Web Analytics · Vendor profile

GoatCounter

Open-source, privacy-friendly web analytics that tracks no personal data.

Founded 2019· Dublin, Ireland· ~1 employees· goatcounter.com ↗

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Last verified 2 days ago · 14 sources · Updated automatically

Founded

2019

Headquarters

Dublin, Ireland

Employees

Free tier

Yes

Script size

3 KB

Overview

GoatCounter is open-source, privacy-friendly web analytics that tracks no personal data. It is a one-person independent project built and maintained by Martin Tournoij, with no company headcount behind it. The code is licensed under EUPL-1.2 and the hosted service is offered free, supported by donations rather than paid plans.

The product is a minimalist pageview and event counter. It tracks without cookies, localStorage, or any browser-side persistent identifiers, ships a 3 KB tracking script, and offers a real-time dashboard. Custom events, scheduled email reports, public dashboard sharing, a REST API, and CSV/JSON raw data export round out the feature set; data is retained until the user deletes it.

Privacy posture is central: it is GDPR-compliant, collects no PII, and its docs state a consent banner is probably not required. The hosted data sits on servers in Finland and Germany. Both fully managed and self-hosted deployment are supported, with self-hosting documented and encouraged for high-volume use.

Best for

Teams wanting a lightweight, cookieless tracker with a tiny 3 KB script and no consent banner to manage.
Privacy-conscious EU operators who need GDPR compliance, no PII collection, and EU data residency.
Budget-sensitive sites: the hosted service is free with no paid tier, and the EUPL-1.2 source can be self-hosted for high-volume use.
Builders who want data portability — a REST API, full CSV/JSON pageview export, and unlimited retention until you delete it.
WordPress sites wanting a vendor-maintained official plugin and scheduled email reports.

Less ideal for

Teams needing goal or conversion-rate tracking, which GoatCounter does not offer.
Marketers requiring multi-step funnel analysis — there is no funnel feature.
Ecommerce sites that need revenue tracking; no monetary value can be attached to events.
Teams wanting behavioral tools like heatmaps or session replay, which are not available.
Buyers who need vendor scale or support guarantees: this is a single-maintainer, donation-funded project with one person behind it.

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

Not tracked yet

Offers Free Tier

GoatCounter.com is offered free for personal websites and small-to-medium businesses. No paid plans exist; the project is donation-supported.

Free Trial Length (Days)

0 days · No paid plan exists, so no trial applies. The hosted service is entirely free.

Entry Plan Pageview Limit (Monthly)

Not tracked yet

Entry Plan Website Limit

Not tracked yet

Analytics capabilities

Real-Time Dashboard

Dashboard uses WebSocket for real-time data updates.

Custom Event Tracking

Custom events tracked via data-goatcounter-click HTML attribute or window.goatcounter.count() JS call.

Goal / Conversion Tracking

No goal or conversion-rate tracking; GoatCounter is a minimalist pageview/event counter.

Funnels

No multi-step funnel analysis.

Ecommerce / Revenue Tracking

No ecommerce or revenue tracking; no monetary value can be attached to events.

Heatmaps

GoatCounter does not offer heatmap or session replay features.

Privacy & compliance

Cookieless Tracking

No cookies, localStorage, or any browser-side persistent identifiers are used.

Consent Banner Required

GoatCounter's docs state a GDPR consent banner is probably not required, as no PII is collected.

GDPR Compliant

Vendor provides GDPR guidance and states no consent notice is likely needed due to no PII collection.

EU Data Residency

Data hosted on Hetzner servers in Finland and Germany. Operated by Martin Tournoij from Ireland.

Data ownership & deployment

Open Source

GoatCounter is open source under EUPL-1.2, available at github.com/arp242/goatcounter.

License

EUPL-1.2 · Licensed under EUPL-1.2 with a minor modification to the Compatible Licenses appendix.

Self-Hostable

Self-hosting is officially documented and encouraged for high-volume usage.

Data Retention (Months)

Not tracked yet

Unlimited Data Retention

Hosted data is retained until the user deletes it; no time-based aging-out.

Google Analytics Import

Google Analytics report import added in v2.6.0 (Jun 2025). Limited to path-level totals due to GA's export constraints.

Raw Data Export

Full pageview-level data exportable as CSV or JSON. API also supports paginated data export.

Platform & integrations

Has API

REST API (v0) for stats retrieval, data ingestion, site management, and export.

Tracking Script Size (KB)

3 KB · Measured compressed transfer size.

Official WordPress Plugin

Official WordPress plugin maintained by GoatCounter's creator (arp242/goatcounter-wordpress on GitHub).

Email Reports

Scheduled email reports are supported. Enhancement work completed Dec 2025.

Public Dashboard Sharing

Dashboards can be shared via secret access token URL (e.g. https://mystats.example.com?access-token=…).

Alternatives to GoatCounter

Clicky

Real-time, privacy-friendly web analytics with per-visitor tracking and heatmaps.

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Cloudflare Web Analytics

Free, privacy-first web analytics that tracks page views without cookies or fingerprinting.

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Fathom Analytics

Privacy-first, cookieless web analytics with a simple dashboard and forever data retention.

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Sources · 14 verified references

goatcounter.com arp242.net github.com gc.zgo.at

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