Plausible Analytics
Open-source, privacy-first web analytics — a lightweight, cookieless Google Analytics alternative.
Overview
Plausible Analytics is open-source, privacy-first web analytics, positioned as a lightweight, cookieless alternative to Google Analytics. Founded in 2018, it sets no cookies and uses no persistent identifiers by default, relying only on a daily-rotating anonymous hash. Because it collects no personal data, it is GDPR compliant and needs no cookie consent banner. The tracking script is 1.2 KB compressed, and EU data residency is covered by storage in Falkenstein, Germany.
The product is open source under AGPLv3, and its Community Edition is free to self-host. Paid cloud plans start at $9/month for the Starter tier (10k pageviews, 1 site), with a 30-day free trial and no credit card required. It covers core analytics: a real-time dashboard, custom event and goal/conversion tracking, official GA4 import, email reports, public dashboard sharing, an official WordPress plugin, and CSV exports plus an Events API on all plans.
Best for
- Teams that want to drop the cookie consent banner: Plausible sets no cookies and collects no personal data by default, is GDPR compliant, and stores data in the EU.
- Performance-conscious sites: the tracking script is just 1.2 KB compressed, far lighter than typical analytics tags.
- Open-source and self-hosting advocates: the Community Edition is AGPLv3, officially supported for self-hosting, and free to run.
- Single-site owners moving off Google Analytics on a budget: cloud plans start at $9/mo for 10k pageviews, with official GA4 import and a 30-day no-card trial.
- WordPress site owners who want simple, embeddable reporting: there is an official WordPress plugin plus weekly and monthly email reports.
Less ideal for
- Teams needing on-page behavior analysis: Plausible does not offer heatmaps.
- Buyers wanting funnel analysis or revenue tracking on a low tier: both are gated to the Business plan at $19/mo and up.
- Anyone tracking several sites cheaply: the $9/mo Starter plan covers only 1 site, with Growth up to 3 and Business up to 10.
- Teams that need indefinite history: data retention is capped, with Starter and Growth keeping 3 years and no unlimited-retention option.
- Migrations off Universal Analytics or needs for programmatic stats and raw event export at entry tiers: only GA4 import is supported, and the Stats API and raw event-level export require Business or Enterprise.
Pricing
Analytics capabilities
Privacy & compliance
Data ownership & deployment
Platform & integrations
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Fathom Analytics Privacy-first, cookieless web analytics with a simple dashboard and forever data retention.
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