Countly vs OpenPanel
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
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The short answer
Both sides assessedCountly compared with OpenPanel
OpenPanel is the lighter open source option. Its AGPL self-hosted edition includes funnels, retention, user profiles, and session replay that Countly Lite leaves out, and its hosted cloud starts at $2.50 a month against $175 for Countly Flex. Countly is the stronger platform for native mobile and regulated deployments, with push notifications, crash reporting with symbolication, surveys, remote config, and an isolated private cloud. A web or SaaS team on a budget should look at OpenPanel; a mobile team under a compliance constraint should stay with Countly.
OpenPanel compared with Countly
Both are AGPL open source with a free self-hosted edition, but the free editions are very different. Countly Lite leaves out funnels, cohorts, drill, and user profiles, and managed Countly Flex starts at $175 a month; OpenPanel's self-hosted code includes funnels, retention, profiles, and replay, and its cloud starts at $2.50. Countly is the stronger mobile and regulated-industry platform, with push, crash reporting, surveys, and remote config on the same server. Choose OpenPanel for web and SaaS analytics on a budget; choose Countly for native mobile under a compliance constraint.
Choose Countly if
Mobile and multi-platform product teams with a data residency, regulatory, or sovereignty constraint that rules out sending raw events to a US cloud, and teams that want analytics, push, surveys, and A/B testing from one server instead of four vendors.
Choose OpenPanel if
Startups, indie developers, and small SaaS or ecommerce teams who want one cookieless, EU-hosted tool covering both the marketing site and the in-product funnel, who value predictable event-based pricing with unlimited seats, and who either have enough volume that Mixpanel's paid tier would cost several times more or have the skills to self-host under the AGPL.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Countly | OpenPanel |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Product Analytics | Product Analytics |
| Starting price | Free if self-hosted (Lite); managed Flex starts at $175 per month | $2.50 per month billed monthly for 5,000 events, or $25 per year billed annually; self-hosting is free |
| Pricing model | Three editions. Countly Lite is free and open source under AGPLv3, self-hosted, and limited to the aggregate analytics layer. Countly Flex is a managed private cloud priced by monthly active users and data points, with a base Advanced Analytics plan and two paid capability bundles (Adaptivity and Intelligence) added on top. Countly Enterprise is a self-hosted commercial license with all capabilities included, priced by quote and billed annually. | One cloud plan metered only on events tracked per month, chosen from 13 published volume steps between 5,000 and 50 million events, with custom pricing above that. Every step includes the same features and unlimited websites or apps, users, dashboards, charts, and tracked profiles. Yearly billing costs ten times the monthly price. The AGPL-3.0 source can be self-hosted for free with unlimited events. |
| Free plan | Countly Lite is free forever but self-hosted, and excludes drill, funnels, cohorts, and user profiles. The free tier that previously existed on the hosted Flex plan was removed in 2026. | No free cloud tier. Self-hosting is free with unlimited events, and open source projects that meet the vendor's criteria can apply for free cloud access up to 2.5 million events a month. |
| Free trial | 14 days on Flex (credit card required); demo environment for Enterprise | 30 days on the cloud; the homepage and pricing page say no credit card is required |
| Best for | Mobile and multi-platform product teams with a data residency, regulatory, or sovereignty constraint that rules out sending raw events to a US cloud, and teams that want analytics, push, surveys, and A/B testing from one server instead of four vendors. | Startups, indie developers, and small SaaS or ecommerce teams who want one cookieless, EU-hosted tool covering both the marketing site and the in-product funnel, who value predictable event-based pricing with unlimited seats, and who either have enough volume that Mixpanel's paid tier would cost several times more or have the skills to self-host under the AGPL. |
| Setup time | A Flex instance and a first SDK integration can be live in a day. Self-hosting Lite or Enterprise is a genuine infrastructure project: provisioning, MongoDB, TLS, backups, and upgrade planning, typically a few days for someone who has done it before and longer for someone who has not. The instrumentation work, deciding which events to fire and what properties to attach, is the part that takes weeks regardless of edition. | Minutes on the cloud: create a project, paste the script tag, and the traffic overview fills immediately. Instrumenting the product events, identify calls, and group calls that make funnels and retention meaningful is a day or two of engineering. Self-hosting with the setup script is quoted by the vendor at 30 seconds to 2 minutes on a VPS once Docker and Node are present, but TLS, email, backups, and upgrade discipline are extra and ongoing. |
| Learning curve | Moderate. The aggregate dashboards are readable immediately. The harder skill is event design, because Countly rewards a small number of well-segmented events and punishes a sprawl of one-off event names; Data Manager exists precisely because most teams get this wrong first. Operators of self-hosted deployments need MongoDB familiarity as an ongoing requirement, not a one-time one. | Low for the web overview, which anyone who has used Plausible or Google Analytics will read without help. Moderate for the product side, where the skill is choosing a small set of well-named events with useful properties. The report builder is simpler than Mixpanel's, which helps non-analysts and limits power users. |
| Platforms | iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, Android, Web (JavaScript SDK), React Native, Flutter, Cordova, Ionic, Unity and Unreal, Desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux), Node.js, Java, .NET, Python, PHP, IoT and connected devices | Web via script tag or the JavaScript web SDK, Next.js, Astro, and Nuxt integrations; React, Vue, Remix, and others through the web SDK, Node.js (including Express), Python, Ruby, Rust, and Java server SDKs, React Native, Swift (iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS), and Kotlin for Android (not yet on Maven), WordPress plugin, Self-hosted on Docker Compose, Coolify, Dokploy, or Kubernetes, Web dashboard |
| Compliance | GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA-capable when self-hosted, COPPA, ISO 27001 | GDPR with a published Art. 28 DPA, Cookieless tracking with no stored IP addresses |
| Founded | 2013 | 2023 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Ownership | Independent, bootstrapped (Countly Ltd, registered in England and Wales) | Independent, founder-owned (OpenPanel AB) |
Strengths and limitations
Countly
Strengths
- Genuine self-hosting, including a free open source edition, which very few product analytics tools still offer credibly.
