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Countly
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Countly

Countly is an open source product and mobile analytics platform you can self-host — a Mixpanel and Amplitude alternative that tracks sessions, events, funnels, and crashes while keeping first-party data on your own servers.

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What is Countly?

Countly is an open source product and mobile analytics platform that tracks how people use your apps — sessions, screen views, custom events, funnels, retention, and crashes — with an option to self-host so first-party data stays on your own servers. Its free self-hosted edition is called Countly Lite (Community Edition).

What is Countly best for?

Countly fits teams that want product and mobile analytics on their own infrastructure for data ownership, privacy, or GDPR reasons — especially mobile-first products that also need crash reporting and push notifications in the same tool. It leans toward app analytics and engagement rather than pure website traffic, so it’s a stronger fit for iOS/Android and desktop apps than for a marketing blog.

What can Countly do?

  • Collect sessions, screen views, and custom events across mobile, web, desktop, and IoT via 10+ SDKs (JavaScript, iOS, Android, Flutter, React, Unity, Java, C++, and more).
  • Analyze user behavior with funnels, retention, cohorts, and user profiles.
  • Capture crashes and errors with stack traces across platforms.
  • Send push notifications to iOS and Android from the same dashboard.
  • Run A/B tests, in-app surveys, ratings, and feedback widgets.
  • Serve remote configuration to change app behavior without shipping a release.
  • Extend the server through a plugin architecture, and read or write data through its APIs.

Where does Countly fall short?

  • The “open source” edition has a restrictive license. Countly Lite is AGPL-3.0 with a modified Section 7 that forbids offering Countly as a service to customers and forbids removing Countly’s branding or logo. That’s fine for tracking your own apps, but it rules out reselling it or white-labeling it — unusual for a tool marketed as open source.
  • Advanced features sit behind the paid tiers. Lite covers core analytics; deeper data access, granular drill-downs, richer journeys, and SLA-backed support are reserved for the paid Flex cloud (from $175/month) and Enterprise on-premise editions. Confirm the exact feature split against your needs before committing.
  • It’s a heavy engagement suite, not a lightweight web tracker. If you only want privacy-friendly page-view stats, Countly’s push, surveys, and crash-reporting machinery is more than you need — a leaner tool like Umami or Matomo is a simpler fit.

Is Countly free?

Partly. Countly Lite (the self-hosted Community Edition) is free to run and free forever for tracking your own apps, but its modified-AGPL license bars commercial resale and rebranding. The hosted Flex cloud starts at $175/month, and Enterprise on-premise is custom-priced with dedicated support and advanced features.

What does Countly replace?

Countly is used as an open source alternative to Mixpanel and Amplitude for product analytics, to Google Analytics for privacy-focused first-party tracking, and to Firebase for mobile analytics, crash reporting, and push notifications combined in one self-hosted stack. It competes on data ownership rather than a fully managed cloud. Other open source options in this space include PostHog and Matomo.

FAQ

Is Countly open source? The Community Edition (Countly Lite) is open source under AGPL-3.0 with a modified Section 7. The extra terms forbid offering Countly as a service to others and forbid removing its branding, so it’s more restrictive than a plain AGPL project. The cloud and Enterprise editions are commercial.

Can I self-host Countly for free? Yes. Countly Lite installs on a fresh Ubuntu, CentOS, or RHEL server (Node.js plus MongoDB), with automated install scripts and official Docker images, and is free to run for your own apps.

Is Countly a good Mixpanel or Amplitude alternative? For teams that need product and mobile analytics on their own servers for privacy or data ownership, yes — especially with crash reporting and push built in. If you want a fully managed cloud with zero ops and the deepest analysis features out of the box, the hosted incumbents still lead.

What do I need to run Countly? A Linux server (Ubuntu, CentOS, or RHEL) running Node.js and MongoDB, with ports 80/443 open. Docker deployment is supported through Countly’s official images.