Leaving Amplitude?
Amplitude is enterprise product analytics: priced by monthly tracked users so a spike inflates the bill, often sold through a sales call, and it expects event taxonomy and schema planning before you see value. smolanalytics is self-serve, cheap, yours to own, tells you what to fix, and lets your own AI answer questions for free.
is smolanalytics a good Amplitude alternative?
Yes, if Amplitude's price or weight is the problem. Amplitude is enterprise product analytics: priced by monthly tracked users, so a traffic spike inflates the bill, often sold through a sales call, and it expects event taxonomy and schema planning before you get value. Its own CEO has said pricing is the top cited issue for adopting Amplitude. smolanalytics is a single MIT-licensed Go binary you self-host free, or an isolated cloud instance from $9/month, self-serve, no call. You drop one snippet and ask a question in plain English; it leads with a verdict on what to fix, and your own Claude or Cursor answers over MCP on your own model, computed from the same reports the dashboard renders, with a CI test that fails the build if they ever differ. It is built for builders and small teams who want the answer, not for an enterprise that needs Amplitude's depth and governance.
why people leave Amplitude
“For the last 5 years, pricing is the top cited issue for adopting Product Analytics generally and Amplitude specifically.”
Amplitude's CEO, on X
“Free up to quite a generous level… but then it suddenly becomes really expensive.”
Hacker News
“A sales rep told me the best offer they can make is 30k/year, which is too expensive for me.”
Hacker News
Amplitude vs smolanalytics
| Amplitude | smolanalytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is built for | enterprise teams with analysts | builders and small teams who want the answer |
| Pricing model | by monthly tracked users, spikes inflate it | flat and cheap, $5 per million overage, self-serve |
| Getting started | event taxonomy and schema planning first | drop one snippet, ask a question, done |
| Own your data | hosted only, on their servers | self-host the binary, or an isolated cloud instance |
| Tells you what to fix | charts and dashboards you build | a verdict, every morning |
| Ask in plain English | their own AI feature | your own AI over MCP, free, computed not guessed |
| AI vs dashboard drift | a second path that can disagree | a CI test fails our build if they ever differ |
when to keep Amplitude
- You are an enterprise with a data team that needs Amplitude's depth: behavioral cohorts, experimentation, and governance at scale. smolanalytics is deliberately lighter and does not replace that.
- Budget and analyst time are not your constraint, and you want the full experimentation-and-analytics platform in one place.
Self-serve in 30 seconds
# no sales call, no taxonomy workshop, your box docker run -p 8080:8080 -v $PWD/data:/data \ -e SMOLANALYTICS_DB=/data/smolanalytics.data \ ghcr.io/arjun0606/smolanalytics # dashboard + MCP at http://localhost:8080
The answer, without the enterprise weight or the sales call. Self-host it free or run it in the cloud, and ask your own AI anything: no model to pay for, no number it can make up.
questions
Is smolanalytics a good Amplitude alternative?
Yes, if Amplitude's price or weight is the problem. Amplitude is priced by monthly tracked users (a spike inflates the bill), often sold through a sales call, and expects taxonomy planning before you see value. smolanalytics is self-serve from $9/month or self-hostable free, you drop one snippet and ask a question in plain English, it leads with a verdict on what to fix, and your own AI answers over MCP for free. It is lighter than Amplitude on purpose and does not do experimentation or enterprise governance.
Why is it so much cheaper than Amplitude?
It does not price by monthly tracked users, so a traffic spike does not blow up the bill, and it never meters sites or teammates. Pricing is flat with $5-per-million overage, self-serve with no sales call, an emailed receipt for every charge, and a dashboard that never locks. Self-hosting the binary is unlimited and free forever, because the engine stores about 7 bytes per event.
Can I move my Amplitude data over?
Yes. Export your Amplitude events to CSV or JSONL and import them with `smolanalytics import`, so your history comes with you instead of starting from zero.
What does Amplitude do that smolanalytics doesn't?
Amplitude's enterprise depth: large-scale experimentation, advanced behavioral cohorts, and data governance for big teams. smolanalytics is deliberately lighter, for builders who want funnels, retention, paths, and a straight answer on what to fix, that they own and can ask in plain English.
Get the verdict, not another dashboard.
Drop one snippet, ask in your editor, own your data. 14-day full trial, no credit card.