Web Analytics · Comparison
Fathom Analytics vs. Matomo
Fathom 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.
Fathom Analytics
Privacy-first, cookieless web analytics with a simple dashboard and forever data retention.
Matomo
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics platform available self-hosted or in the cloud.
Company facts
Headquarters
Victoria, Canada Fully remote-first company; Victoria, BC is the legal incorporation location.
Wellington, New Zealand InnoCraft Ltd (Matomo's maker) is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand. Team is distributed globally.
Employees
5 LinkedIn shows 2–10 employees; 3 listed profiles. Midpoint of visible data ~5.
52 Approximately 52 employees as of late 2025, distributed across 5 continents.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$15 Entry plan: $15/month for up to 100k pageviews.
$26 Matomo Cloud Business plan; USD list price (EUR list is €29/mo).
Offers Free Tier
7-day free trial available; no perpetual free plan.
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)
7 days 7-day free trial on all paid plans.
21 days Matomo Cloud offers a 21-day free trial with full feature access. No credit card required.
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
100k Entry plan ($15/mo) includes up to 100k pageviews/month.
50k Entry Cloud plan starts at 50,000 hits/month. Matomo meters 'hits' (pageviews + events), not pure pageviews.
Entry Plan Website Limit
50 sites Up to 50 sites included on all plans; additional sites purchasable.
30 sites Matomo Cloud plans (including entry) support up to 30 websites. On-Premise has no website limit.
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Dashboard updates in real time; also provides a current-visitors API endpoint.
Matomo provides a real-time visitor dashboard showing live activity, current visitor count, and pages visited.
Custom Event Tracking
Custom events tracked via fathom.trackEvent() JS call or data attributes.
Matomo supports custom event tracking via JavaScript API (trackEvent), data attributes, or Tag Manager.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Goals are built on custom events with conversion-rate reporting.
Matomo supports goal/conversion tracking with configurable goals and conversion rate reporting.
Funnels
Multi-step funnel analysis is not a feature; no documentation or marketing page references it.
Matomo includes multi-step funnel analysis with step-to-step drop-off reporting, included in Matomo Cloud.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue values (in cents) can be attached to custom events; Shopify integration supported.
Matomo tracks ecommerce orders and revenue with native integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and more.
Heatmaps
Heatmaps are not part of the product.
Matomo includes heatmaps (click maps, scroll maps) via the Heatmap & Session Recording feature, included in Matomo Cloud.
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Zero cookies used by design; visitor identification via daily-salted SHA256 hashing.
Matomo supports a fully cookieless tracking mode. When configured cookieless, no cookies are set on visitors.
Consent Banner Required
Vendor explicitly states no cookie consent banner is needed when using Fathom.
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
Vendor explicitly claims GDPR compliance; conducted formal GDPR review with EU consultants.
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
EU Isolation strips visitor IPs inside the EU, but the anonymized analytics data is stored on Fathom's main US servers.
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
Fathom is a closed-source, proprietary cloud SaaS product.
Matomo On-Premise is open source under GPL-3.0. The Cloud version is built on the same open-source core.
License
proprietary Current flagship product is closed-source; an archived MIT-licensed v1 exists but is not the offered product.
GPL-3.0 Matomo core is GPL-3.0. Premium plugins use a separate proprietary license.
Self-Hostable
Cloud-only SaaS; no self-hosting option documented or advertised.
Matomo On-Premise is the flagship self-hosted edition, freely downloadable and installable on any PHP/MySQL server.
Unlimited Data Retention
Vendor advertises 'forever' data retention on all plans.
Matomo Cloud retains aggregated report data indefinitely with no time-based aging. On-Premise users own the DB with no limit.
Google Analytics Import
GA4 data import supported; Universal Analytics not supported (Google deleted UA data July 2024).
Matomo has an official Google Analytics importer supporting both Universal Analytics and GA4 data imports.
Raw Data Export
Export is aggregated CSVs (dashboard reports); no raw visit/event-level data export available.
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
Public Stats API for aggregated reporting plus account/site/event management endpoints.
Matomo has a comprehensive Reporting HTTP API for programmatic data retrieval covering all reports and raw data.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
61.1 KB Served uncompressed by Matomo Cloud.
Official WordPress Plugin
Official vendor-published WordPress plugin available at wordpress.org/plugins/fathom-analytics/.
Matomo maintains an official WordPress plugin ('Matomo Analytics') published on wordpress.org by the Matomo team.
Email Reports
Weekly or monthly scheduled email reports available.
Matomo supports scheduled email reports (daily, weekly, monthly) in PDF, HTML, or CSV format.
Public Dashboard Sharing
Dashboards can be shared publicly or via password-protected link.
Matomo supports public dashboard access via anonymous user feature (no login required). Token-based share links also available.
The verdict
Fathom Analytics Best for a cheap, lightweight cookieless tracker
Fathom starts at $15/mo against Matomo's $26, covers 100k pageviews vs Matomo's 50k hits, and includes 50 sites vs 30. Its tracking script is 2 KB next to Matomo's 61.1 KB, so pages stay lighter. The trade-off: no funnels, no heatmaps, and no self-hosting.
Full profile Matomo Best for self-hosting, EU residency, and deeper analysis
Matomo is open source (GPL-3.0) and self-hostable, so On-Premise is free with no limits and your data stays in your country. Cloud keeps 100% of data in the EU, which Fathom does not. It also adds funnels, heatmaps, and raw visit-level export Fathom lacks. Costs more: $26/mo and 50k hits.
Full profileSources · 36 verified references
usefathom.com matomo.org linkedin.com leadiq.com developer.matomo.org plugins.matomo.org + 4 more
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