EN FR

Tag: Privacy first

All blog posts with this tag.

Piwik PRO kills its free plan: deadline extended to March 31, but the end is final

Piwik PRO kills its free plan: deadline extended to March 31, but the end is final

February 28, 2026 was supposed to be the deadline. Piwik PRO was ending its free Core plan, forcing users to either upgrade or find something else. Then, on March 3 -- three days after that date -- the company emailed its users with a one-month extension: the new deadline is March 31, 2026. The company cited the volume of users who had reached out asking for more time, and wanted to ensure everyone had a fair chance to preserve their data. One more month. But Piwik PRO is explicit: no further extensions will be granted. The Core plan is gone -- this extra time only changes the schedule, not the decision that needs to be made. For the tens of thousands of organisations that relied on this tool, the core message is unchanged: move to the Business plan at €35/month, or look elsewhere. The extension buys time; it changes nothing fundamental. This matters. Piwik PRO was one of the few analytics platforms to combine serious GDPR compliance, European hosting, and free access. Its Core plan represented a credible entry point into privacy-first analytics for SMEs, agencies, and independent developers -- without budget approval processes or finance negotiations. That door closes in a month. And it illustrates something many overlook: a freemium without a viable business model doesn't eliminate costs -- it defers them. What Piwik PRO offered for years without sustainable funding had to be paid for eventually. Now it is -- seven years late. This article covers what happened, why it matters, and which serious alternatives exist if your organisation was on the Core plan.What happened: the full timeline August 2025: the official announcement In August 2025, Piwik PRO announced a complete pricing overhaul. The free Core plan -- available since the platform's commercial launch -- would be discontinued. A new two-tier structure (Business and Enterprise) would apply to new accounts from August 4, 2025, and to existing Core accounts from December 2025. The stated rationale: delivering a unified platform combining analytics, tag management, consent management, and data activation. In practice, Piwik PRO decided to pivot toward a more complex, integrated offering that couldn't coexist with a freemium model. December 2025: forced migration In December 2025, all free Core accounts were transitioned to the Business plan. Existing users were offered transition discounts to soften the move. The underlying message was unchanged: the free tier is over. February 28, 2026: the first deadline February 28 arrived. Piwik PRO's website displayed a persistent banner: "Free Core plan ends February 28. Existing users must upgrade to Business or Enterprise plan before this date to preserve data and continue tracking." March 3, 2026: a one-month extension under pressure Three days later, Piwik PRO emailed Core users. User pressure had clearly played a role -- many had contacted the company saying they needed more time to complete their migration. The new deadline is March 31, 2026. Piwik PRO specifies this is the final deadline, with no further extensions. The scale: 28,000 organisations affected According to the same email, over 28,000 organisations had been using the free Core plan since its launch. That figure shows how widely adopted the plan had become -- and how significant the disruption is for a meaningful portion of Europe's analytics ecosystem. The fact that an extension was necessary confirms many hadn't anticipated the urgency.The economics of freemium: why this model always breaks Google Analytics created an impossible expectation Google Analytics being free is not generosity. It's a business model: you pay with your data and your visitors' data, which feeds one of the largest advertising ecosystems in the world. This implicit contract is documented, contested, and at the root of most analytics-related GDPR enforcement across Europe over the past several years -- from the French CNIL to the Austrian DSB, the Italian Garante, and the Irish DPC. But that free tier created a market expectation: analytics should be free. Every startup positioning itself as a "privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics" had to respond to that expectation -- by offering at least a freemium tier to lower the barrier to entry. Piwik PRO did. Plausible did it through its self-hostable open source model. Matomo still does with its self-hosted version. Piwik PRO chose a different game The decision to remove the free tier reflects a clear strategic repositioning. Piwik PRO is no longer