- Analytics and engagement in one system: a cohort defined from behavior is immediately addressable by push, in-app message, survey, or journey.
- Breadth across mobile, web, desktop, and IoT from one server, with mature first-party SDKs on all of them.
- Crash reporting with symbolication built in, so app stability and product behavior share a single app version and device breakdown.
Limitations
- The hosted free tier was removed in 2026, so the cheapest managed entry point is now $175 per month, which puts Countly out of reach for many small teams that would have trialled it.
- Lite lacks the granular data store, so funnels, cohorts, drill, flows, and user profiles are simply absent from the free edition. This is the single most misunderstood thing about Countly.
- On Flex, funnels and cohorts sit in the paid Intelligence bundle rather than the base plan, so the real cost of a comparable analytics setup is above the advertised entry price.
- Self-hosting means operating MongoDB. Reviewers repeatedly report friction with the Docker image, memory pressure, and incompatibility with some managed MongoDB providers, and the minimum viable server is larger than teams expect once push notifications are enabled.
OpenPanel
Strengths
- Published, flat event pricing with no feature gates: $20 buys 100,000 events and $350 buys 10 million, with unlimited seats, projects, and profiles on every step.
- Genuinely open source under AGPL-3.0 with a documented self-hosting path and unlimited events, so the exit from the cloud is the same software rather than a migration.
- Web analytics and product analytics from one script, which removes the usual Plausible-plus-Mixpanel pairing for small teams.
- Cookieless tracking by design with a published DPA, Hetzner hosting in Germany, and a sub-processor list that keeps analytics data in the EEA in normal operation.
Limitations
- No free cloud tier, so a product that would fit inside Mixpanel's 1 million free events pays up to $90 a month here for the same volume.
- No feature flags, no experiment engine, no surveys, and no in-app guides; A/B analysis depends on assigning variants in another tool and breaking charts down by that property.
- No SOC 2 report, ISO certification, SAML SSO, or uptime SLA is published, and the company registry lists one to four employees, which will stop some procurement reviews at the first question.
- The published overage behavior is suspension rather than billing, per the terms of service, which is a harsher failure mode than an automatic step-up.
Pricing compared
Countly
Three editions. Countly Lite is free and open source under AGPLv3, self-hosted, and limited to the aggregate analytics layer. Countly Flex is a managed private cloud priced by monthly active users and data points, with a base Advanced Analytics plan and two paid capability bundles (Adaptivity and Intelligence) added on top. Countly Enterprise is a self-hosted commercial license with all capabilities included, priced by quote and billed annually.
- Lite$0
- FlexFrom $175
- EnterpriseCustom quote
Countly's value depends almost entirely on which edition you are talking about. Self-hosted Lite is one of the few genuinely capable free analytics servers, and for a team with infrastructure skills it delivers sessions, events, crashes, and push for the price of a VM. Managed Flex is not cheap at $175 per month for a base plan that excludes funnels and cohorts, and against Mixpanel's or PostHog's free and low tiers it loses on price outright. What you are actually buying at that price is isolation: your own instance, your choice of region, and no shared multi-tenant store. If data residency is a requirement rather than a preference, that premium is the whole point and it is reasonable. If it is not, the hosted incumbents give more analytics per dollar.
OpenPanel
One cloud plan metered only on events tracked per month, chosen from 13 published volume steps between 5,000 and 50 million events, with custom pricing above that. Every step includes the same features and unlimited websites or apps, users, dashboards, charts, and tracked profiles. Yearly billing costs ten times the monthly price. The AGPL-3.0 source can be self-hosted for free with unlimited events.
