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CrowdTangle vs Snowplow

C

CrowdTangle

News

Social media insights and content monitoring platform

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Snowplow logo

Snowplow

Business Intelligence

Behavioural data pipeline you run in your own cloud, relicensed away from Apache 2.0 in 2024

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: CrowdTangle crowdTangle was retired by Meta on 14 August 2024, per Meta's own transparency page (Internet Archive capture, 12 December 2024), with Meta Content Library and Content Library API offered as replacements; Snowplow the core pipeline was relicensed from Apache 2.0 on 8 January 2024 to the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement and a Confluent-derived community licence, so organisations that adopted it as permissively licensed software must now review their entitlement, buy a licence, or migrate.
  • They diverge on capability: CrowdTangle covers Social listening, Snowplow covers Own-cloud deployment.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CrowdTangle and Snowplow actually diverge.

Attributes where CrowdTangle and Snowplow differ
AttributeCrowdTangleSnowplow
PlatformsWebLinux, Web, Docker
CategoryNewsBusiness Intelligence
Founded2011Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in CrowdTangle

  • Social listening
  • Viral content tracking
  • Competitor monitoring
  • Brand mention tracking
  • Trending alerts
  • Custom dashboards
  • Team collaboration
  • Report generation

Only in Snowplow

  • Own-cloud deployment
  • Schema enforcement
  • Warehouse loading
  • Enrichment
  • Trackers
  • Streaming output
  • Data models
  • Snowplow BDP

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

CrowdTangle

  • Viral content trackingnot Snowplow
  • Social listeningnot Snowplow
  • Competitor analysisnot Snowplow
  • Trend identificationnot Snowplow

Snowplow

  • A data team that needs full-fidelity event data in its own warehouse to build attribution or machine learning features rather than to populate dashboardsnot CrowdTangle
  • A regulated business that cannot send behavioural data to a third-party analytics vendor and must keep collection inside its own cloud accountnot CrowdTangle
  • A product organisation tired of silently malformed events, which wants a schema contract enforced at collection timenot CrowdTangle
  • A company modelling customer behaviour across web, mobile and server events that needs them in one consistent structurenot CrowdTangle

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

CrowdTangle

  • CrowdTangle was retired by Meta on 14 August 2024, per Meta's own transparency page (Internet Archive capture, 12 December 2024), with Meta Content Library and Content Library API offered as replacements

Snowplow

  • The core pipeline was relicensed from Apache 2.0 on 8 January 2024 to the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement and a Confluent-derived community licence, so organisations that adopted it as permissively licensed software must now review their entitlement, buy a licence, or migrate.
  • You run the pipeline in your own cloud, which means the infrastructure bill, the on-call rota and the upgrade work are yours, and at high event volume that operational cost frequently exceeds what a hosted product would have charged.
  • Schema enforcement is the main benefit and the main friction, because every new event requires a schema to be authored and versioned, and teams without discipline around that end up blocked on their own governance process.
  • There is no analysis layer: Snowplow delivers data to your warehouse and nothing else, so you still need modelling, a BI tool and the people to run them before anyone sees a number.
  • The licence change fractured the community, spawning an Apache 2.0 fork, which means community contributions and third-party tooling are now split across two codebases with uncertain long-term maintenance.

Pricing, plan by plan

CrowdTangle

On request
  • Custom Plan$undefined/custom
    • Social monitoring
    • Competitor analysis
    • Trending content tracking

Snowplow

On request
  • Snowplow BDP$undefined/year
    • Commercial pricing quoted by event volume and deployment
    • Core pipeline components under the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement, not Apache 2.0
    • Trackers, analytics SDKs and Iglu SDKs remain Apache 2.0

Which should you pick?

Choose CrowdTangle if

  • You need social listening.
  • You also want viral content tracking.
CrowdTangle review

Choose Snowplow if

  • You need own-cloud deployment.
  • You work on Linux, Web, Docker.
  • You also want schema enforcement.
Snowplow review

Questions people ask

Is CrowdTangle or Snowplow better?
Neither clearly leads. CrowdTangle starts at On request and Snowplow at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CrowdTangle or Snowplow?
CrowdTangle starts at On request and Snowplow at On request.
Does CrowdTangle or Snowplow run on more platforms?
CrowdTangle runs on Web. Snowplow runs on Linux, Web, Docker.
What is CrowdTangle best used for?
CrowdTangle is most often used for viral content tracking, social listening, competitor analysis, trend identification. Of those, viral content tracking and social listening are not what Snowplow is typically brought in for.
What can CrowdTangle do that Snowplow cannot?
CrowdTangle covers Social listening, Viral content tracking, Competitor monitoring, Brand mention tracking. Snowplow covers Own-cloud deployment, Schema enforcement, Warehouse loading, Enrichment.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Snowplow: Is Snowplow still open source?

Not in the permissive sense. On 8 January 2024 the core pipeline moved from Apache 2.0 to the Snowplow Limited Use Licence Agreement, with version 1.1 following in December 2024, alongside a community licence based on the Confluent Community Licence. Trackers and analytics SDKs remain Apache 2.0.

Snowplow: Can we still run it for free in production?

Free use of the relicensed core components is materially constrained and commercial use generally requires an agreement. Read the current licence text against your intended use rather than relying on older documentation.

Snowplow: Is there an Apache 2.0 alternative?

Yes, a fork called OpenSnowcat was created in response to the relicensing and continues under Apache 2.0.

Snowplow: What does Snowplow BDP cost?

Not published. It is quoted by event volume and deployment, and your own cloud infrastructure costs are separate and additional.

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