pursuing SMEs with an accessible entry-level offer. It's targeting mid-to-large organisations in regulated sectors -- healthcare, finance, public sector -- that need a unified platform: analytics, tag management, consent, data activation. Analyst Brian Clifton, who joined Piwik PRO's advisory board in 2025, made this point clearly in his July 2025 analysis: only companies of the scale of Google, Microsoft, or Meta can sustainably fund a large-scale freemium model. Smaller vendors need to find their own path -- and that path often means abandoning free tiers. The real cost of the switch For an organisation on the Core plan, moving to Business means a minimum of €35/month, or €420/year. That's the entry price; the actual bill depends on the number of domains and data volumes involved. For a larger company, that's manageable. For a small NGO, a solo consultant, or a side project, it's a budget line that didn't exist before and now needs to be justified. And for organisations running multiple domains, the costs quickly exceed the entry tier.What Piwik PRO Core offered -- and what you'll need to rebuild What the Core plan actually delivered The free Core plan wasn't trivial. It included features that few free tools offered at this compliance level: European hosting (Elastx infrastructure in Sweden), integrated consent management, no advertising data resale, an included tag manager, and 500,000 monthly actions -- more than enough for most SME sites. It was, in short, enterprise-grade tooling at no cost. That paradox had a limit, and that limit has now been reached. What the Business plan adds Piwik PRO isn't just removing the free tier. The Business plan brings concrete improvements: data retention increases from 14 to 25 months. Dashboards, reports, configurations, and historical data all carry over intact during migration. EU-first hosting via Elastx in Sweden is guaranteed across all plans. For organisations that had already invested time in Piwik PRO configuration, migrating to Business may be rational -- budget permitting. Three paths forward If you were on the Core plan, you have three options before March 31: Option 1: migrate to the Business plan at €35/month. The simplest path if Piwik PRO meets your needs and the budget is there. Everything carries over. Data retention improves significantly. Option 2: switch to self-hosted Matomo. Matomo Analytics remains open source and free to self-host. You manage infrastructure, updates, and security yourself. Viable for technical teams, but the indirect cost in time and expertise is consistently underestimated. Option 3: adopt a lighter, simpler analytics tool. If you didn't actually need Piwik PRO's full feature set -- advanced tag management, CDP, data activation -- more accessible alternatives exist. This is where the frugal analytics market becomes relevant.A map of serious alternatives Plausible Analytics: accessible open source Plausible is European (Estonia-based), open source, and starts at €9/month for 10,000 page views. Its script weighs ~1 KB versus ~45 KB for GA4. It's cookieless by default -- meaning no consent banner required under most configurations, and a straightforward path to compliance under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive across European jurisdictions. Its limit: no native consent management or tag manager. If you relied on those features in Piwik PRO, you'll need to handle them separately. Fathom Analytics: simple and compliant Fathom, US-hosted with an EU option, starts at $15/month for 100,000 page views. Its positioning is explicitly around simplicity and compliance. No cookies, no fingerprinting. A solid option, though costs scale quickly with traffic volume. Simple Analytics: unlimited retention as a differentiator Simple Analytics (Netherlands-based) starts at $19/month for 100,000 datapoints with unlimited data retention. That last point is meaningful for organisations coming from Piwik PRO Core, where retention was capped at 14 months. If you care about multi-year trend analysis, this is a notable advantage. Pirsch Analytics: the budget-friendly German option Pirsch, based in Germany, starts at €5/month for 10,000 page views -- one of the lowest entry points for a European-hosted, privacy-first tool. Less well-known, but functionally sufficient for common use cases. Comparison tableTool Entry price Volume included EU hosting Cookieless by defaultPiwik PRO Business €35/month Variable (actions) Yes (Elastx/Azure) No (banner often required)Plausible €9/month 10k page views Yes YesFathom ~€14/month 100k page views Optional YesSimple Analytics ~€18/month 100k datapoints Yes (NL) YesPirsch €5/month 10k page views Yes (DE) YesMatomo self-hosted Infrastructure cost Unlimited Depends