How AppGlance compares
Five tools come up in almost every conversation about app analytics: Firebase, because it is free and everywhere; Mixpanel and Amplitude, because they are what product teams use; TelemetryDeck, because it is the other privacy-first option built by Apple developers; and Aptabase, because it is the open-source one. We wrote a fair page about each, including the parts where they beat us.
Pick Firebase for depth, SQL and a free tier at any volume. Pick Mixpanel or Amplitude for team-grade product analytics with big free tiers and deep querying. Pick TelemetryDeck for the strictest identity guarantee and a flexible query builder. Pick Aptabase for open source, self-hosting and no identifier at all. Pick AppGlance if you want to see who is in your app right now, get a push when someone buys, and have your store privacy answers written for you.
Pick by what you actually want
"I want to slice the data myself"
You will write SQL, you want years of history, and you have the patience for a big console.
Firebase"I never want to be able to identify anyone"
You want the guarantee built into the architecture, so that nobody on your team can undo it.
TelemetryDeck"I want to read the server, or run it myself"
Open source end to end, Docker on your own box, EU or US, and no identifier of any kind.
Aptabase"I just want to see what is happening"
Who is in the app now, who installed today, who bought, and a buzz on your phone when it happens.
← AppGlanceThe full comparisons
AppGlance vs Firebase Analytics →
- How long you wait before a number appears.
- What "free" actually costs you.
- Where your data ends up, drawn out step by step.
- The five cases where you should keep Firebase.
AppGlance vs TelemetryDeck →
- The one real disagreement: what counts as a "user".
- Both identity models drawn side by side.
- The six things neither of us will argue about.
- Where TelemetryDeck is the better pick.
AppGlance vs Aptabase →
- What "anonymous" means when there is no identifier at all.
- Open source, self-hosting and US residency: where Aptabase simply wins.
- Both SDKs measured, both privacy labels written out.
- Prices side by side, plan by plan.
AppGlance vs PostHog →
- Their free tier is ten times ours. We say so at the top.
- A whole platform against a single pulse, and when smaller is the right answer.
- What "officially unsupported" self-hosting means in their own words.
- Where PostHog is simply the better pick, listed honestly.
AppGlance vs App Store Connect →
- The free one you already have, and what it genuinely does best.
- The three things that quietly shrink Apple's numbers.
- Why there are no custom events, and what that rules out.
- Why the honest answer here is "use both".
AppGlance vs Mixpanel →
- A product-analytics platform against an app pulse.
- Their free tier is bigger than ours; we say by how much.
- Consent, profiles and App Store labels: whose homework it is.
- Where a team should absolutely pick Mixpanel.
AppGlance vs Amplitude →
- The biggest free tier in the category, stated plainly.
- A platform you operate against a pulse you feel.
- Replay, experiments and surveys: what we deliberately do not build.
- When growing into a platform is the right call.
The short table
| AppGlance | Firebase | Mixpanel | Amplitude | TelemetryDeck | Aptabase | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live "right now" | Yes, per app, every few seconds | Roughly the last half hour | Near-real-time charts | Real-time charts; analysis is the focus | Not the focus | Users in the last hour |
| Push when someone buys | Yes | No | No; Slack and email alerts | No; monitors to Slack and email | Digest summaries | No |
| Ask your own questions | Fixed panels | SQL via BigQuery | Very deep | Very deep | Insight builder | Fixed dashboard |
| Store privacy answers | Generated | Guidance you map yourself | Guidance you map yourself | Guidance you map yourself | Documented guidance | A written guide; the lightest label |
| Can you ever see who a user is | Only if you switch it on | Depends how you use it | Yes; built around profiles | Yes; built around identity | Never, by design | Never; no identifier at all |
| Returning users, retention | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, pseudonymous | No, by design |
| Open source | SDKs only | SDKs only | SDKs only | SDKs only | SDKs only | Everything, self-hostable |
| Who owns it | An indie studio in Norway | Mixpanel, a US company | Amplitude, a US public company | An indie company in Germany | An independent open-source company | |
| Price | Free to 100k events a month, then $4.99 (USD, excl. VAT) | Free | Free to 1M events a month, then usage-based | Free to 2M events a month, then usage-based | Free tier, then volume plans | Free to 20k events a month, then $10; self-hosting free |
Checked August 2026. We make AppGlance, so read the "us" column accordingly and verify anything decision-critical on the other vendors' own sites. Two comparisons sit outside this table on purpose: PostHog, because a fair column would have to cover session replay, feature flags, experiments and surveys, and App Store Connect, because it is Apple's own free platform analytics rather than a product you would buy. Both have full pages.
Or skip the reading and look at it
The demo is the real dashboard on sample data from four apps. No account, nothing to install.
Related: what privacy-first analytics actually means and the free App Store privacy label tool.