PostHog and use Faintrail for recordings?

Yes. They're separate scripts, so you can keep PostHog's analytics and experiments and read visits in Faintrail.

Is there a PostHog alternative in the EU?

PostHog itself offers an EU cloud in Frankfurt. If you'd rather keep visits in the UK, or want a tool that does only session replay, Faintrail lets you choose the EU, the UK or the US.

Be among the first websites to use Faintrail

Faintrail is getting ready for its first websites. Join the early list and we'll tell you when you can add it to yours. One email when it's ready; nothing else.

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