on host No (banner often required)The picture is clear. The end of Piwik PRO Core opens up a market segment. Organisations that never considered paying for analytics are now comparing options between €5 and €35/month -- and many will find that simpler, lighter, cheaper alternatives cover their actual needs. Our comparison of Google Analytics, Matomo, and frugal analytics goes deeper if you want a more thorough evaluation.What this episode reveals about the analytics market Unsustainable freemium: a model that always breaks Piwik PRO Core's end isn't an accident. It's the logical conclusion of a specific business model: large-scale freemium without sustainable funding, where free access serves as an acquisition lever without a clear path to profitability. Two very different forms of "free" are worth distinguishing here. The first is data-funded free: Google Analytics can afford to be free because your visitors' data fuels an advertising ecosystem worth hundreds of billions of dollars. That implicit contract is documented, challenged, and the root cause of most analytics-related GDPR enforcement by European data protection authorities -- including decisions by the CNIL (France), DSB (Austria), Garante (Italy), and others under both GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive. Our guide on GDPR-compliant analytics and consent exemptions covers the regulatory landscape in detail. The second is structured free: a deliberately limited free tier, backed by a transparent business model where monetisation is explicit -- on volume, on team features, on complementary services. This approach is honest and viable; it respects users because it doesn't trap them. Piwik PRO Core belonged to neither category. It was a generous free plan -- no meaningful volume constraints, no obvious conversion lever -- funded by investors hoping to convert users to Enterprise eventually. When that funding reaches its limit, forced migration is inevitable. Small organisations take the biggest hit Piwik PRO's decision hits smaller organisations hardest. A large enterprise on an Enterprise plan is unaffected by the end of Core. A cultural association, a five-person consultancy, or an independent e-commerce operator who installed Piwik PRO because it was "free and GDPR-compliant" now faces a choice they hadn't planned for. This is exactly what frugal analytics is designed to address: simple tools, honest business models, calibrated for real needs rather than for features 90% of users will never touch. Our article on 5 essential KPIs for a frugal analytics dashboard illustrates what "measuring what matters" looks like in practice. A signal for the whole ecosystem Piwik PRO Core's end sends a clear signal: large-scale freemium without a coherent business model isn't a durable strategy. The privacy-first analytics tools that will survive and grow are those that build transparent business models with honest value propositions -- not those that use free access as an acquisition mechanism before forcibly repricing. For users, this means one question is worth asking before adopting any tool: how is it funded if I'm not paying? A limited free tier backed by explicit, coherent monetisation is structurally reliable. A generous freemium with no visible path to profitability is not.What to do before March 31 Export your historical data now. Before anything else, recover your data even if you haven't decided on your next tool. Piwik PRO offers CSV exports from the dashboard. Don't lose what you've built. Audit your actual usage. Did you actually use the tag manager, CDP, and integrated consent management? Or mainly core metrics -- visits, page views, traffic sources, conversions? If it's the latter, significantly simpler and cheaper alternatives will cover your needs. Compare total cost of ownership, not just entry price. A €9/month tool you understand and actually use is worth more than a €35/month tool where you're using 10% of the features. Factor in configuration time, learning curve, and ongoing maintenance. Review your compliance posture. This transition is also a prompt to reassess your analytics setup against GDPR and ePrivacy requirements. Our 10-point GDPR analytics checklist lets you quickly identify whether your new configuration is compliant -- or needs adjustment.Conclusion Piwik PRO's extension to March 31, 2026 gives organisations that weren't ready a useful window. But it doesn't change what needs to happen: the free Core plan is ending, and the decision needs to be made in the next four weeks. This is also an opportunity. After years of using a tool "because it was free," this disruption forces a straightforward question: what do I actually need to run my business? The answer is often