Amplitude vs Helion

Amplitude is a product analytics service with event tracking, conversion funnels, session recordings, and ecommerce tracking. It also provides API access and extended data retention. The platform is listed as API-based. Its Free plan costs nothing and includes up to 2M events per month, 10,000 monthly session replays, and 2,000 AI feedback records; it is billed free forever and requires no credit card. Plus is listed at free, with the first 2M events per month free and a credit card required. It supports up to 70M events, 20 behavioral cohorts, and two-year data retention. Amplitude, the maker, was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States.

Helion is an open-source product and web analytics platform for tracking user behavior, events, funnels, retention, and web traffic. It combines event tracking and user profiles with funnels, cohorts, retention analysis, real-time dashboards, session replay, A/B testing, and revenue tracking. Its MCP server lets Claude, Cursor, and other compatible AI clients query analytics data. Helion stores events in ClickHouse for analytics queries, and can send event-triggered notifications to Slack, Discord, or a custom webhook with JavaScript payload transforms. Tracking is cookieless by default and does not require third-party tracking cookies. Session replay is opt-in, off by default, and has 30-day retention. SDKs include JavaScript, React, Next.js, Astro, and Python. Helion can be self-hosted with Docker Compose on a VPS, Kubernetes cluster, or cloud provider; the self-hosted software is licensed under AGPL-3.0. The self-hosted plan costs nothing for unlimited events and all features. Helion Cloud costs $90 a month for 1M events and all features. It lists web, mobile, desktop, API, and self-hosted platforms.