Web Analytics · Comparison
Pirsch Analytics vs. Statcounter
Pirsch Analytics and Statcounter 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.
Statcounter
Simple real-time web analytics tracking visitor behaviour, traffic sources, and page performance.
Company facts
Headquarters
Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany Emvi Software GmbH registered at Nickelstraße 1b, 33378 Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany.
Dublin, Ireland Headquartered at Guinness Enterprise Centre, Taylor's Lane, Dublin 8, Ireland.
Employees
2 Pirsch is a two-person team: Marvin Blum (backend/infra) and Daniel Schramm (design/UX).
8 Very small team; multiple sources indicate 7–10 employees as of 2024–2025.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$6 Standard plan starts at $6/month for 10,000 monthly pageviews (as of June 2026).
$9 Premium plan starts at $9/month for 20,000 sessions/month.
Offers Free Tier
No perpetual free plan; only a 30-day free trial is offered.
Basic plan is free forever with 5,000 sessions/month and 14 days data retention.
Free Trial Length (Days)
30 days 30-day free trial with no credit card required.
30 days 30-day free trial on paid plans, no credit card required.
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
10k Standard entry plan includes 10,000 monthly pageviews at $6/month.
20k Entry Premium plan includes 20,000 sessions/month. Statcounter uses 'sessions' not pageviews.
Entry Plan Website Limit
50 sites Standard entry plan covers up to 50 websites.
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Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Live visitor count and real-time visitor map are core dashboard features.
Live visitor feed and real-time visitor updates available on all plans including free Basic.
Custom Event Tracking
User-defined custom events supported via JS snippet or server-side API.
Statcounter does not support user-defined custom events. Goal tracking is URL/page-based only.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Conversion goals can be defined against events or pageviews with conversion rate reporting.
Supports URL-based conversion goal tracking; shows conversion rate from landing page to goal URL.
Funnels
Multi-step funnel analysis (up to 8 steps) is available on the Plus plan.
No multi-step funnel analysis feature found in Statcounter's product.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue tracked via custom events with monetary metadata; Shopify integration available.
No ecommerce or revenue tracking feature found; no monetary value attribution in any report.
Heatmaps
Heatmaps are not offered; a feature request exists on the forum but is unimplemented.
Interactive click heatmaps available on Premium Plus plan ($19/mo and above).
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
Cookieless by design; uses a daily-rotating fingerprint hash with no browser cookies.
Statcounter sets a persistent analytics cookie ('is_unique') by default. No cookieless tracking mode available.
Consent Banner Required
Pirsch explicitly states no cookie consent banner is needed for its analytics.
Statcounter sets persistent analytics cookies; a consent banner is required for EU/ePrivacy compliance.
GDPR Compliant
Vendor claims GDPR, CCPA, PECR, and Schrems II compliance.
Statcounter claims GDPR compatibility, arguing it is anonymous tracking and IP addresses are not personal data under its use.
EU Data Residency
All analytics data stored on Hetzner servers in Falkenstein, Germany.
No first-party EU data-storage guarantee; company is Dublin-based but visitor data location is undocumented and infrastructure signals point to US providers (Cloudflare/Rackspace).
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Core analytics library is open source (AGPLv3) on GitHub.
Statcounter is a proprietary closed-source SaaS product.
License
AGPLv3 Core analytics library (pirsch-analytics/pirsch) is licensed under AGPLv3.
proprietary Closed-source SaaS with a proprietary license.
Self-Hostable
Self-hosting available via Enterprise License for on-premise deployment.
Cloud-only SaaS; no self-hosting or on-premises option available.
Data Retention (Months)
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36 mo Entry Premium plan retains data for 3 years (36 months).
Unlimited Data Retention
Both Standard and Plus plans include unlimited data retention.
Entry Premium plan has a 3-year (36-month) data retention limit; Premium Plus is 5 years.
Google Analytics Import
Official import from Google Analytics (UA and GA4) is documented with step-by-step guide.
No Google Analytics historical data import tool found.
Raw Data Export
Stats API enables full programmatic data retrieval; CSV export and raw exports on request also available.
Only aggregated summary reports are exportable as CSV/Excel; raw visit-level data export is not available.
Platform & integrations
Has API
RESTful Stats API with no rate limit on statistics endpoints.
Statcounter API at api.statcounter.com allows programmatic access to analytics data; requires paid plan.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
3.5 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
17.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
Official WordPress Plugin
Official WordPress plugin published by Emvi Software GmbH on wordpress.org.
Official Statcounter plugin published on wordpress.org under the vendor's name.
Email Reports
Scheduled weekly and monthly email summary reports are supported.
Scheduled email reports available daily, weekly, or monthly with customizable stat selection.
Public Dashboard Sharing
Dashboards can be made public or shared via private access links without requiring viewer accounts.
Stats can be made publicly viewable via a 'Public Stats' option; no login required to view.
The verdict
Pirsch Analytics Best for cookieless, EU-hosted, ownable analytics
Pirsch is cookieless and needs no consent banner, stores data in Germany, and is open source (AGPLv3) and self-hostable. Statcounter sets a persistent cookie, offers no EU data residency, and is proprietary cloud-only. Pirsch also adds custom events, funnels, revenue tracking, GA import, and raw data export Statcounter lacks, on a 3.5 KB script vs 17.2 KB.
Full profile Statcounter Best for a free plan plus click heatmaps
Statcounter has a free-forever plan (5,000 sessions/month); Pirsch offers only a 30-day trial from $6/month. Statcounter also includes click heatmaps on its Premium Plus tier, a feature Pirsch does not offer. Trade-offs: it uses cookies (consent banner required), gives no EU data residency, and is proprietary and cloud-only.
Full profileSources · 39 verified references
pirsch.io statcounter.com tracxn.com docs.pirsch.io github.com api.statcounter.com + 2 more
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