more modest than Piwik PRO -- or GA4 -- led you to believe. The underlying issue deserves a dedicated exploration. In an upcoming article, we'll examine what a genuinely ethical analytics model looks like: basic analytics accessible for free, monetisation tied to growth and team usage, no data exploitation, no pricing traps. If that approach resonates and you're looking for a simple, privacy-first tool with an honest business model, you can join the Pomelo Analytics waitlist.FAQ What is the new deadline for Piwik PRO Core users? Piwik PRO announced on March 3, 2026 a one-month extension of its original February 28 deadline. The new final deadline is March 31, 2026. The company has explicitly stated that no further extensions will be granted. Why did Piwik PRO remove its free plan? Piwik PRO cited the goal of delivering a unified platform combining analytics, tag management, consent management, and data activation. In practice, the freemium model was incompatible with the platform's upmarket pivot. The company now targets mid-to-large organisations in regulated industries, where enterprise pricing is more appropriate. Was the Piwik PRO Core plan genuinely GDPR-compliant out of the box? Not automatically. Piwik PRO Core could be configured for GDPR compliance, but required careful setup. The platform uses cookies, meaning a consent banner was typically required. Compliance depended on how the integrated consent manager was configured by each account administrator. What serious free alternatives exist to replace Piwik PRO? The only genuinely serious free alternative is self-hosted Matomo Analytics. It's free as software but requires hosting and technical maintenance. For organisations without in-house technical expertise, low-cost paid alternatives -- Plausible at €9/month, Pirsch at €5/month -- offer a better cost/simplicity balance than a poorly maintained Matomo installation. Could this happen with other privacy-first analytics tools? Yes, but the distinction matters. The risk is highest for tools offering generous free tiers without sustainable funding -- like Piwik PRO Core. A deliberately limited free tier, backed by transparent monetisation (volume, team features, advanced capabilities), is structurally stable. The question to ask isn't "is there a free plan?" but "how is this tool funded if I'm not paying?" Business model transparency is a selection criterion in its own right.SourcesPiwik PRO, "Here's our new pricing structure", August 2025 (https://piwik.pro/blog/new-pricing-structure/) Piwik PRO Community, "Will the free Piwik Pro remain active after February 2026?", August 2025 (https://community.piwik.pro/t/will-the-free-piwik-pro-remain-active-after-february-2026/5300) Brian Clifton, "Piwik PRO Ends Freemium: My Take", July 2025 (https://brianclifton.com/blog/2025/07/03/piwik-pro-ends-freemium-my-take/) R-bloggers / rstats-tips.net, "Piwik Pro doesn't offer a free plan anymore", September 2025 (https://www.r-bloggers.com/2025/09/piwik-pro-doesnt-offer-a-free-plan-anymore/) Piwik PRO, "Business Plan" official page (https://piwik.pro/business-plan/) European Alternatives, Piwik PRO listing (https://european-alternatives.eu/product/piwik-pro) Piwik PRO, email to Core users announcing the deadline extension, March 3, 2026

Plausible vs Fathom vs Simple Analytics: the 2026 privacy-first analytics comparison

Plausible vs Fathom vs Simple Analytics: the 2026 privacy-first analytics comparison

You have decided to leave Google Analytics behind. You understand that "free" comes at a real cost, that GA4's complexity exceeds your actual needs, and that GDPR compliance deserves more than a poorly configured cookie banner. Good. You are part of a fast-growing movement. Now comes the hard part: among the privacy-first alternatives, which one actually fits your situation? Three names keep coming up: Plausible, Fathom and Simple Analytics. They are the most cited, most mature and most credible options in the "frugal analytics" segment. But their differences, often invisible in marketing copy, have very real consequences on your bill, your compliance posture and your daily workflow. This comparison does not aim to crown a universal winner. It provides the factual elements you need to make an informed choice. We verified pricing on official pages, documented actual features, and added two outsiders often overlooked in these discussions: Pirsch and Umami. What these three solutions share Before diving into differences, let us establish common ground. Plausible, Fathom and Simple Analytics share a foundation that radically separates them from Google Analytics: None of them use cookies by default. They do not build advertising profiles. Their scripts weigh less than 5 KB (compared