EmitKit vs LogSnag

Overview

Both EmitKit and LogSnag help product teams track important events and receive real-time notifications without drowning in analytics dashboards. Instead of constantly checking metrics, you get notified when meaningful events occur: user signups, payment failures, error spikes, or any custom event you define.

EmitKit is an open-source, self-hostable event streaming platform built with SvelteKit and ClickHouse. It’s designed for technical teams who want complete infrastructure control, unlimited event tracking at zero cost, and the flexibility to customize every aspect of their event pipeline. You can deploy it on your own servers with full data ownership, or use the upcoming managed cloud service.

LogSnag is a mature, managed SaaS platform with a proven track record serving diverse teams across SaaS, agencies, and startups. It offers a polished, cross-platform notification experience with desktop apps, browser extensions, and PWA support. LogSnag provides mature funnel analysis for conversion tracking, journey mapping to understand user relationships between events, and seamless integration with a single HTTP request or multiple SDKs. LogSnag is focused on replacing Slack channels with a streamlined, purpose-built interface for product notifications.

The fundamental difference: EmitKit gives you infrastructure ownership and technical flexibility at the cost of setup complexity, while LogSnag provides a turnkey, battle-tested solution with mature features that “just work” across all your devices.

Feature Comparison

Pricing Comparison

EmitKit Pricing

Free Tier (Cloud)

• $0/month
• 5,000 events/month
• 3 team members
• 30-day history
• All integrations

Pro Tier (Cloud)

• $19/month
• 50,000 events/month
• Unlimited team members
• 1-year history
• Priority support
• $0.0003 per extra event (overages allowed)

Self-Hosted

• Free forever (AGPL-3.0 License)
• Unlimited events
• Unlimited team members
• Complete data ownership
• You pay only for server costs

LogSnag Pricing

Free Plan

• $0/month
• 2,500 events/month
• 3 seats
• Free forever
• No credit card required

Sprout Plan

• $16/month (billed annually)
• 50,000 events/month
• Unlimited seats

Seedling Plan

• $33/month (billed annually)
• 150,000 events/month
• Unlimited seats

Timber Plan

• $66/month (billed annually)
• 500,000 events/month
• Unlimited seats

Enterprise

• Custom pricing
• Custom event limits
• Custom onboarding

Key Pricing Differences

1. Overage Handling: EmitKit’s Critical Advantage

The most important pricing difference is how each platform handles events beyond your plan limit:

• EmitKit: Allows overages at $0.0003 per extra event. You never lose critical events. If you’re on the Pro plan (50k events) and send 60k events one month, you pay $19 + (10,000 × $0.0003) = $22. Your signup notifications, payment alerts, and error events keep flowing.

• LogSnag: No public overage policy. Most services with hard caps either stop accepting events (you lose critical notifications) or force you to upgrade to the next tier mid-month. This creates a painful choice: over-provision and waste money, or risk losing important events during traffic spikes.

Why this matters: If you’re tracking critical events (payment failures, security alerts, deployment notifications), you can’t afford to lose them because you hit an arbitrary cap. EmitKit’s overage model means your notifications remain reliable even during unexpected traffic.

2. Self-Hosted Option

EmitKit offers a completely free self-hosted option with unlimited events. If you can run PostgreSQL and ClickHouse (via Tinybird or self-managed), you pay zero for the software. LogSnag has no self-hosted option.

For teams with:

• Compliance requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2)
• High event volumes (millions per month)
• Technical capability to run infrastructure
• Preference for data ownership

The self-hosted option eliminates recurring costs entirely. You only pay for server infrastructure.

3. Comparable Tiers

At the 50,000 events/month level:

• EmitKit Pro: $19/month (with overage protection)
• LogSnag Sprout: $16/month (billed annually, $19/month monthly)

LogSnag is slightly cheaper if billed annually ($16 vs $19), but EmitKit includes overage protection. For most teams sending critical events, the $3/month difference is negligible compared to the reliability guarantee.

