Web Analytics · Comparison
Cloudflare Web Analytics vs. Matomo
Cloudflare Web Analytics and Matomo compared across Company facts, Pricing, Analytics capabilities, Privacy & compliance, Data ownership & deployment and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.
Cloudflare Web Analytics
Free, privacy-first web analytics that tracks page views without cookies or fingerprinting.
Matomo
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics platform available self-hosted or in the cloud.
Company facts
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA
Wellington, New Zealand InnoCraft Ltd (Matomo's maker) is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand. Team is distributed globally.
Employees
5.2k
52 Approximately 52 employees as of late 2025, distributed across 5 continents.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
—
$26 Matomo Cloud Business plan; USD list price (EUR list is €29/mo).
Offers Free Tier
Cloudflare Web Analytics is entirely free — there are no paid tiers for this product.
Matomo On-Premise is free to self-host under GPL-3.0 with no usage limits. Matomo Cloud has no perpetual free plan (21-day trial only).
Free Trial Length (Days)
0 days
21 days Matomo Cloud offers a 21-day free trial with full feature access. No credit card required.
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
—
50k Entry Cloud plan starts at 50,000 hits/month. Matomo meters 'hits' (pageviews + events), not pure pageviews.
Entry Plan Website Limit
10 sites Soft limit of 10 sites per account (free product; raisable via Cloudflare support).
30 sites Matomo Cloud plans (including entry) support up to 30 websites. On-Premise has no website limit.
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
No live/current-visitors view; real-time dashboard updates are for paid zone analytics, not the free Web Analytics product.
Matomo provides a real-time visitor dashboard showing live activity, current visitor count, and pages visited.
Custom Event Tracking
Web Analytics tracks only pageviews/visits; custom event tracking requires the separate Zaraz product.
Matomo supports custom event tracking via JavaScript API (trackEvent), data attributes, or Tag Manager.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
No goal or conversion rate reporting in Cloudflare Web Analytics.
Matomo supports goal/conversion tracking with configurable goals and conversion rate reporting.
Funnels
No
Matomo includes multi-step funnel analysis with step-to-step drop-off reporting, included in Matomo Cloud.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue tracking is a Zaraz product feature, not part of Cloudflare Web Analytics.
Matomo tracks ecommerce orders and revenue with native integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and more.
Heatmaps
No
Matomo includes heatmaps (click maps, scroll maps) via the Heatmap & Session Recording feature, included in Matomo Cloud.
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Cookieless by default — does not use cookies or localStorage to collect usage metrics.
Matomo supports a fully cookieless tracking mode. When configured cookieless, no cookies are set on visitors.
Consent Banner Required
No cookie banner needed for Web Analytics alone; the tool sets no cookies and collects no personal identifiers.
When configured cookieless with privacy settings, Matomo does not require a consent banner. France's CNIL confirmed Matomo is consent-exempt under proper configuration.
GDPR Compliant
Cloudflare maintains a GDPR trust page and uses EU Standard Contractual Clauses for data transfers.
Matomo explicitly claims GDPR compliance and is CNIL-approved. Matomo Cloud data is stored in the EU with no transfer to the US; On-Premise stores data in your country of choice.
EU Data Residency
Free Web Analytics product does not offer EU data residency; Data Localization Suite is a separate enterprise add-on.
Matomo Cloud stores 100% of analytics data and backups in the EU. On-Premise data residency is customer-controlled (your country of choice).
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Proprietary cloud product. Counterscale is a separate MIT-licensed community project, not Cloudflare Web Analytics.
Matomo On-Premise is open source under GPL-3.0. The Cloud version is built on the same open-source core.
License
proprietary
GPL-3.0 Matomo core is GPL-3.0. Premium plugins use a separate proprietary license.
Self-Hostable
No
Matomo On-Premise is the flagship self-hosted edition, freely downloadable and installable on any PHP/MySQL server.
Data Retention (Months)
6 mo Free plan retains approximately 6 months of analytics history.
—
Unlimited Data Retention
No
Matomo Cloud retains aggregated report data indefinitely with no time-based aging. On-Premise users own the DB with no limit.
Google Analytics Import
No
Matomo has an official Google Analytics importer supporting both Universal Analytics and GA4 data imports.
Raw Data Export
Web Analytics (RUM) data is queryable and pageable via the GraphQL Analytics API; no in-dashboard CSV button.
Matomo provides raw visit/action-level data export via the Reporting API and dedicated raw data endpoints. Self-hosted instances have direct DB access.
Platform & integrations
Has API
GraphQL Analytics API provides programmatic access to Web Analytics data.
Matomo has a comprehensive Reporting HTTP API for programmatic data retrieval covering all reports and raw data.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
11.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
61.1 KB Served uncompressed by Matomo Cloud.
Official WordPress Plugin
No official Cloudflare-published WordPress plugin specifically for Web Analytics; community plugins exist.
Matomo maintains an official WordPress plugin ('Matomo Analytics') published on wordpress.org by the Matomo team.
Email Reports
Weekly email digest reports available via Cloudflare's Notifications system.
Matomo supports scheduled email reports (daily, weekly, monthly) in PDF, HTML, or CSV format.
Public Dashboard Sharing
No public or shareable-link dashboard; sharing requires granting Cloudflare account access.
Matomo supports public dashboard access via anonymous user feature (no login required). Token-based share links also available.
The verdict
Cloudflare Web Analytics Best for free, lightweight basic traffic stats
Cloudflare Web Analytics is entirely free with no paid tiers, against Matomo Cloud's $26/mo entry price, and ships an 11.2 KB script versus Matomo's 61.1 KB. The trade-off is scope: no real-time dashboard, custom events, goals, funnels, ecommerce, or heatmaps, and 6-month retention. Pick it to count pageviews cheaply, not to analyze behavior.
Full profile Matomo Best for full-featured, self-hosted EU-resident analytics
Matomo is the deeper, more controllable option: open source (GPL-3.0) and self-hostable, with EU data residency and unlimited retention, none of which Cloudflare offers. It adds real-time, custom events, goals, funnels, ecommerce, heatmaps, GA import, and an official WordPress plugin. The cost is a paid Cloud plan ($26/mo) or running it yourself.
Full profileSources · 37 verified references
sec.gov matomo.org leadiq.com cloudflare.com developers.cloudflare.com developer.matomo.org + 7 more
Affiliate disclosure. DecisionWire may earn a commission when you sign up through links on this page. Commissions never influence our data, scores, or rankings.