to roughly 45 KB for GA4, according to HTTP Archive measurements). They display all essential metrics on a single page, with no nested menus and no training required. On the legal front, all three claim GDPR compliance without a cookie banner. In practice, the strength of that claim varies, and that is one of the points we will detail below. Finally, all three are independent companies with no major venture capital, funded by their subscriptions. That is a strong signal of long-term sustainability. Real pricing, compared side by side The entry price does not tell the full story. What matters is the cost at comparable volume. Here are the rates verified on each solution's official page as of February 2026. Monthly pricing grid (USD, monthly billing)Monthly volume Plausible (Starter) Fathom Simple Analytics (Simple)10,000 pageviews $9 $15 $15100,000 pageviews $9 (same tier) $15 ~$19200,000 pageviews $14 (Growth) $25 ~$29500,000 pageviews ~$19 (Business) $45 ~$491,000,000 pageviews Custom $60 CustomSources: plausible.io/pricing, usefathom.com/pricing, simpleanalytics.com/pricing. Rates verified February 2026. Key takeaways: Plausible is the cheapest option at low volume ($9/month for 10k pageviews). But pricing rises quickly: the Growth plan at $14 and the Business plan at $19 unlock additional features (more sites, team access, funnels). Fathom offers a single feature set across all tiers, with pricing based solely on pageview volume, starting at $15/month. No free plan. No discounts. Their stated philosophy: the same price for everyone, no promotions ever. Simple Analytics offers a free plan (limited to 30 days of history) and a Simple plan at $15/month. The Team plan ($40/month) adds collaboration and API access. Their billing adjusts automatically based on the three-month rolling average of your traffic. Two outsiders worth knowing Pirsch (based in Germany) offers one of the lowest entry prices on the market: $6/month for 10,000 pageviews, $10/month for 100,000 pageviews. It includes white-labelling and up to 50 domains. Source: pirsch.io/pricing. Umami is open source and fully self-hostable at no cost. It is the only solution in this comparison with zero licensing fees, provided you manage hosting yourself. For those who prefer a managed service, Umami Cloud starts at $9/month. Source: umami.is. Data hosting and location This is the critical point for GDPR compliance. The question is not just "where are the servers?" but "who operates the infrastructure and under which jurisdiction?"Solution Data location Infrastructure Legal entityPlausible European Union (Hetzner, Germany) Owned by European companies Plausible Insights OÜ (Estonia)Fathom Servers in Germany (via AWS EU) Amazon Web Services Conva Ventures Inc. (Canada)Simple Analytics Netherlands European-owned servers Simple Analytics B.V. (Netherlands)Pirsch Germany German servers Emvi Software GmbH (Germany)Umami (Cloud) Variable by plan Vercel/Cloud Umami Software Inc. (USA)Plausible emphasises that its entire infrastructure is operated by European companies. As of early 2026, they report over 16,000 paying subscribers, including 600+ enterprise accounts. Source: plausible.io/enterprise-web-analytics. Fathom uses AWS in the EU region (Frankfurt), but the legal entity is Canadian. Canada benefits from an adequacy decision by the European Commission, which simplifies data transfers. However, for organisations with strict data sovereignty requirements, this is not equivalent to a fully European entity. Simple Analytics is the most explicit about data location: data exclusively in the Netherlands, proprietary servers, no US-based subprocessors. This is the strongest argument for organisations subject to strict sovereignty policies. Pirsch, based and hosted in Germany, offers a comparable alternative in terms of European data localisation. The privacy question All three solutions call themselves "privacy-first". But the technical details matter. Plausible uses a hash of the visitor's IP address combined with the User-Agent and a daily salt to identify unique visitors. The raw IP address is never stored. The hash is renewed daily, which prevents long-term tracking. This is a form of pseudonymisation. Fathom uses a similar hashing approach but adds a routing layer through what they call "unique signatures". Like Plausible, the raw IP is not retained. Simple Analytics stands apart by claiming to collect no personal data whatsoever, including in hashed form. No IP hash, no User-Agent recorded. Their unique visitor counting relies on a different mechanism based on referrers and URLs. This is the most radical approach to data minimisation. This difference has a direct consequence: Simple Analytics can legitimately claim not