PostHog FOSS

Hey, Rafa from PostHog here :)

We've always been open source, so I'm not sure I understand what this is about! This is linking to our `posthog-foss` repository which has been a thing for years now, it's simply the main repository without the `ee/` folder - which is not a folder we have a lot inside anyways, we've never tried hiding anything behind it intentionally.

edit: the title originally read "Posthog has been open-sourced" but it's now updated to better reflect what this is about, thanks mods!

Open sourced ?! I believe it was open source from day one.

Does anyone know what the context for this is? Because https://github.com/PostHog/posthog exists as well

Last time I checked, Posthog self hosted was basically unusable. They have a hobby deployment script which just pulls the latest build from master which varies from “somewhat works” to “completely broken”

I used to like their product but now they too many modules and knobs that I find it difficult to understand and navigate.

I think is a bit of product slopification.

I just recently switched to posthog self hosted and it works fine

I recently had to turn off posthog on my app, it was collecting so much information that wasn't needed that it was making my app unusably slow. I'm sure i'm missing some knob, but the fact that after an hour long claude code session i couldn't figure out how to fix it means posthog has gotten too fiddly.

It's hard for me to express how much I dislike their marketing website. Sometimes when you have a "cool idea" you should sit with it a moment and then pull back.

I'm surprised - weren't they always OSS?

PostHog has always been open source.

Please update title accordingly.

What the actual fuck is going on with web development nowadays?

Look at the sheer number of ancillary files in this repo:

    .agents
    .claude
    .config
    .cursor
    .dagster_home
    .depot
    .flox
    .github
    .husky
    .idea
    .interface-design
    .pi
    .posthog-code
    .run
    .semgrep
    .stamphog
    .vscode
    .zed
    agent-os
    bin
    cli
    common
    devenv
    docker
    docs
    frontend
    funnel-udf
    livestream
    nodejs
    packages/quill
    patches
    playwright
    posthog
    products
    proto
    rust
    services
    share
    terraform
    tools
    .cursorignore
    .cursorrules
    .dockerignore
    .editorconfig
    .env.development
    .env.example
    .env.local.example
    .env.services
    .envrc
    .git-blame-ignore-revs
    .gitattributes
    .gitignore
    .kearc
    .mcp.json
    .nvmrc
    .oxfmtrc.json
    .oxlintrc.json
    .stylelintignore
    .stylelintrc.js
    .test_durations
    .test_quarantine.json
    .watchmanconfig
    .worktreeinclude
    .worktreelink
    AGENTS.md
    AI_POLICY.md
    CHANGELOG.md
    CLAUDE.md
    CONTRIBUTING.md
    Dockerfile
    Dockerfile.llm-analytics
    Dockerfile.ml-mirror-image-scrub
    Dockerfile.node
    Dockerfile.playwright
    Dockerfile.recording-rasterizer
    Dockerfile.sandbox
    LICENSE
    README.md
    conftest.py
    dagster_cloud.yaml
    depot.json
    dist-workspace.toml
    docker-compose.base.yml
    docker-compose.dev-full.yml
    docker-compose.dev.yml
    docker-compose.hobby.yml
    docker-compose.multinode-clickhouse.yml
    docker-compose.playwright.yml
    docker-compose.profiles.yml
    docker-compose.sandbox.yml
    greptile.json
    hogli.yaml
    manage.py
    otel-collector-config.dev.yaml
    package.json
    pnpm-lock.yaml
    pnpm-workspace.yaml
    postcss.config.js
    posthog.json
    pyproject.toml
    pytest.ini
    tach.toml
    tsconfig.dev.json
    tsconfig.json
    tsconfig.kea-typegen.json
    turbo.json
    unit.json.tpl
    uv.lock

How can anyone in their right mind look at this kind of setup and feel good about it?

The sheer number of files in the root of that project is making my OCD itch like crazy. That would drive me insane.

The AGENTS.md is interesting, apparently the primary most important principle is, "Avoid em-dashes like the plague".

That's an odd request. I always use my own voice for certain things, such as posting to hacker news, or writing my thoughts on a proposal. But for other things such as writing up a bugfix, if I'm getting an AI to write it, I'd rather not hide the fact I've done so.

In fact I usually go out my way to mark it as AI written, to give a heads up to any human reader so they don't waste their time if they don't want to read it.

edit: I'm not sure why my comment is attracting downvotes, perhaps it's being interpreted as anti-AI. I'm not against AI writing, but there are contexts where people would like to know whether something is AI written or not. I would rather it was well identified than hidden, so people can make their own judgement whether to gain insight into a human writing or whether it's just process they can skim or feed through their own agent.

"Avoid em-dashes" just seems like a crude attempt to avoid AI writing coming across as such.

um... we've had this posthog-foss repo for years now. No idea why it made front page. This is not news.

Source: I was there

To clarify: PostHog has been MIT licensed since day 1, with the exception of the `ee/` folder. This `posthog-foss` repo is a mirror of the main `posthog` repo with the `ee/` folder removed. We've had it for ages.

Needs (2020) I guess?

Very interesting but why would they do this?

Looks like they created mess with AI and then open sourced it. I remembered I had to shift from them to metabase because they closed sourced their deployments docker/kubernetes I guess it was 3 years back.

But now AI screwed them over so they come with their own open-source spaghetti.

Lol, is github down again?

Congratulations!

in the youtube video, by 'product' do they mean 'website' ?

I feel I'm missing some basics as to what this can do for me or what problem it solves.

edit so it's like google analytics .

I have a weird memory of PostHog.

I remember applying sometime ago, not really knowing what they did. They then spammed me with marketing mail, now they're open-sourced and had received a (supposedly marketing) job posting?

Granted in this entire history I had no idea what their product was. Seems flakey, but I haven't used it.