head to head · open source
PostHog vs Fathom Lite
PostHog has 40,600 GitHub stars, 3,579 forks, 5,637 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Fathom Lite has 8,034 stars, 388 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. PostHog leads on adoption by 405% (40,600 vs 8,034 stars). PostHog is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; Fathom Lite is written in Go under MIT. PostHog has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Fathom Lite 5%. PostHog was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (analytics), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| PostHog | Fathom Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 388 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PostHog if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Fathom Lite if
- You want the Fathom Lite feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Fathom Lite fits your workflow better
About PostHog
Docs Community Roadmap Why PostHog? Changelog Bug reports PostHog is the open source platform for building self driving products PostHog provides every tool you need to build a successful product, and captures all the context agents need to proactively diagnose problems, uncover opportunities, and ship fixes: Self driving mode: Turn signals in your product data (errors, rage clicks, failed queries, and more) into researched reports and pull requests you review and merge. Product analytics: Autocapture or manually instrument event based analytics to understand user behavior and analyze data with visualization or…
read the full PostHog overview →
About Fathom Lite
Fathom Lite simple website analytics ============================== Fathom Lite is a previous and open source version of Fathom Analytics (a paid, hosted Google Analytics alternative). It was the very first version of our software, and has been downloaded millions of times! While we are no longer adding features to this Lite version, we will be continuing to maintain it long term and fix any bugs that come up. Fathom Lite vs Fathom (hosted) Today’s Fathom Analytics is a hosted product with simple pricing based on monthly pageviews. The same core capabilities are included on every plan: for example API access, up…
read the full Fathom Lite overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PostHog or Fathom Lite more popular?
PostHog has 40,600 GitHub stars and Fathom Lite has 8,034. PostHog has the larger community by that measure.
Are PostHog and Fathom Lite free?
Both are open source. PostHog has no licence declared in this registry, and Fathom Lite is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between PostHog and Fathom Lite?
PostHog is written in Python and Fathom Lite in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, PostHog or Fathom Lite?
Choose PostHog if you want the larger community (40,600 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Fathom Lite if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.