to process personal data within the meaning of the GDPR, which strengthens the case for consent exemption. For Plausible and Fathom, the question is more nuanced: a hashed IP, even if non-reversible, could be considered pseudonymised data. In practice, data protection authorities (including the CNIL in France and the ICO in the UK) tend to accept these approaches if they meet exemption criteria (no cross-referencing, limited retention, strictly statistical purpose). For more on consent exemption conditions, see our dedicated article: Audience measurement, GDPR and cookie banner exemption. Features: what each one does (and does not do) All these solutions have chosen simplicity. But "simple" does not mean identical. Here are the differences that matter in daily use. Feature comparison tableFeature Plausible Fathom Simple AnalyticsSingle-page dashboard Yes Yes YesCustom events Yes Yes YesGoals / Conversions Yes (advanced funnels) Yes YesMulti-step funnels Yes (Business plan) No NoGoogle Search Console integration Yes No NoE-commerce tracking (revenue) Yes (Business plan) Yes NoGA4 data import Yes Yes NoExport API Yes Yes Yes (Team plan)Email reports Yes Yes YesDashboard sharing Yes (public/private link) Yes (shareable link) YesMulti-site 1 (Starter) / 3+ (Growth) 50 included 5 (Free) / 10+ (Simple)Team members 1 (Starter) / 3 (Growth) 1 (base plan) 1 (Simple) / 2+ (Team)Data retention 3-5 years by plan Unlimited 30 days (Free) / 3-5 yearsOpen source Yes (Community Edition) No NoSelf-hosting Yes (CE, reduced features) No NoWhite-label No (except Enterprise) No NoKey highlights: Plausible is the most feature-rich of the three. The Google Search Console integration is a significant advantage for SEO: it lets you see search queries directly in the analytics dashboard, without switching tools. Multi-step funnels (Business plan) bring it closer to more advanced tools. And being open source reassures organisations that want to audit the code. Fathom stands out with its unlimited data retention policy and the inclusion of 50 sites from the base plan. For a freelancer or agency managing many low-traffic sites, this is a real economic advantage. Their infrastructure is built for scale: they claim to handle sites with one billion pageviews per month. Simple Analytics bets everything on simplicity and absolute privacy. Their "Mini Websites" feature lets you see the exact pages that referred your site (for example, a specific tweet), which other solutions do not offer. Their built-in AI tool lets you query your analytics in natural language. Script weight and performance impact For a website, every kilobyte of JavaScript affects loading time and Core Web Vitals. This is a criterion that should not be overlooked, especially if SEO is a priority.Solution Script weight Estimated impactPlausible < 1 KB NegligibleFathom ~2 KB NegligibleSimple Analytics ~6 KB Very lowPirsch < 1 KB (or server-side) Negligible to zeroGoogle Analytics (GA4) ~45 KB Measurable (LCP, FID)All solutions in this comparison have a negligible performance impact, especially compared to GA4. The advantage goes to Plausible and Pirsch, whose scripts are lightest. Pirsch also offers server-side integration (via API or SDK), which eliminates client-side JavaScript entirely. To understand in detail why analytics script weight matters for SEO, see our article: Myth: you need Google Analytics for SEO. Which tool for which profile? Rather than declaring a winner, here is a decision guide by real-world situation. You are an indie developer or maker with a SaaS You manage one or two projects, traffic is moderate (< 100k pageviews/month), and you want a tool that installs in 30 seconds. Best pick: Plausible (Starter at $9/month) for the best value at the first tier, open source, and Search Console integration. Alternative: Pirsch ($6/month) if budget is very tight, or Umami (free) if you are comfortable with self-hosting. You are a freelancer or agency managing 10-30 client sites Volume per site is low, but the number of sites is high. You need separate dashboards and simple reporting. Best pick: Fathom ($15/month, 50 sites included). No competitor includes as many sites in the base plan. Unlimited data retention means you never lose client history. Alternative: Pirsch, which also offers 50 domains from the first plan. You are an SME with strict compliance obligations (DPO, processing register) The question is not price but demonstrating compliance to your DPO or supervisory authority. Best pick: Simple Analytics, for the "zero personal data" argument. This is the easiest position to defend in a data processing register. Alternative: Plausible, whose 100% European hosting on European-owned infrastructure (not AWS) strengthens the