4. Scaling Costs

As you scale:

• EmitKit: $19/month + overages (predictable per-event cost)
• LogSnag: Jump from $33/month (150k events) to $66/month (500k events)

EmitKit’s linear overage pricing means you pay proportionally to usage. LogSnag’s tier jumps mean you might pay $66/month even if you only need 200k events (because 150k isn’t enough, but 500k is overkill).

5. Team Sizes

• EmitKit Free: 3 team members
• EmitKit Pro: Unlimited team members
• LogSnag Free: 3 seats
• LogSnag Paid: Unlimited seats

Both handle unlimited teams at the paid tier, so this is a wash.

Who Gets Better Value?

Choose EmitKit’s pricing if you:

• Send critical events and need overage protection
• Want the option to self-host for unlimited free events
• Prefer predictable per-event costs over tier jumps
• Are comfortable with infrastructure management (for self-hosted)
• Need 50k-150k events (you pay $19 + overages vs LogSnag’s $33)

Choose LogSnag’s pricing if you:

• Know exactly how many events you’ll send (no overage concerns)
• Want slightly lower cost at 50k events ($16/year vs $19/month)
• Need 150k-500k events and will stay under 150k (pay $33 vs EmitKit’s $19 + overages)
• Prefer fully managed with no infrastructure costs
• Want annual billing discounts (2 months free)

The Honest Pricing Take

LogSnag’s pricing is competitive and straightforward. If you know your event volume and will stay comfortably under your tier limit, LogSnag can be slightly cheaper (especially with annual billing).

EmitKit’s pricing advantage is reliability and flexibility:

1. You never lose events due to hard caps
2. Self-hosting is completely free if you can manage infrastructure
3. Overage pricing is transparent ($0.0003 per event)

For indie hackers and teams sending mission-critical events (payment failures, security alerts, deployment notifications), EmitKit’s overage model is worth paying for. The cost difference is small, but the reliability difference is huge.

If you’re price-sensitive and confident you won’t exceed your tier, LogSnag’s annual billing offers good value. If you’re reliability-focused or want infrastructure control, EmitKit is the better choice.

Where EmitKit Wins

1. Never Lose Critical Events (Overage Protection)

EmitKit’s biggest advantage: you never hit a hard cap. If you exceed 50k events, we charge $0.0003 per extra event. Your signup notifications, payment alerts, and error tracking keep working. LogSnag’s tier model means you risk losing events or being forced to upgrade mid-month during traffic spikes. For mission-critical notifications, reliability beats cost optimization.

2. Complete Data Ownership & Infrastructure Control

EmitKit is fully open-source with an AGPL-3.0 license. You own your data, control your infrastructure, and can deploy it anywhere: your VPC, on-premises servers, or any cloud provider. Perfect for teams with strict compliance requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2) or those who simply want complete control over their event pipeline.

3. Unlimited Events at Zero Cost (Self-Hosted)

Self-hosting EmitKit means unlimited events without per-event or per-notification pricing. Track millions of events, create unlimited channels, and scale without worrying about your bill growing with usage. You only pay for your server costs.

4. Deep Customization Capabilities

It’s your codebase. Need custom retention policies? Want to integrate with your internal authentication system? Need specific data transformations in your event pipeline? Fork it and build exactly what you need. EmitKit is designed to be modified and extended.

5. ClickHouse-Powered Scale

Built on Tinybird (ClickHouse), EmitKit is architecturally designed for massive scale from day one. It can handle billions of events with fast analytical queries. If you know you’ll eventually need to process huge event volumes, you’re building on the right foundation.

6. Advanced Organization & Multi-tenancy

EmitKit’s hierarchy (organization → site → channel → events with folder support) is built for complex use cases. If you’re building a SaaS platform serving multiple customers, need proper tenant isolation, or manage events across many products, EmitKit’s structure scales with you.

7. No Vendor Lock-in

If you decide to move on, you own the code and the data. Export everything, migrate to another system, or keep running it indefinitely. You’re never locked into a service that could change pricing, shut down features, or go out of business.

8. Predictable Scaling Costs

EmitKit’s per-event overage pricing ($0.0003) means costs scale linearly with usage. LogSnag’s tier jumps (from $33 to $66/month) can mean paying for capacity you don’t use. If you need 200k events, you pay $19 + (150k × $0.0003) = $64 on EmitKit vs $66 on LogSnag, but you’re only paying for what you actually use.

