Web Analytics · Comparison
Matomo vs. Simple Analytics
Matomo and Simple 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.
Simple Analytics
Privacy-friendly, cookieless web analytics that requires no consent banner.
Company facts
Headquarters
Wellington, New Zealand InnoCraft Ltd (Matomo's maker) is headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand. Team is distributed globally.
Amsterdam, Netherlands Dutch company (Simple Analytics B.V.); founders and operations based in Amsterdam.
Employees
52 Approximately 52 employees as of late 2025, distributed across 5 continents.
3 Very small team — founder Adriaan van Rossum plus a couple of team members as of 2024/2025.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$26 Matomo Cloud Business plan; USD list price (EUR list is €29/mo).
$20 Self-Serve plan at $20/month (monthly billing); entry slider point is 100k pageviews. 2 months free with annual billing.
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).
Perpetually free plan available; analytics history limited to 30 days on the free tier.
Free Trial Length (Days)
21 days Matomo Cloud offers a 21-day free trial with full feature access. No credit card required.
14 days 14-day free trial on paid plans; 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.
100k Self-Serve plan starts at 100,000 pageviews/month (adjustable up to 2.5M via slider).
Entry Plan Website Limit
30 sites Matomo Cloud plans (including entry) support up to 30 websites. On-Premise has no website limit.
10 sites Starter plan covers up to 10 websites.
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Matomo provides a real-time visitor dashboard showing live activity, current visitor count, and pages visited.
Live visitor stats; embeddable live-stats widget for your own site.
Custom Event Tracking
Matomo supports custom event tracking via JavaScript API (trackEvent), data attributes, or Tag Manager.
Custom events supported via sa_event() JS call, data attributes, and server-side API.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Matomo supports goal/conversion tracking with configurable goals and conversion rate reporting.
Goals feature reports conversion rates for defined events or pageview paths.
Funnels
Matomo includes multi-step funnel analysis with step-to-step drop-off reporting, included in Matomo Cloud.
Multi-step funnels supported via Goals; can chain events and pageviews with step-by-step drop-off.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Matomo tracks ecommerce orders and revenue with native integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and more.
Revenue values can be attached to events via metadata (e.g. revenue, order value) and reported in Goals.
Heatmaps
Matomo includes heatmaps (click maps, scroll maps) via the Heatmap & Session Recording feature, included in Matomo Cloud.
No heatmap feature — Simple Analytics is a minimalist analytics tool focused on traffic stats.
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Matomo supports a fully cookieless tracking mode. When configured cookieless, no cookies are set on visitors.
Tracking is cookieless by design — no cookies or persistent identifiers are set.
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.
Vendor explicitly states no cookie or consent banner is required when using Simple 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 states it fully adheres to GDPR and UK GDPR by not collecting personal data.
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).
Data stored in the Netherlands on Dutch-hosted servers (Worldstream, Leaseweb); never leaves the EU.
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 SaaS product is proprietary; only the public tracking scripts are MIT-licensed open source.
License
GPL-3.0 Matomo core is GPL-3.0. Premium plugins use a separate proprietary license.
proprietary Core analytics platform is proprietary SaaS; tracking scripts are MIT-licensed.
Self-Hostable
Matomo On-Premise is the flagship self-hosted edition, freely downloadable and installable on any PHP/MySQL server.
Cloud-only SaaS product; no documented self-hosting or on-premises option.
Data Retention (Months)
—
36 mo Simple plan: 3 years
Unlimited Data Retention
Matomo Cloud retains aggregated report data indefinitely with no time-based aging. On-Premise users own the DB with no limit.
No
Google Analytics Import
Matomo has an official Google Analytics importer supporting both Universal Analytics and GA4 data imports.
Official Google Analytics 4 (GA4) import tool; heavily filtered for privacy.
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.
Export API provides raw event-level data export; CSV export and data warehouse integrations also available.
Platform & integrations
Has API
Matomo has a comprehensive Reporting HTTP API for programmatic data retrieval covering all reports and raw data.
Stats API, Export API, and Admin API all documented.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
61.1 KB Served uncompressed by Matomo Cloud.
3.8 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 at wordpress.org/plugins/simpleanalytics/ maintained by Simple Analytics.
Email Reports
Matomo supports scheduled email reports (daily, weekly, monthly) in PDF, HTML, or CSV format.
Built-in weekly and monthly email reports; sent at 9AM in local timezone with top referrers summary.
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 fully public or shared via link; Simple Analytics publishes their own publicly.
The verdict
Matomo Best for self-hosting and deeper analysis
Matomo is the only one here you can self-host (GPL-3.0, open source) for full data control, and it goes deeper: heatmaps and unlimited data retention, both absent from Simple Analytics (capped at 36 months). Its entry plan also covers 30 sites versus 10. The trade-offs are a heavier 61.1 KB script and a 50k-hit entry cap.
Full profile Simple Analytics Best for a lightweight, low-cost setup
Simple Analytics ships a 3.8 KB script versus Matomo's 61.1 KB, starts lower at $20/mo, and includes 100k pageviews on entry against Matomo's 50k hits. It is a minimalist tool, so accept the gaps: no heatmaps, retention capped at 36 months, no self-hosting, and proprietary rather than open source.
Full profileSources · 40 verified references
matomo.org datarequests.org leadiq.com simpleanalytics.com developer.matomo.org docs.simpleanalytics.com + 6 more
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