sovereignty case. You are an organisation that needs funnels, e-commerce tracking or advanced analysis You have outgrown a minimalist dashboard. You need multi-step conversion tracking. Best pick: Plausible (Business plan). It is the only solution in this comparison that offers advanced funnels and e-commerce revenue tracking while staying within the privacy-first paradigm. For a broader view including GA4 and Matomo, see our general comparison: Google Analytics, Matomo and frugal analytics: a 2026 guide to choosing. Total cost: beyond the sticker price The monthly fee is only part of the equation. Here are the hidden costs (or avoided costs) to factor into your calculation. Costs avoided compared to GA4: no training required (GA4 often requires days of training), no consultant for configuration, no Consent Management Platform to maintain if you qualify for the consent exemption, no legal risk from data transfers to the United States. Migration cost: Plausible and Fathom let you import Google Analytics history. Simple Analytics does not. If historical continuity matters to you, this is a consideration. Self-hosting cost (Plausible CE, Umami): free in licensing, but factor in maintenance time, updates, and server cost (roughly $5 to $20/month for a VPS depending on volume). And Plausible Community Edition does not include all cloud features (funnels, e-commerce, Sites API). To go deeper on the real cost of analytics, our article on data obesity explains the economic consequences of over-collection: Data obesity: why your SME does not need Big Data. Final summary tableCriterion Plausible Fathom Simple Analytics PirschEntry price $9/month $15/month Free (limited) $6/monthEntry volume 10k pvs 100k pvs Unlimited (Free) 10k pvsSites included 1-10+ 50 5-20+ 50Data location EU (Hetzner) EU (AWS Frankfurt) Netherlands GermanyLegal entity Estonia (EU) Canada Netherlands (EU) Germany (EU)IP hash Yes (daily) Yes No YesOpen source Yes (CE) No No Yes (partial)Retention 3-5 years Unlimited 30d - 5 years UnspecifiedGA4 import Yes Yes No YesFunnels Yes (Business) No No Yes (basic)GSC integration Yes No No YesScript < 1 KB ~2 KB ~6 KB < 1 KBFAQ Plausible, Fathom or Simple Analytics: which is cheapest? It depends on volume. For under 10,000 pageviews per month, Pirsch is cheapest ($6/month). Among the three main solutions, Plausible is most affordable at low volume ($9/month for 10k pvs). At 100,000 pageviews, Plausible and Fathom converge around $15/month. Beyond that, Plausible generally remains cheaper, but its features are spread across multiple plans (Starter, Growth, Business). Is Plausible truly GDPR compliant without a cookie banner? Plausible is designed to work without cookies. Their identification method uses a daily-rotated IP hash, with no raw address stored. Under the criteria set by the CNIL for consent exemption (and similar guidance from the ICO and other European DPAs), this approach is accepted when strictly limited to audience measurement with no cross-referencing with other processing. However, the "personal data" status of an IP hash is subject to ongoing legal debate. The prudent approach is to consult your DPO and document your analysis in your processing register. Is Fathom a good fit for agencies managing many client sites? Yes, this is one of its strongest points. Fathom includes up to 50 sites in every plan, with separate dashboards. Unlimited data retention and automated email reports make it well suited for multi-client management. However, Fathom does not offer white-labelling or per-user permission management on the standard plan. What is the difference between Plausible Cloud and Plausible Community Edition? Plausible Cloud is the hosted, managed service run by the Plausible team (from $9/month). Plausible Community Edition (CE) is the open-source version, self-hostable for free. But CE does not include all cloud features: marketing funnels, e-commerce revenue tracking and the Sites API are excluded. CE is suited for developers who want basic analytics on their own server. Are there solutions even cheaper than these three? Yes. Umami is entirely free to self-host (open source, MIT licence). Pirsch starts at $6/month. And for very small sites, Simple Analytics offers a free plan with 30 days of retention. Beyond these options, it is also worth considering that "cheapest" is not always most economical: ease of installation, infrastructure reliability and company sustainability have real value. A tool that disappears or locks your dashboard when you exceed your quota costs more than a slightly higher subscription.Last updated: February 2026. Pricing and features verified on official solution websites. This article will be updated at minimum every six months.