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Evidence report

Product analytics tools

Last updated · Updated weekly

01Evidence summary
30
most relevant discussions, read end-to-end.

Cited from

news.ycombinator.comreddit.com

Pain intensity across 30 scored postsHow intense the frustration is across the analyzed posts, bucketed from each post’s pain score. This is the signal we cluster on — not whether a post “sounds” positive or negative.

Low1757%
Medium827%
High517%

Tools mentionedEvery tool name detected across the analyzed posts — including ones mentioned in passing (e.g. Slack, Zoom). This is broader than the Competitors section, which lists only the alternatives the analysis judged relevant to this market.

Plausible2
Ahrefs1
AlsoAsked1

Who's talking

product managers2
B2B product managers1
Data-warehouse users / Analytics teams1
e-commerce business owners1
early-stage SaaS founder1
Growth / success / marketing professionals1
Pain over time
02Pain points
FINDING 01·B2B SaaS product teams·1 source

No single B2B product analytics tool satisfies support quality, session recordings, and flexible insights together

Teams evaluating B2B product analytics tools find that no single platform combines good customer support, session recordings, and flexible event/insight creation. Multiple tools were tried and rejected. This was raised in 2023.

7/9
High
Source

Tried out Posthog, June, Amplitude, Logsnag and none of them satisfy the conditions.

FINDING 02·Data-savvy SaaS teams and engineers·1 source

Inability to query data warehouse directly — forced data extraction

Users are frustrated that leading product analytics tools require pulling data out of their cloud data warehouse rather than querying it in place. This creates redundant pipelines and data silos. Raised in 2022, this reflects a persistent architectural gap.

6/9
High
Source

Why is there no self serve product analytics tool on top cloud datawarehouse, where I don't have to pull the data out.

FINDING 03·Indie developers and solo founders·1 source

Free tiers of analytics tools lack meaningful user journey and drop-off visualization

Indie developers and small project owners find that free plans of tools like PostHog do not surface actionable insights about where users spend time or where they drop off — limiting their ability to make product improvements without paying. Raised in 2026.

6/9
High
Source

I have posthog for perfectsystemdesign.com but the free plan doesn't offer clear insights into where users are spending time or drifting off. For instance, if they visit my pricing page and browse away, I'd like to track that.

reddit.com#1uhbhn73 months ago
FINDING 04·Small business owners and e-commerce operators·1 source

Analytics dashboards show data but don't prescribe actionable next steps

E-commerce and SaaS owners feel that analytics tools produce reports and dashboards but fail to translate data into concrete actions. Users are left asking 'what do I do now?' after reviewing their metrics. Raised in 2025.

6/9
High
Source

Most e-commerce owners I talk to have the same problem: They look at dashboards, graphs, 'analytics'… and at the end they think: 'Okay, but what do I do now?'

FINDING 05·Product managers and analysts without strong SQL skills·2 sources

Mainstream tools can't handle advanced SQL-level analytics queries

Users of Amplitude and Mixpanel hit walls when trying to perform complex queries such as conversion funnels grouped by later-identified user properties, highly specific cohort retention, or automated cross-period reporting. They feel forced to learn SQL or find external tooling. This pain was expressed in 2022 and remains relevant given the continued dominance of these tools.

5/9
Medium
Source

I've always used Amplitude / Mixpanel, but lately there's some queries that I just can't get out of it. - Conversion funnels, grouped by user properties identified later in the funnel. - Highly specific cohort retention - Automating reporting into Google Sheets across weekly/monthly/quarterly.

Source

Feels like I finally need to bite the bullet and learn SQL after pushing it off for a decade.

FINDING 06·Early-stage founders and product teams with existing databases·1 source

Event-logging tools are poorly suited for database-driven retention analysis

Users who want to run cohort/retention analysis on raw transactional data from their own database find that event-logging tools like Mixpanel are not designed for this use case. They need tools that accept CSV or database syncs rather than instrumented events. Raised in 2018 — this is an older pain, but the architectural mismatch between event-based and database-based analytics remains a real distinction.

5/9
Medium
Source

I am not looking for an event-logging based tool (say, MixPanel) which I feel are more suitable for UX conversion funnel analysis, but want to use raw data (core action in product, like a final completed transaction) from my database to do this analysis.

FINDING 07·Product managers and analysts with limited SQL experience·2 sources

No accessible SQL generation tool for common product analytics queries

Users who need to go beyond GUI-based analytics tools struggle to find a tool that, given a schema, generates SQL for standard product analytics patterns (funnels, cohorts, retention). Existing options are either enterprise BI tools or EOL products. Raised in 2022.

5/9
Medium
Source

Is there any tool that, given a schema, pops out queries? Like June.so for product analytics SQL queries. Rakam looks similar to what I want, but it got bought, and seems to be EOL.

Source

I'm finding various blog posts, and a lot of enterprise-targeted BI tools.

03Product gaps
Warehouse-native product analytics (query in place, no ETL)
No mainstream self-serve product analytics tool lets teams query their existing cloud data warehouse directly. There is a clear opportunity for a tool that sits on top of BigQuery, Snowflake, or Redshift without requiring data extraction or reverse ETL pipelines.
SQL query generation for standard product analytics patterns
There is no accessible, schema-aware tool that generates SQL for common product analytics queries (funnels, cohort retention, cross-period reporting). The gap sits between GUI-only tools (too limited) and enterprise BI (too complex), with no mid-market solution filling it.
All-in-one B2B analytics with strong support, session replay, and flexible events
B2B SaaS teams consistently fail to find a single tool combining responsive customer support, session recordings, and flexible event/insight creation. Bundling these three capabilities with genuine B2B orientation is an unmet need.
Database-sync / CSV-based cohort and retention analysis
Teams with transactional databases want to run cohort and retention analysis on raw action data without instrumenting events. A tool that accepts database syncs or CSV exports and produces retention curves would serve this underserved segment.
04Competitors mentionedAlternatives the analysis judged relevant to this market, each with what users say about it. Narrower than the Tools mentioned list in the evidence summary, which counts every tool named — even ones cited only in passing. These are drawn from all the discussions analyzed, not only the posts cited in the pain points above — so a competitor here may come from a discussion that didn’t surface its own finding.

Generated by AI from a limited set of public discussions. It can be incomplete or wrong — check the cited sources before making a decision.