Where LogSnag Wins

1. Battle-Tested, Production-Ready Platform

LogSnag has been serving real customers for years. It’s mature, stable, and the edge cases are already handled. You’re not beta-testing features. You’re using a proven platform that teams rely on daily. This matters when uptime and reliability are critical.

2. Superior Cross-Platform Experience

LogSnag offers desktop apps (Mac/Windows) and browser extensions in addition to PWA. Receive notifications on your phone via PWA, check events on your native desktop app, or use the browser extension for quick access. EmitKit offers web + PWA without the additional desktop and browser extension options.

3. Mature Funnel Analysis

LogSnag’s funnel tracking is production-ready and battle-tested. Analyze conversion rates, track drop-offs, and understand user journeys through your product. EmitKit is building funnel support, but it’s not as mature or feature-complete as LogSnag’s offering.

4. Journey Tracking for User Context

LogSnag tracks relationships between events to show user journeys. Understand the full story of a user’s interaction with your product, not just isolated events. This contextual view is invaluable for debugging issues or understanding customer behavior. EmitKit doesn’t offer this out of the box.

5. Zero Infrastructure Hassle

No PostgreSQL to configure, no ClickHouse to manage, no deployment pipelines to set up, no VAPID keys to generate, no SSL certificates to renew. Sign up, get an API key, send an HTTP request. You’re tracking events in 2 minutes. For busy teams who want to ship fast, this is enormous.

6. Broader SDK Support

LogSnag provides SDKs for multiple languages, not just TypeScript. Whether your backend is in Python, Ruby, Go, or PHP, you have a first-class SDK. EmitKit currently only offers TypeScript/JavaScript.

7. Streamlined, Purpose-Built Interface

LogSnag’s interface is specifically designed for event notifications and monitoring. It replaces Slack channels without the noise and distraction. The UX is polished, intuitive, and purpose-built for exactly this use case (not adapted from a general event platform).

8. Support, Maintenance & Reliability

LogSnag is maintained by a dedicated team. Security patches, bug fixes, infrastructure scaling, and feature development happen without you lifting a finger. No on-call rotations for your event system, no debugging deployment failures at 2am.

9. Simple Integration, Immediate Value

LogSnag markets itself as working with “a single HTTP request” and it’s true. EmitKit requires setting up databases, configuring environment variables, deploying to infrastructure, and managing the stack. LogSnag’s time-to-value is measured in minutes; EmitKit’s in hours or days.

10. Annual Billing Discounts

LogSnag offers 2 months free with annual billing. If you commit upfront, you get better per-month pricing ($16 vs $19 at the 50k event tier). EmitKit doesn’t currently offer annual billing discounts.

Key Differences

Philosophy

• EmitKit: Developer-first, infrastructure-owning, build-your-own platform
• LogSnag: Product-team-first, zero-ops, polished turnkey solution

Maturity & Stability

• EmitKit: New platform, actively developing core features, early adopters
• LogSnag: Established product with years of production use and proven reliability

Platform Support

• EmitKit: Web + PWA
• LogSnag: Web + PWA + desktop apps (Mac/Windows) + browser extensions

Feature Depth

• EmitKit: Focuses on event streaming, notifications, webhooks, and emerging analytics features
• LogSnag: Mature funnel analysis, journey tracking, cross-platform notifications, established feature set

Technical Stack

• EmitKit: SvelteKit + PostgreSQL + ClickHouse (Tinybird)
• LogSnag: Proprietary managed infrastructure

Ideal User

• EmitKit: Technical teams, DevOps-comfortable, need self-hosting, want unlimited scale
• LogSnag: Product teams, SaaS companies, agencies, anyone who wants it to “just work”

Customization

• EmitKit: Infinitely customizable (open-source, fork and modify)
• LogSnag: Limited to product features, but covers common needs comprehensively

Pricing Philosophy

• EmitKit: Free self-hosted + cloud with overage protection (never lose events)
• LogSnag: Tiered subscription with hard caps (potentially lose events at limit)

