Web Analytics · Comparison
Pirsch Analytics vs. Plausible Analytics
Pirsch Analytics and Plausible 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.
Pirsch Analytics
Server-side, cookieless web analytics hosted in Germany, built for GDPR compliance.
Plausible Analytics
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics — a lightweight, cookieless Google Analytics alternative.
Company facts
Headquarters
Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany Emvi Software GmbH registered at Nickelstraße 1b, 33378 Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany.
EU (remote-first)
Employees
2 Pirsch is a two-person team: Marvin Blum (backend/infra) and Daniel Schramm (design/UX).
10
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$6 Standard plan starts at $6/month for 10,000 monthly pageviews (as of June 2026).
$9 Starter plan at $9/mo (monthly billing); 10k pageviews, 1 site
Offers Free Tier
No perpetual free plan; only a 30-day free trial is offered.
Plausible Community Edition (CE) is a free self-hostable open-source version
Free Trial Length (Days)
30 days 30-day free trial with no credit card required.
30 days 30-day free trial on all paid plans, no credit card required
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
10k Standard entry plan includes 10,000 monthly pageviews at $6/month.
10k Starter plan includes up to 10k monthly pageviews
Entry Plan Website Limit
50 sites Standard entry plan covers up to 50 websites.
1 sites Starter plan covers 1 site; Growth allows up to 3, Business up to 10
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Live visitor count and real-time visitor map are core dashboard features.
Real-time dashboard updates every 30 seconds
Custom Event Tracking
User-defined custom events supported via JS snippet or server-side API.
Custom event tracking available via JS snippet, CSS class, or Events API
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Conversion goals can be defined against events or pageviews with conversion rate reporting.
Supports pageview goals and custom event goals with conversion rate reporting
Funnels
Multi-step funnel analysis (up to 8 steps) is available on the Plus plan.
Funnel analysis is a Business plan feature ($19/mo+)
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue tracked via custom events with monetary metadata; Shopify integration available.
Revenue tracking (monetary values on events) is a Business plan feature ($19/mo+)
Heatmaps
Heatmaps are not offered; a feature request exists on the forum but is unimplemented.
No
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Cookieless by design; uses a daily-rotating fingerprint hash with no browser cookies.
No cookies or persistent identifiers used by default; daily-rotating anonymous hash only
Consent Banner Required
Pirsch explicitly states no cookie consent banner is needed for its analytics.
No cookie banner needed — Plausible collects no personal data and sets no cookies
GDPR Compliant
Vendor claims GDPR, CCPA, PECR, and Schrems II compliance.
Yes
EU Data Residency
All analytics data stored on Hetzner servers in Falkenstein, Germany.
Data stored in Falkenstein, Germany on Hetzner servers; CDN via Bunny (Slovenia)
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Core analytics library is open source (AGPLv3) on GitHub.
Community Edition (CE) is AGPLv3; cloud product is built on same open-source codebase
License
AGPLv3 Core analytics library (pirsch-analytics/pirsch) is licensed under AGPLv3.
AGPLv3
Self-Hostable
Self-hosting available via Enterprise License for on-premise deployment.
Plausible Community Edition (CE) is officially supported for self-hosting
Data Retention (Months)
—
36 mo Starter and Growth plans retain 3 years (36 months) of data; Business/Enterprise retain 5+ years
Unlimited Data Retention
Both Standard and Plus plans include unlimited data retention.
Starter/Growth: 3-year retention; Business: 5-year retention
Google Analytics Import
Official import from Google Analytics (UA and GA4) is documented with step-by-step guide.
Official GA4 import supported (up to 5 GA4 properties); Universal Analytics (UA) not supported
Raw Data Export
Stats API enables full programmatic data retrieval; CSV export and raw exports on request also available.
CSV/ZIP exports available on all plans; Stats API on Business plan; raw event-level export requires Enterprise
Platform & integrations
Has API
RESTful Stats API with no rate limit on statistics endpoints.
Stats API is a Business plan feature; Events API (for sending data) available on all plans
Tracking Script Size (KB)
3.5 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
1.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
Official WordPress Plugin
Official WordPress plugin published by Emvi Software GmbH on wordpress.org.
Official WordPress plugin maintained by Plausible
Email Reports
Scheduled weekly and monthly email summary reports are supported.
Weekly (every Monday) and/or monthly (1st of month) email reports; analytics embedded in email
Public Dashboard Sharing
Dashboards can be made public or shared via private access links without requiring viewer accounts.
Shared links (optionally password-protected) and fully public dashboards supported
The verdict
Pirsch Analytics Best for multi-site owners wanting features at a lower price
Cheaper entry at $6/mo vs $9, and the standard plan covers 50 sites against Plausible's 1. Funnels and revenue tracking come on the lower Plus plan, where Plausible gates both behind its $19/mo Business tier. Retention is unlimited, not capped at 36 months, and Google Analytics import handles both UA and GA4.
Full profile Plausible Analytics Best for a free self-hosted option and the lightest script
The only one here with a free tier: the AGPLv3 Community Edition is self-hostable at no cost, where Pirsch offers only a 30-day trial. Its tracking script is 1.2 KB versus 3.5 KB. The trade-offs are a $9 entry covering just 1 site, 36-month retention, and funnels, revenue, and the Stats API all locked to the $19/mo Business plan.
Full profileSources · 41 verified references
pirsch.io plausible.io docs.pirsch.io github.com api.pirsch.io wordpress.org
Affiliate disclosure. DecisionWire may earn a commission when you sign up through links on this page. Commissions never influence our data, scores, or rankings.