Compare PostHog
Apogee Watcher vs PostHog
PostHog Web Vitals are strongest when you already run product analytics and need real-user FCP/LCP/INP/CLS next to releases and segments. Apogee Watcher focuses on scheduled PageSpeed Insights coverage across many client sites with organisation roles and automated discovery—no client-side analytics SDK.
At a glance
| Topic | PostHog | Apogee Watcher |
|---|---|---|
| Time to setup (estimated) | ~15–60 min if PostHog is already installed; longer for consent and project setup | ~15–30 min for first organisation, sites, discovery, and a weekly schedule |
| Primary signal | Real-user $web_vitals events (FCP, LCP, INP, CLS) | Scheduled PageSpeed Insights (full Lighthouse lab + CrUX where available) |
| Client script | Required (posthog-js); cookieless paths can drop vitals | None—public URL tests |
| Agency multi-site model | Analytics projects / event quotas | Organisations, sites, Admin / Manager / Viewer |
| Page discovery | Only URLs that load the SDK | Automated sitemap + crawl |
| Client-ready deliverable | Insight/dashboard subscriptions; PNG export — PDF not a product export | Weekly organisation PDF; white-label on Professional+ |
| Entry public pricing | Free forever within 1M events/mo | $9 Personal → Growth $42 → $199 Agency |
Time to setup is an estimate for a first useful monitoring configuration (not a full portfolio migration or enterprise rollout). Your stack, tag access, and URL count will change it.
Client-ready deliverable: Watcher weekly organisation PDFs need pdf_reports (Starter+); white-label branding needs white_label_reports (Professional+). Monthly/custom report types are not self-serve yet.
What PostHog does better
- Real-user FCP, LCP, INP, and CLS from the same posthog-js SDK as the rest of analytics
- Web Vitals trends and URL tables inside product analytics filters
- Insight-based alerts to email, Slack, or webhooks on vitals series
- Flags, session replay, and experiments in the same product OS
- Generous forever-free event allowance (1M analytics events/mo)
What Watcher does better
- Scheduled full PageSpeed Insights / Lighthouse context without a snippet on every origin
- Multi-organisation, multi-site model with Admin / Manager / Viewer roles
- Automated sitemap and crawl discovery for client URL inventories
- Coverage for prospect and pre-launch URLs you cannot instrument yet
- CrUX-in-PSI field context without depending on cookieless session IDs
- Weekly organisation CWV PDFs with white-label on Professional+ (PostHog subscriptions are analytics digests, not portfolio PSI PDFs)
Who each is best for
- PostHog: Product teams that own the app, already use PostHog, and need session-level Core Web Vitals next to analytics.
- Apogee Watcher: Agencies and freelancers covering many client sites with scheduled lab plus CrUX without installing a script on every host.
- Often use both: Keep PostHog Web Vitals on properties you control and already instrument; use Watcher for portfolio synthetic schedules, discovery, and URLs without a snippet.
Read more: Apogee Watcher vs PostHog Web Vitals: Synthetic PageSpeed Monitoring and Product Analytics Compared
Pricing at portfolio scale
| Sites | PostHog | Apogee Watcher |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Free* — $0* USD | Starter — $29 / €24 USD / EUR |
| 10 | Free* — $0* USD | Growth — $42 / €35 USD / EUR |
| 20 | Free* — $0* USD | Professional — $79 / €69 USD / EUR |
| 50 | Free* — $0* USD | Agency — $199 / €169 USD / EUR |
From posthog.com/pricing (3 Nov 2026). Free: 1M analytics events/mo forever (usage stops at free limits without a card). Pay-as-you-go: same free allowance then usage-based billing; more projects and longer retention. Web Vitals ($web_vitals) bill like other analytics events—PostHog docs suggest roughly ~30 vitals events per 100 pageviews on average. Hub rows show Free* at $0* with sort near quotes because this is product-analytics RUM, not the shared scheduled PSI portfolio load. Cookieless always (and paths without session IDs) do not populate usable $web_vitals. Confirm live before you buy. Snapshot date: 3 Nov 2026. Vendor pricing: PostHog pricing · Watcher pricing
Switch / setup from PostHog
- 1. Decide which owned properties keep PostHog Web Vitals (usually keep them).
- 2. Export priority URLs that need scheduled lab coverage into Watcher sites.
- 3. Run discovery, then set schedules and performance budgets.
- 4. Use both lenses on your own marketing site when lab, CrUX, and RUM disagree.
F.A.Q.
No. Watcher runs scheduled PageSpeed Insights tests (lab plus CrUX where Google publishes it). It does not capture session-level $web_vitals events. Keep PostHog when you need real-user vitals next to product analytics.
PostHog’s free tier (3 Nov 2026) includes 1M analytics events every month; Web Vitals count toward that allowance. Pay-as-you-go continues after the free tier. Watcher is plan-based (e.g. Professional $79 for up to 25 sites). The products bill different units—events versus site and test quotas—so treat hub $0* as the analytics floor, not a PSI portfolio quote. Confirm both vendors before you buy.
Not in strict cookieless setups where session and window IDs are unavailable (including cookieless_mode always). In those cases the Web Vitals dashboard stays empty; scheduled PSI plus CrUX in Watcher still runs without that stream.
Related
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PostHog is a trademark of its owner. Apogee Watcher is not affiliated with PostHog. Prices and features from public sites may have changed since the snapshot date.