Who Should Choose EmitKit

Choose EmitKit if you:

• Need overage protection and can’t afford to lose critical events during traffic spikes
• Must self-host for compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2), data residency, or company policy
• Are a technical team comfortable operating PostgreSQL and ClickHouse in production
• Need unlimited events and want to avoid per-event or per-notification pricing
• Value open source and want to contribute, audit code, or customize deeply
• Have complex multi-tenancy needs (building a SaaS platform with multiple organizations)
• Want infrastructure ownership and are willing to invest setup time for long-term control
• Plan to scale massively and want a system built on ClickHouse from day one
• Prefer web-first and are okay with PWA for mobile without desktop apps
• Want to avoid vendor lock-in and own your event pipeline completely
• Are building on TypeScript/JavaScript (current SDK limitation)
• Send mission-critical events (payments, errors, security alerts) where reliability matters more than cost

EmitKit is for teams that say “we’ll run this ourselves” and value the flexibility and control that comes with owning the infrastructure, even if it means more initial setup work. It’s especially compelling for indie hackers and technical founders who send critical events and need reliability guarantees.

Who Should Choose LogSnag

Choose LogSnag if you:

• Don’t want to manage infrastructure or prefer fully managed, zero-ops solutions
• Need cross-platform experience with desktop apps and browser extensions beyond PWA
• Want mature funnel analysis that’s production-ready and battle-tested
• Value journey tracking to understand relationships between user events
• Need to ship immediately without setting up databases and deployment pipelines
• Are a product team more focused on building your core product than event infrastructure
• Work across multiple languages and need SDKs beyond TypeScript
• Want proven reliability with years of production use and established uptime
• Prefer support & maintenance handled by the vendor
• Value time-to-value measured in minutes, not hours or days
• Are a SaaS company, agency, or startup targeting LogSnag’s ideal customer profile
• Know your event volume and will stay comfortably under tier limits
• Want annual billing discounts (2 months free)

LogSnag is for teams that say “just make it work” and want to focus on their product while relying on a mature, proven platform for event notifications across all their devices.

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The Honest Take

Both tools solve the same core problem: knowing what’s happening in your product without constantly checking dashboards. The difference is maturity, platform support, and the trade-off between control and convenience.

Pick LogSnag if you want a proven, mature platform with desktop apps, browser extensions, battle-tested funnel analysis, and zero infrastructure hassle. LogSnag has been doing this for years, and it shows. The cross-platform experience alone is a significant advantage. Desktop apps and browser extensions make a huge difference in how you’ll actually use the tool daily. The funnel and journey tracking features are production-ready, not roadmap items. If you’re a product team that needs this to “just work,” LogSnag is the safer, more mature choice.

Pick EmitKit if you value infrastructure control, need overage protection for critical events, or want self-hosting for compliance or cost reasons. EmitKit is younger and less feature-complete than LogSnag. Funnel analysis is early-stage, there are no journey tracking features, and you don’t get desktop apps or browser extensions. But you get complete data ownership, no vendor lock-in, overage protection so you never lose events, and the ability to customize everything. For technical teams who can handle the infrastructure and need reliability guarantees for mission-critical notifications, EmitKit is compelling.

The pricing reality: LogSnag is slightly cheaper if you commit to annual billing and stay under your tier limits. EmitKit’s advantage is reliability (overages mean you never lose events) and optionality (free self-hosting for unlimited scale). For most indie hackers and technical teams sending critical events, the reliability guarantee is worth more than saving a few dollars per month.

The truth is: LogSnag is more mature, more polished, and has features EmitKit doesn’t offer yet (mature funnels, journey tracking, desktop apps, browser extensions). EmitKit’s advantages are philosophical and architectural (open source, self-hosting, unlimited scale, overage protection), not feature parity.

If you’re a product team choosing today and infrastructure control isn’t critical, LogSnag is probably the better choice. If you’re a technical team with compliance needs, send critical events that can’t be lost, or value owning your infrastructure, EmitKit is worth the setup investment.

There’s no wrong answer. It’s about different priorities: mature features vs. infrastructure control and reliability guarantees.