Heap vs Plausible Analytics

Heap (Product Insights) and Plausible Analytics (Simple, open source, lightweight (< 1 KB) and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Plausible Analytics (rank #338) holds a narrow lead over Heap (rank #569) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (43 vs 35). The gap of 8 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Plausible Analytics is clearly ahead of Heap. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Heap is slightly ahead of Plausible Analytics. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Plausible Analytics is clearly ahead of Heap. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Plausible Analytics is ahead of Heap. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Plausible Analytics is clearly ahead of Heap.

Heap carries 215 GitHub stars across 65 public repos, with 6 repositories active in the last 90 days and 1 external contributors on record. Plausible Analytics shows 31,145 stars across 21 public repos, 7 active in the last 90 days and 23 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Plausible Analytics's footprint is roughly 144.9x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Heap is the stronger read for anyone weighting education. Plausible Analytics looks better where community is the deciding factor. The table below breaks the scores down pillar by pillar; the linked profiles cover the underlying repos, docs and community signals in full.