Web Analytics · Comparison
Matomo vs. Pirsch Analytics
Matomo and Pirsch Analytics 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.
Matomo
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics platform available self-hosted or in the cloud.
Pirsch Analytics
Server-side, cookieless web analytics hosted in Germany, built for GDPR compliance.
Company facts
Headquarters
Wellington, New Zealand InnoCraft Ltd (Matomo's maker) is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand. Team is distributed globally.
Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany Emvi Software GmbH registered at Nickelstraße 1b, 33378 Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany.
Employees
52 Approximately 52 employees as of late 2025, distributed across 5 continents.
2 Pirsch is a two-person team: Marvin Blum (backend/infra) and Daniel Schramm (design/UX).
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$26 Matomo Cloud Business plan; USD list price (EUR list is €29/mo).
$6 Standard plan starts at $6/month for 10,000 monthly pageviews (as of June 2026).
Offers Free Tier
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).
No perpetual free plan; only a 30-day free trial is offered.
Free Trial Length (Days)
21 days Matomo Cloud offers a 21-day free trial with full feature access. No credit card required.
30 days 30-day free trial with 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.
10k Standard entry plan includes 10,000 monthly pageviews at $6/month.
Entry Plan Website Limit
30 sites Matomo Cloud plans (including entry) support up to 30 websites. On-Premise has no website limit.
50 sites Standard entry plan covers up to 50 websites.
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Matomo provides a real-time visitor dashboard showing live activity, current visitor count, and pages visited.
Live visitor count and real-time visitor map are core dashboard features.
Custom Event Tracking
Matomo supports custom event tracking via JavaScript API (trackEvent), data attributes, or Tag Manager.
User-defined custom events supported via JS snippet or server-side API.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Matomo supports goal/conversion tracking with configurable goals and conversion rate reporting.
Conversion goals can be defined against events or pageviews with conversion rate reporting.
Funnels
Matomo includes multi-step funnel analysis with step-to-step drop-off reporting, included in Matomo Cloud.
Multi-step funnel analysis (up to 8 steps) is available on the Plus plan.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Matomo tracks ecommerce orders and revenue with native integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and more.
Revenue tracked via custom events with monetary metadata; Shopify integration available.
Heatmaps
Matomo includes heatmaps (click maps, scroll maps) via the Heatmap & Session Recording feature, included in Matomo Cloud.
Heatmaps are not offered; a feature request exists on the forum but is unimplemented.
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Matomo supports a fully cookieless tracking mode. When configured cookieless, no cookies are set on visitors.
Cookieless by design; uses a daily-rotating fingerprint hash with no browser cookies.
Consent Banner Required
When configured cookieless with privacy settings, Matomo does not require a consent banner. France's CNIL confirmed Matomo is consent-exempt under proper configuration.
Pirsch explicitly states no cookie consent banner is needed for its analytics.
GDPR Compliant
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.
Vendor claims GDPR, CCPA, PECR, and Schrems II compliance.
EU Data Residency
Matomo Cloud stores 100% of analytics data and backups in the EU. On-Premise data residency is customer-controlled (your country of choice).
All analytics data stored on Hetzner servers in Falkenstein, Germany.
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Matomo On-Premise is open source under GPL-3.0. The Cloud version is built on the same open-source core.
Core analytics library is open source (AGPLv3) on GitHub.
License
GPL-3.0 Matomo core is GPL-3.0. Premium plugins use a separate proprietary license.
AGPLv3 Core analytics library (pirsch-analytics/pirsch) is licensed under AGPLv3.
Self-Hostable
Matomo On-Premise is the flagship self-hosted edition, freely downloadable and installable on any PHP/MySQL server.
Self-hosting available via Enterprise License for on-premise deployment.
Unlimited Data Retention
Matomo Cloud retains aggregated report data indefinitely with no time-based aging. On-Premise users own the DB with no limit.
Both Standard and Plus plans include unlimited data retention.
Google Analytics Import
Matomo has an official Google Analytics importer supporting both Universal Analytics and GA4 data imports.
Official import from Google Analytics (UA and GA4) is documented with step-by-step guide.
Raw Data Export
Matomo provides raw visit/action-level data export via the Reporting API and dedicated raw data endpoints. Self-hosted instances have direct DB access.
Stats API enables full programmatic data retrieval; CSV export and raw exports on request also available.
Platform & integrations
Has API
Matomo has a comprehensive Reporting HTTP API for programmatic data retrieval covering all reports and raw data.
RESTful Stats API with no rate limit on statistics endpoints.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
61.1 KB Served uncompressed by Matomo Cloud.
3.5 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
Official WordPress Plugin
Matomo maintains an official WordPress plugin ('Matomo Analytics') published on wordpress.org by the Matomo team.
Official WordPress plugin published by Emvi Software GmbH on wordpress.org.
Email Reports
Matomo supports scheduled email reports (daily, weekly, monthly) in PDF, HTML, or CSV format.
Scheduled weekly and monthly email summary reports are supported.
Public Dashboard Sharing
Matomo supports public dashboard access via anonymous user feature (no login required). Token-based share links also available.
Dashboards can be made public or shared via private access links without requiring viewer accounts.
The verdict
Matomo Best for deeper analysis: heatmaps and funnels
Matomo carries the heavier feature set. It includes heatmaps, which Pirsch lacks entirely, and bundles multi-step funnels into Matomo Cloud rather than gating them on a higher plan. Pick Matomo when you need behavioral depth beyond visit counts and don't mind a 61.1 KB tracking script and a $26 entry price.
Full profile Pirsch Analytics Best for lightweight, low-cost privacy analytics
Pirsch undercuts Matomo on cost and footprint: $6/month versus $26, and a 3.5 KB script versus 61.1 KB. Its entry plan covers 50 sites to Matomo's 30, with a 30-day trial versus 21. Both are cookieless and GDPR-compliant, so choose Pirsch when you want fast, private metrics without heatmaps or built-in funnels.
Full profileSources · 41 verified references
matomo.org pirsch.io leadiq.com developer.matomo.org docs.pirsch.io plugins.matomo.org + 4 more
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