- Self-hosted$0
- Cloud, 5K to 500K events$2.50 to $50
- Cloud, 1M to 5M events$90 to $250
- Cloud, 10M to 50M events$350 to $900
- CustomQuoted
OpenPanel's value depends on where your volume sits relative to Mixpanel's free tier. Under 1 million events a month, Mixpanel costs nothing and OpenPanel costs up to $90, so the argument for OpenPanel there is cookieless tracking, EU hosting, and web analytics in the same tool rather than price. Above 1 million events the arithmetic flips hard: 10 million events is $350 a month on OpenPanel, while Mixpanel's published $0.00028 per event entry rate would put the 9 million billable events above its free allowance at roughly $2,500 before volume discounts. Unlimited seats, replay included, and a flat feature set make the bill easy to forecast. What you are not paying for is maturity: no flags or experiments, no published security certifications, and a very small vendor. For a startup or indie product that is usually an acceptable trade; for a company with a procurement process it often is not.
Editorial verdict on each
Countly
Countly is the answer to a specific question: what do you use when the behavioral data cannot leave your control? On that question it is one of a very small number of credible options, and it goes further than its self-hosted peers by putting push notifications, in-app content, surveys, A/B testing, and crash reporting on the same server as the analytics, so a cohort you define is a cohort you can message. Thirteen years of independent, bootstrapped development shows in the breadth of the SDKs and the seriousness of the governance tooling. The problem is the middle of the market. The 2026 removal of the Flex free tier and a $175 per month entry price that still excludes funnels and cohorts means a small business without a data residency requirement will get more analytics for less money from Mixpanel, PostHog, or Amplitude, and a small business with no operations capability should not casually take on self-hosted MongoDB. Buy Countly when regulation, sovereignty, or vendor consolidation on mobile is the actual constraint. If it is not, buy something cheaper.
Read the full Countly profileOpenPanel
OpenPanel is the most interesting low-cost entrant in product analytics right now: one cookieless, EU-hosted, open source tool that covers the marketing site and the product funnel, with funnels, retention, groups, revenue events, replay, and Slack alerts included at every price and a flat event meter that starts at $2.50 a month. The math is its whole argument. Past Mixpanel's 1 million event free tier, OpenPanel is several times cheaper at the same volume, and the AGPL self-hosting route caps the downside at the cost of a server. The caveats are the ones you would expect from a three-year-old product built largely by one founder: no flags or experiments, no published security certifications or SSO, thin mobile SDK coverage on Android, suspension rather than overage billing at the limit, and a vendor small enough that its future rests on a handful of people. Buy it if you are a startup or indie team whose event bill elsewhere is the problem, or a European team that wants web and product analytics from one privacy-first tool. If you fit inside Mixpanel's free tier or your buyer needs a SOC 2 report, stay where you are.
Read the full OpenPanel profileCountly profile last reviewed 2026-08-23; OpenPanel last reviewed 2026-09-26. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
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Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Countly and OpenPanel?
OpenPanel is the lighter open source option. Its AGPL self-hosted edition includes funnels, retention, user profiles, and session replay that Countly Lite leaves out, and its hosted cloud starts at $2.50 a month against $175 for Countly Flex. Countly is the stronger platform for native mobile and regulated deployments, with push notifications, crash reporting with symbolication, surveys, remote config, and an isolated private cloud. A web or SaaS team on a budget should look at OpenPanel; a mobile team under a compliance constraint should stay with Countly.
Is Countly or OpenPanel cheaper?
Countly starts at Free if self-hosted (Lite); managed Flex starts at $175 per month. OpenPanel starts at $2.50 per month billed monthly for 5,000 events, or $25 per year billed annually; self-hosting is free. The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. Countly pricing model: Three editions. Countly Lite is free and open source under AGPLv3, self-hosted, and limited to the aggregate analytics layer. OpenPanel pricing model: One cloud plan metered only on events tracked per month, chosen from 13 published volume steps between 5,000 and 50 million events, with custom pricing above that.
Does Countly or OpenPanel have a free plan?
Countly has a free plan. Countly Lite is free forever but self-hosted, and excludes drill, funnels, cohorts, and user profiles. The free tier that previously existed on the hosted Flex plan was removed in 2026. Trial terms: 14 days on Flex (credit card required); demo environment for Enterprise. OpenPanel has a free plan. No free cloud tier. Self-hosting is free with unlimited events, and open source projects that meet the vendor's criteria can apply for free cloud access up to 2.5 million events a month. Trial terms: 30 days on the cloud; the homepage and pricing page say no credit card is required.
Who should choose Countly?
Mobile and multi-platform product teams with a data residency, regulatory, or sovereignty constraint that rules out sending raw events to a US cloud, and teams that want analytics, push, surveys, and A/B testing from one server instead of four vendors.
Who should choose OpenPanel?
Startups, indie developers, and small SaaS or ecommerce teams who want one cookieless, EU-hosted tool covering both the marketing site and the in-product funnel, who value predictable event-based pricing with unlimited seats, and who either have enough volume that Mixpanel's paid tier would cost several times more or have the skills to self-host under the AGPL.
What are the best alternatives to Countly and OpenPanel?
SaaSTracker profiles 15 products in Product Analytics & Session Replay. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Amplitude (Category Leader), Mixpanel (Best Value), Kissmetrics (Momentum). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
