Web Analytics · Comparison
Plausible Analytics vs. Simple Analytics
Plausible Analytics 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.
Plausible Analytics
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics — a lightweight, cookieless Google Analytics alternative.
Simple Analytics
Privacy-friendly, cookieless web analytics that requires no consent banner.
Company facts
Headquarters
EU (remote-first)
Amsterdam, Netherlands Dutch company (Simple Analytics B.V.); founders and operations based in Amsterdam.
Employees
10
3 Very small team — founder Adriaan van Rossum plus a couple of team members as of 2024/2025.
Pricing
Starting Monthly Price (USD)
$9 Starter plan at $9/mo (monthly billing); 10k pageviews, 1 site
$20 Self-Serve plan at $20/month (monthly billing); entry slider point is 100k pageviews. 2 months free with annual billing.
Offers Free Tier
Plausible Community Edition (CE) is a free self-hostable open-source version
Perpetually free plan available; analytics history limited to 30 days on the free tier.
Free Trial Length (Days)
30 days 30-day free trial on all paid plans, no credit card required
14 days 14-day free trial on paid plans; no credit card required.
Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)
10k Starter plan includes up to 10k monthly pageviews
100k Self-Serve plan starts at 100,000 pageviews/month (adjustable up to 2.5M via slider).
Entry Plan Website Limit
1 sites Starter plan covers 1 site; Growth allows up to 3, Business up to 10
10 sites Starter plan covers up to 10 websites.
Analytics capabilities
Real-Time Dashboard
Real-time dashboard updates every 30 seconds
Live visitor stats; embeddable live-stats widget for your own site.
Custom Event Tracking
Custom event tracking available via JS snippet, CSS class, or Events API
Custom events supported via sa_event() JS call, data attributes, and server-side API.
Goal / Conversion Tracking
Supports pageview goals and custom event goals with conversion rate reporting
Goals feature reports conversion rates for defined events or pageview paths.
Funnels
Funnel analysis is a Business plan feature ($19/mo+)
Multi-step funnels supported via Goals; can chain events and pageviews with step-by-step drop-off.
Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking
Revenue tracking (monetary values on events) is a Business plan feature ($19/mo+)
Revenue values can be attached to events via metadata (e.g. revenue, order value) and reported in Goals.
Heatmaps
No
No heatmap feature — Simple Analytics is a minimalist analytics tool focused on traffic stats.
Privacy & compliance
Cookieless Tracking
No cookies or persistent identifiers used by default; daily-rotating anonymous hash only
Tracking is cookieless by design — no cookies or persistent identifiers are set.
Consent Banner Required
No cookie banner needed — Plausible collects no personal data and sets no cookies
Vendor explicitly states no cookie or consent banner is required when using Simple Analytics.
GDPR Compliant
Yes
Vendor states it fully adheres to GDPR and UK GDPR by not collecting personal data.
EU Data Residency
Data stored in Falkenstein, Germany on Hetzner servers; CDN via Bunny (Slovenia)
Data stored in the Netherlands on Dutch-hosted servers (Worldstream, Leaseweb); never leaves the EU.
Data ownership & deployment
Open Source
Community Edition (CE) is AGPLv3; cloud product is built on same open-source codebase
Core SaaS product is proprietary; only the public tracking scripts are MIT-licensed open source.
License
AGPLv3
proprietary Core analytics platform is proprietary SaaS; tracking scripts are MIT-licensed.
Self-Hostable
Plausible Community Edition (CE) is officially supported for self-hosting
Cloud-only SaaS product; no documented self-hosting or on-premises option.
Data Retention (Months)
36 mo Starter and Growth plans retain 3 years (36 months) of data; Business/Enterprise retain 5+ years
36 mo Simple plan: 3 years
Unlimited Data Retention
Starter/Growth: 3-year retention; Business: 5-year retention
No
Google Analytics Import
Official GA4 import supported (up to 5 GA4 properties); Universal Analytics (UA) not supported
Official Google Analytics 4 (GA4) import tool; heavily filtered for privacy.
Raw Data Export
CSV/ZIP exports available on all plans; Stats API on Business plan; raw event-level export requires Enterprise
Export API provides raw event-level data export; CSV export and data warehouse integrations also available.
Platform & integrations
Has API
Stats API is a Business plan feature; Events API (for sending data) available on all plans
Stats API, Export API, and Admin API all documented.
Tracking Script Size (KB)
1.2 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
3.8 KB Measured compressed transfer size.
Official WordPress Plugin
Official WordPress plugin maintained by Plausible
Official WordPress plugin at wordpress.org/plugins/simpleanalytics/ maintained by Simple Analytics.
Email Reports
Weekly (every Monday) and/or monthly (1st of month) email reports; analytics embedded in email
Built-in weekly and monthly email reports; sent at 9AM in local timezone with top referrers summary.
Public Dashboard Sharing
Shared links (optionally password-protected) and fully public dashboards supported
Dashboards can be made fully public or shared via link; Simple Analytics publishes their own publicly.
The verdict
Plausible Analytics Best for self-hosting and a low entry price
Plausible is the open-source option (AGPLv3) and the only one here you can self-host; Simple Analytics is proprietary and cloud-only. It also starts at $9/mo vs $20, ships a lighter 1.2 KB script vs 3.8 KB, and gives a 30-day trial vs 14. The trade-off: its entry plan caps at 10k pageviews and 1 site.
Full profile Simple Analytics Best for higher traffic and many sites at entry
Simple Analytics' entry plan includes 100k monthly pageviews across up to 10 sites, versus Plausible's 10k pageviews on 1 site — far more headroom for higher-traffic or multi-site setups before upgrading. It costs more to start ($20 vs $9) and is proprietary, cloud-only, with no self-host option.
Full profileSources · 40 verified references
plausible.io datarequests.org simpleanalytics.com docs.simpleanalytics.com github.com scripts.simpleanalyticscdn.com + 2 more
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