analytics.html

Pick your analytics — 15 options across the five categories that decide most picks

Your analytics tool decides whether you ship a cookie banner, whether your Lighthouse score survives the install, and whether your stakeholders can read the dashboard. Filter by privacy-first / product / open-source / platform / enterprise, plus pricing and self-host availability.

10 SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISONS →

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Showing 15 of 15

Umami

Open-source, self-hostable, cookieless. The free Plausible if you can run a Postgres.

  • CatOpen-source / self-host
  • PriceFree (self-host)
  • Script~2KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless Self-host
Read the take →

PostHog

Open-source product analytics. Mixpanel + LaunchDarkly + Hotjar in one self-hostable bundle.

  • CatProduct analytics
  • PriceFree / $0
  • Script~50KB
  • CookiesYes
Self-host
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Plausible Analytics

Privacy-first, cookieless web analytics. The honest GA4 alternative — 1KB script, EU-hosted.

  • CatPrivacy-first web
  • Price$9/mo
  • Script<1KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless Self-host
Read the take →

Matomo

The veteran open-source GA replacement. Heavyweight feature set, GDPR-compliant, self-hostable.

  • CatOpen-source / self-host
  • PriceFree (self-host)
  • Script~22KB
  • CookiesYes
Self-host
Read the take →

Counter.dev

Free, open-source, single-script analytics. The radical-simplicity option.

  • CatOpen-source / self-host
  • PriceFree
  • Script<1KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless Self-host
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Fathom Analytics

Privacy-first analytics from a tiny independent team. Plausible's closest US-hosted competitor.

  • CatPrivacy-first web
  • Price$15/mo
  • Script~25KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless
Read the take →

Simple Analytics

EU-hosted, no-cookies analytics. Even simpler than Plausible — pageviews and referrers only.

  • CatPrivacy-first web
  • Price$19/mo
  • Script~3KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless
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Mixpanel

The product-analytics original. Funnels, retention, cohorts — the toolkit every PM learned on.

  • CatProduct analytics
  • PriceFree / $20
  • Script~70KB
  • CookiesYes
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Amplitude

Enterprise product analytics. Mixpanel's biggest competitor — heavier, more enterprise-leaning.

  • CatProduct analytics
  • PriceFree / $49
  • Script~60KB
  • CookiesYes
Read the take →

Heap

Auto-capture product analytics. Tracks every click and event without manual instrumentation.

  • CatProduct analytics
  • PriceFree / contact
  • Script~80KB
  • CookiesYes
Read the take →

Google Analytics 4

Google's flagship analytics. Free at huge volume, deeply integrated with Ads — and a UX nightmare.

  • CatEnterprise / Google
  • PriceFree
  • Script~50KB
  • CookiesYes
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Cloudflare Web Analytics

Free, server-side analytics from Cloudflare. Cookieless, no JS option, generous limits.

  • CatPlatform-bundled
  • PriceFree
  • Script0KB (server-side)
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless
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Vercel Analytics

Vercel's bundled analytics. Privacy-first, framework-aware, a button-click to enable.

  • CatPlatform-bundled
  • PriceFree / bundled
  • Script<2KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless
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Pirsch

EU-hosted, server-side analytics. Cookieless, GDPR-friendly, written in Go.

  • CatPrivacy-first web
  • Price$6/mo
  • Script<1KB
  • CookiesNo
Cookieless
Read the take →

Tinybird

Build your own analytics on ClickHouse. The infra layer for custom user-facing analytics.

  • CatOpen-source / self-host
  • PriceFree / $25
  • ScriptBYO
  • CookiesYes
Read the take →

Picking analytics is the easy half — getting your team to use the dashboard is the hard one

Picking the analytics tool is the easy half. The hard half is making sure your team actually opens the dashboard, that the events you track tell you something useful, and that your privacy story is consistent with what the dashboard captures. The 30-min call is where you describe your stack and your goals; I tell you what fits.