Why Amplitude?

Amplitude has been our primary analytics tool due to its generous free tier. It served us well until we started to hit the caps of the free limits. As costs became a factor with necessary upgrades, we looked into alternatives to determine the best value for money.

Given that Amplitude’s pricing felt steep when considering an upgrade, Mixpanel came into the picture as a cost-effective alternative. Mixpanel offers similar features as Amplitude’s free tier at about 50% less cost than Amplitude. This was particularly compelling for basic analytics needs. Here’s what stood out when we compared the two, focusing on our requirements:

Where Amplitude shines

Session replays

Amplitude’s session replay feature allows us to analyse user journeys similarly to tools like HotJar. Although it imposes a 10,000 session cap, which doesn’t cover our entire user base, Amplitude offers a targeted session capturing option. This feature is crucial as it enables us to strategically focus our session replays on specific user interactions of interest, ensuring we do not exhaust our limit on less relevant activities. This targeted approach helps maximise the utility of session replays despite the inherent limitations.

On the fly cohorts

Amplitude offers a dynamic and powerful user segmentation mechanism that operates in real-time during the creation of data visualisations. This flexibility allows for the refinement of user segments based on specific actions taken by users, enabling more granular and immediate insights. Conversely, Mixpanel requires a more static approach where cohorts must be predefined in cohort management before they can be applied as filters in charts. This step can slow down the analysis process and reduce flexibility in responding to emerging data trends.

Feature flags system

The feature flags system, intended for experimentation and hypothesis testing, has unlocked several key advantages for our business.

Enhanced Personalisation: Our platform caters to a diverse range of businesses across different niches. With the ability to precisely target users, we can significantly improved the personalisation of user experiences. This capability allows us to adapt user journeys specifically to their needs, all without the constant need for engineering interventions.

Efficiency in Feature Rollouts: The feature flags system also streamlines the introduction of new features and the beta testing process. We are able to create a cohort of beta users to test new features, manage a gradual release, and, upon successful validation, extend these features to all users. Previously, this process required frequent coordination with our engineering or customer facing teams teams. Now, product managers can directly control the flow, reducing dependencies and speeding up implementation.

(More information about Amplitude’s feature flag system)

Data warehouse integration

Integrating with your own data warehouse involves more than just exporting data; it requires the capability to continuously send a copy of incoming data to a chosen destination. While Mixpanel offers this functionality as a paid add-on called Data Pipeline, Amplitude includes it at no additional cost as part of our upgraded plan. This difference is crucial for us as it allows seamless data synchronisation without incurring extra fees.

Additional insight charts

While I haven’t personally used the additional charts offered by Amplitude, they appear to be designed to deliver more actionable insights, which could significantly reduce the time it takes for product managers to derive value from the platform. Notably, these charts excel in illustrating the correlation between user engagement and specific features, and they provide the capability to analyse this data by distinct cohorts.

Conclusion

Amplitude’s free plan competes well with Mixpanel’s paid options, offering robust features that meet our advanced needs. However, for companies only needing to scale up for additional events or basic analytics, Mixpanel could be the more economical choice. Our decision leaned towards staying with Amplitude, as the comprehensive features justify the extra cost in our specific scenario.

You can find a more detailed information about premium features from here.