Once your PostHog instance is up and running, the next step is to get PostHog installed.
Tip: Even if you have multiple customer-facing products e.g. a marketing website + iOS app + web app, it works best to have them share the same project to track the user across their journey. See:Organizations & projects docs
Installation
JavaScript snippet Recommended
This is the simplest way to get PostHog up and running on your website, and only takes a few minutes to set-up.
Add to your website & app
Paste this snippet within the <head>
tags of your website - ideally just inside the closing </head>
tag - on all pages that you wish to track.
<script>!function(t,e){var o,n,p,r;e.__SV||(window.posthog=e,e._i=[],e.init=function(i,s,a){function g(t,e){var o=e.split(".");2==o.length&&(t=t[o[0]],e=o[1]),t[e]=function(){t.push([e].concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}(p=t.createElement("script")).type="text/javascript",p.async=!0,p.src=s.api_host+"/static/array.js",(r=t.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]).parentNode.insertBefore(p,r);var u=e;for(void 0!==a?u=e[a]=[]:a="posthog",u.people=u.people||[],u.toString=function(t){var e="posthog";return"posthog"!==a&&(e+="."+a),t||(e+=" (stub)"),e},u.people.toString=function(){return u.toString(1)+".people (stub)"},o="capture identify alias people.set people.set_once set_config register register_once unregister opt_out_capturing has_opted_out_capturing opt_in_capturing reset isFeatureEnabled onFeatureFlags getFeatureFlag getFeatureFlagPayload reloadFeatureFlags group updateEarlyAccessFeatureEnrollment getEarlyAccessFeatures getActiveMatchingSurveys getSurveys".split(" "),n=0;n<o.length;n++)g(u,o[n]);e._i.push([i,s,a])},e.__SV=1)}(document,window.posthog||[]);posthog.init('<ph_project_api_key>', {api_host: '<ph_instance_address>'})</script>
Be sure to replace <ph_project_api_key>
and <ph_instance_address>
with your project's values. (You can find the snippet pre-filled with this data in the PostHog app under Project / Settings. (Quick links if you use PostHog Cloud US or PostHog Cloud EU)
What this code does
After adding the snippet to your website, it will automatically start to:
- Capture
$pageview
events when a user visits a page - Track when users click on links or buttons
- Record videos of user sessions that you can play back (if you've enabled the Session recordings feature, which we highly recommend!)