Segment is a customer data platform (CDP) focused on data collection and routing to 500+ destinations, while Amplitude is a product analytics platform emphasizing user behavior analysis and funnel optimization. Segment excels at data infrastructure, while Amplitude specializes in actionable insights from user interactions.
Segment vs Amplitude — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Choose Segment if you need a robust CDP to collect, unify, and route customer data across 500+ marketing, analytics, and data warehouse tools—it's the infrastructure backbone for organizations with complex martech stacks. Choose Amplitude if your priority is deep product analytics, user behavior understanding, and conversion optimization with strong funnel analysis and cohort building capabilities. Many organizations use both: Segment for data collection/routing and Amplitude for analytics.
Customer Data Platform for collecting, unifying, and routing first-party customer data across 500+ tools.
Paid product analytics platform specializing in user behavior tracking, cohort analysis, and product engagement.
Structured comparison data for Segment vs Amplitude with 145 attributes.
Maximum Monthly Event Volume (highest tier)
Setup Time (implementation to first insights)
Segment vs Amplitude — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Segment vs Amplitude.
Can I use Segment and Amplitude together?
Yes, many enterprises do. Segment collects and routes data from your website/app to Amplitude and 500+ other tools. Amplitude then specializes in analyzing that data for product insights. Segment acts as the infrastructure layer while Amplitude provides analytics depth. This is a common best-practice architecture for data-driven companies.
Which is better for e-commerce companies?
For pure e-commerce analytics and conversion optimization, Amplitude's funnel analysis and A/B testing features provide an edge. However, if you need to sync customer purchase data to 100+ marketing platforms (email, ads, CRM), Segment's 500+ integrations and CDP capabilities make it essential. The ideal setup: Segment for data infrastructure + Amplitude for analytics.
How do data retention limits affect my analysis?
Segment's 7-year retention enables cohort analysis across multiple years (identifying how 2022 users compare to 2025 users), while Amplitude's 24-month limit restricts long-term retention modeling. If you need to analyze multi-year customer lifecycle trends, Segment is more suitable. For typical product analytics (recent user behavior), 24 months is usually sufficient.
What's the actual cost difference at scale?
Segment costs scale with event volume (typically $0.50-2.00 per million events after free tier), while Amplitude has tiered pricing starting at $995/month for Growth tier. At 100M events/month, Segment might cost $500-1,200/month; at 500M events, $1,500-3,000/month. Amplitude's flat Growth tier suits predictable event volumes, while Segment suits variable or high-volume scenarios.
Amplitude has a simpler initial setup for product teams—install the SDK and start tracking user behavior immediately. Segment requires more infrastructure planning (choosing destinations, setting up schemas) but provides greater flexibility for enterprise environments. For a small product team, Amplitude is faster; for an enterprise martech stack, Segment's initial complexity pays dividends through centralized data management.