Ask HN: Tools for collecting events data (Snowplow, Segment)?

6 points·keydunov··3 comments

What would you use to collect events data on the website/app. I know Segment and Snowplow, is there anything out there you have tried and it’s worth considering? Thank you!

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My startup is in this space [1]. There are tons and tons of analytics tools so it really depends which ones you're interested in using. The value of adding an event router is highest when you want to use client-side and server-side clickstream analytics integrations. It's overkill if you just want one analytics service like Google Analytics or Mixpanel, but most companies want more than one.

You might also think about pricing models - some services use per user pricing which can be expensive if you have a high number of users but with a small amount of monetization per user. Astronomer uses per event pricing so we're generally a better fit for that use case.

Snowplow is in the data warehouse space where the other main competitors are Amazon Redshift (most popular) and Google BigQuery. If you use a clickstream router like Astronomer or Segment, you'll get data warehousing "for free" out of the box.

[1]: https://www.astronomer.io/

For basic use cases I like mixpanel. You need to be a bit careful about how you structure your events to get the most out of the reporting it provides - but its very flexible when you do.

The triggered messaging is great too if your into automated marketing.

Thanks! We used to use Mixpanel, as you mentioned it is good for basic use cases - totally agree. Now I’m researching for some solutions to collect events data and put into SQL warehouse - either Redshift or Big Query.

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