How does PostHog stack up against the big players regarding data freedom?
| Feature | PostHog | FullStory | Hotjar | LogRocket | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Self-Hosting Available | ✅ (Open Source) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Raw JSON Export | ✅ (Native) | ❌ (API limited) | ❌ (CSV only metadata) | ✅ (Paid add-on) | | Offline Player | ✅ (NPM package) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Data Warehouse Destination | ✅ (Native) | ✅ (Expensive) | ❌ | ✅ (Via API) | | Vendor Lock-in Risk | Zero | Extreme | High | Moderate | posthog session replay portable
The Verdict: FullStory and Hotjar are "experience platforms." They are magnificent tools, but they are prisons for your data. PostHog is the only major player that treats session replays as your asset, not their product. How does PostHog stack up against the big
If you are sold on the concept, here is the tactical setup to ensure your data remains portable. If you are sold on the concept, here
Imagine training a model to detect user frustration or a bot to automate a checkout flow. You need the raw data. Portable JSON exports allow you to feed thousands of session replays directly into your Jupyter Notebooks or BigQuery for analysis far beyond what PostHog’s UI offers.
PostHog Session Replay is a user-recording feature that captures visitor interactions (clicks, mouse movements, scrolls, form inputs, and DOM changes) so teams can replay real user sessions to reproduce bugs, understand workflows, and improve UX. Making Session Replay portable focuses on easy export, lightweight embedding, privacy-preserving portability, and compatibility across environments.