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Independently verified · Quarterly re-audit
EU VETTED

PostHog

VERIFIED
Web analytics · United Kingdom
Founded 2020 · posthog.com ↗

London-based open-source product analytics (PostHog, 2020, Y Combinator W20), US + EU Frankfurt cloud regions, MIT-licensed self-host.

In short

PostHog, in the Web analytics category, offers EU hosting with United Kingdom as its hosting location, but a US parent or sub-processor leaves material CLOUD Act exposure.

Assessment notes

PostHog (founded 2020 by James Hawkins and Tim Glaser in London, Y Combinator Winter 2020 batch) is the open-source product-analytics platform with managed-cloud regions in US (Virginia) and EU (Frankfurt) plus a self-host edition for full control, but the cap table is anchored by Y Combinator + Google Ventures (GV) with $12M+ raised from US sources (plus angels Jason Warner / Solomon Hykes / David Cramer); UK post-Brexit jurisdiction + heavy US-VC funding → eu_hq_us_funded ownership with material CLOUD Act exposure for the managed-cloud product; the self-host path on EU infrastructure removes US-vendor exposure entirely.

CLOUD ACT
OWNERSHIP
SUB-PROCS
4 · 4 US
CLOUD Act by deployment

Exposure depends on how you run this product.

Hosted SaaS (default)

Vendor-operated: the sub-processors below apply.

Self-hosted (open-source)

Deploy on your own EU infrastructure and you control hosting and every sub-processor.

Verified signals
Jurisdiction
  • EU / adequacy hosting
  • EU / adequacy operator
  • No US CLOUD Act exposure
Transparency
  • Public DPA
  • Sub-processors disclosed
  • Open-source clients
  • Third-party certification
JUMP TO
OVERVIEW

About PostHog

PostHog is the open-source product-analytics platform founded in 2020 by James Hawkins and Tim Glaser in London, a Y Combinator Winter 2020 batch alumnus that built one of the most successful B2B-software launches on Hacker News since 2012. The product combines product analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, heatmaps, data warehouse, and customer data infrastructure into a single integrated platform; PostHog reports that 98% of customers use the free tier and operates entirely on usage-based pricing ($0.00005 per event for analytics, $0.005 per session-replay recording).

For an EU-sovereignty audit PostHog falls into the eu_hq_us_funded ownership tier. The HQ is London (UK post-Brexit jurisdiction with EU adequacy decision), but the cap table is heavily US-VC: Y Combinator (the canonical Silicon Valley accelerator) led the initial investment and GV (Google Ventures) led the $12M Series A; notable angels include Jason Warner (former GitHub CTO), Solomon Hykes (Docker founder), and David Cramer (Sentry founder). For the managed cloud, customers pick between US (Virginia) and EU (Frankfurt) hosting regions at signup; EU-region customers get GDPR-aligned residency, but the vendor's UK jurisdiction + US-VC ownership + AWS Frankfurt hosting (under PostHog's parent entity) keep the CLOUD Act flag at material under the strict-ownership stance.

The self-host edition is the procurement-grade path for EU buyers. PostHog publishes the full server-side stack as open source on GitHub under a source-available licence; running it on Hetzner / OVHcloud / Scaleway / STACKIT / private DC delivers full sovereignty by construction. Pricing: free tier (extremely generous, most customers stay on free); usage-based above for both cloud and self-host commercial deployments. Best fit: product teams that want an Amplitude / Mixpanel / Heap replacement with permissive self-host option and don't require an EU-incorporated vendor entity.

SUB-PROCESSORS

Sub-processor map · 4

Source ↗
  • Amazon Web Services, Inc. US
    Germany

    Cloud storage of PostHog Cloud data

  • Modal Labs, Inc. US
    Germany

    Serverless compute infrastructure for isolated code execution

  • PlanetScale, Inc. US
    Germany

    Operations and performance monitoring of databases

  • Wiz, Inc. US
    Germany

    Security vulnerability management and detection

4 of 4 sub-processors are US-incorporated. CLOUD Act exposure applies.
CERTIFICATIONS

Frameworks & certifications · none listed

We checked the vendor's website and standard certification body registries. No active certifications found at the time of last audit (2026-05-18).
FEATURES

Capability matrix

Cookieless No
Self-hostable Yes
Custom events Yes
Funnels Yes
Session replay Yes
GA import Yes
Stats API Yes
INTEGRATION & ACCESS
REST API Yes
SSO (SAML / OIDC) Yes
COMPLIANCE & GOVERNANCE
Audit log Yes
Self-host / on-prem option Yes
PRICING

Pricing & tiers

FREEMIUM
from €0/mo
View pricing page ↗
PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

Public documents

  • Data Processing Addendum (DPA)
    posthog.com/dpa…
    Open ↗
  • Sub-processors list
    posthog.com/subprocessors…
    Open ↗
  • Terms of Service
    posthog.com/terms…
    Open ↗
ALTERNATIVES

Alternatives in this category

GoatCounter
Ireland · Founded 2019
EU-SOVEREIGN

Solo-developer open-source web analytics on Hetzner DE/FI; no IP storage, no trackers, free for personal use, MIT-style source on GitHub.

Public DPA Sub-processors Open source
FROM
CLOUD ACT
NONE
Matomo
New Zealand · Founded 2007
EU-HOSTED

Open-source web analytics (NZ-incorporated InnoCraft) with EU-hosted Matomo Cloud on AWS and full self-hosted option.

Public DPA Sub-processors Open source
FROM
€29/mo
CLOUD ACT
MATERIAL
Pirsch Analytics
Germany · Founded 2020
EU-SOVEREIGN

German cookieless server-side web analytics on Hetzner Gunzenhausen with bilingual public DPA and Schrems II-aligned posture.

Public DPA Sub-processors Open source
FROM
€6/mo
CLOUD ACT
NONE