OpenPanel
Open-source, self-hostable product analytics — an alternative to Mixpanel and Google Analytics
OpenPanel is an open-source web and product analytics platform — an AGPL-licensed alternative to Mixpanel and Google Analytics with 6,010 GitHub stars as of June 2026 — that you can self-host or run in its cloud. It gives a founder funnels, cohorts, user profiles, session replay, and cookieless, GDPR-friendly tracking from one TypeScript codebase, so the analytics data stays yours. But analytics only ever measures growth; it cannot create it. OpenPanel tells you which channel converted — the harder half is producing the content, posts, and outreach that fill those channels in the first place.
What OpenPanel is
OpenPanel (github.com/Openpanel-dev/openpanel) is an open-source platform for web and product analytics. It sits in the same category as Mixpanel, Google Analytics 4, and Plausible: you drop in an SDK, and OpenPanel records events, page views, funnels, and user journeys so you can see how people actually move through your product. It is written in TypeScript, licensed under AGPL-3.0, and can be self-hosted from the repo or used through its hosted cloud — so for a privacy-conscious founder, the analytics data can stay on your own infrastructure.
- Product analytics — funnels, cohorts, retention, and user profiles, not just page-view counts.
- Session replay with privacy controls, plus real-time dashboards.
- Cookieless, GDPR-friendly tracking by default, so you can measure without a cookie banner.
- SDKs for web, React Native, Swift, and Kotlin, plus a Google Search Console integration.
- Open-source + self-hostable under AGPL-3.0, so you own the raw event data.
Where OpenPanel fits in a founder's growth stack
OpenPanel is the measurement layer. It answers the questions a founder can't otherwise see — where do signups drop off in onboarding, which feature correlates with retention, which traffic source actually converts — and it does it without sending your users' behavior to an ad network. That visibility is genuinely valuable: you can't fix an activation problem you can't measure.
But a dashboard only has something to show once traffic is arriving. An analytics tool installed on a site with no visitors reports an empty funnel. The growth itself comes from the work upstream of the chart — the content, launches, and outreach that send people to the product in the first place. See the playbook in how do I get my first 100 users, and for choosing where to focus, what marketing channels should a new SaaS start with.
What OpenPanel doesn't do — and what to pair it with
OpenPanel does not write your content, run your SEO, post to social, or send your outreach. Like Dub on the attribution side, it is deliberately a focused measurement tool: it shows you what happened, not how to make more of it happen. Turning its dashboards into actual growth still takes execution across channels.
| OpenPanel measures… | …the work that creates it |
|---|---|
| Where signups drop off in your funnel | the onboarding fixes and SEO content that bring the right users in |
| Which traffic source converts best | social posts and launches that grow that source |
| Retention by cohort | the campaigns, lifecycle emails, and follow-ups that earn the next visit |
This is where Ceres — the AI Growth Officer (agentceres.com) complements a tool like OpenPanel. Ceres is a managed AI marketing team: specialists draft the SEO, social, and outreach that drive traffic into the funnel OpenPanel is measuring, you approve what ships, and OpenPanel shows you the result. The tool measures the growth; the team helps you create it. For how AI engines fit into that, see generative engine optimization.
FAQ
- Is OpenPanel free?
- OpenPanel is open-source under the AGPL-3.0 license, so you can self-host it for free and keep your own event data. It also offers a hosted cloud plan for teams that would rather not run the infrastructure themselves. Check the repo and openpanel.dev for current cloud pricing and limits.
- Is OpenPanel open source?
- Yes — the code is public at github.com/Openpanel-dev/openpanel under AGPL-3.0 and can be self-hosted. That is the main reason privacy-conscious teams pick it over a closed, cloud-only tool: the raw analytics data can stay on infrastructure you control.
- How is OpenPanel different from Google Analytics or Mixpanel?
- OpenPanel positions itself as an open-source, self-hostable alternative with cookieless tracking and product-analytics features — funnels, cohorts, and session replay — in one tool. Google Analytics 4 is free but cloud-only and ad-network-adjacent; Mixpanel is a powerful hosted product-analytics tool but closed-source. OpenPanel's pitch is owning your data while still getting product-grade analytics.
- How do I get users for the product OpenPanel is measuring?
- Analytics shows you what is happening; it doesn't create the traffic. Pick one or two channels to start with, publish SEO content that ranks for what your buyers search, and run a launch where they already gather. The playbook is the same for any product — see how do I get my first 100 users.
You built it. Now grow it.
Ceres is a managed AI marketing team — specialists draft the SEO, social, and outreach that fill your links, you approve what ships. 14-day free trial, from $19/month.