Best website analytics tools in 2026, free and paid
Compare ten free and paid website analytics tools by price, traffic allowance, cookies and number of sites. They are grouped by need: simple traffic stats, a full suite, behaviour on the page, and several sites at once. Google Analytics is on the list too.
Not sure what you need yet? See estimated visits, countries and landing pages for any site, free.
TL;DR
- Free tools exist for every need here: Google Analytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, a Simple Analytics free plan, a Umami free plan, and self-hosted Matomo or Umami.
- Paid tools mostly start between $9 and $20 a month. Pick by what you need to see, not by the longest feature list.
- Prices and limits come from each vendor's own pages, linked at the end.
Stickybeak shows every site you own on one live wall and ties revenue to the channel it came from. It is in early access.
Get early accessSide-by-side comparison
Free option, starting price, cookies and number of sites for all ten tools, as each vendor's own pages state them. "Not stated" means the vendor's page does not say, not that the tool lacks it. For what the cookies column does and doesn't tell you, see privacy-friendly analytics.
| Tool | Free option | Paid, from | Cookies, in the vendor's words | Sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plausible | 30-day trial, no card | $9 a month, up to 10k pageviews | "No cookies, no persistent identifiers" | 1 on Starter; up to 3 on Growth, up to 10 on Business |
| Fathom | 7-day trial, card required; no free tier | $15 a month at 100k pageviews | "No cookies" | At least 50 on every plan |
| Simple Analytics | Free plan, one month of history, badge required | $20 a month at 100k pageviews | None used | 5 |
| Cloudflare Web Analytics | Available on all plans | Not applicable | Not stated | Not stated |
| Google Analytics 4 | "Free of charge" | Analytics 360, price not listed | Not stated | Not stated |
| Matomo | Free self-hosted edition; cloud trial, no card | €29 a month (Cloud, 50k hits) | Not stated | 30 on Cloud from €29 |
| Umami | Hobby plan, 100k events | $20 a month (Pro) | "Does not use cookies" | 1 free, up to 20 on Pro |
| PostHog | "Start free" | Check its pricing page | Not stated | Not stated |
| Microsoft Clarity | "Free service forever" | Not applicable | Manages cookies and consent via a Consent API | Not stated |
| Stickybeak (ours) | Free up to 10k pageviews; 30 days free, no card | $20 a month (Solo) | Three first-party cookies; privacy mode uses none | Every site you own, priced by pageviews |
For a longer look at the Google Analytics alternatives among these, with more on self-hosting and privacy, read Google Analytics alternatives.
Key takeaways
- Free is easy to find. Google Analytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics and Microsoft Clarity are free, and Simple Analytics and Umami list free plans with limits on data history or events.
- Simple paid tools start low. Plausible lists $9 a month, Fathom $15 a month at 100,000 pageviews and Simple Analytics $20 a month. Prices rise with traffic.
- Self-hosting is free in money, not in time. Matomo and Umami can both be run on your own server.
- Traffic and behaviour are different jobs. Counting visits, sources and top pages is one tool. Watching recordings and heatmaps, which PostHog and Clarity offer, is another.
- Several sites change the question. Check how many sites a plan includes and whether you can see them together.
The best website analytics tools in 2026
Ten tools in four groups. Each says what it is, what it costs and what to know before you pick it, using only what the vendor's own page states.
Simple traffic stats
1. Plausible, for short, privacy-minded reports. Its homepage says it is open source and lists a Starter plan at $9 a month for up to 10,000 monthly pageviews, with a 30-day free trial and no card needed. It says it uses "No cookies, no persistent identifiers, no cross-site or cross-device tracking" and is hosted in the EU. Best suited for: one or a few sites where you want visits, sources and top pages on one screen.
2. Fathom, for many sites on one plan. Its pricing page lists $15 a month at 100,000 monthly pageviews and $60 a month at 1,000,000, a 7-day free trial with a card required, and "at least 50 sites" on every plan. It says plainly that it has no free tier. Best suited for: an owner or agency with several small sites who is happy to pay from the start.
3. Simple Analytics, for a free plan with a short memory. Its pricing page lists a free plan for hobby sites with five websites, one user, one month of history and a required badge, and a paid Self-Serve plan starting at $20 a month at 100,000 pageviews (the fee changes with usage; two months free when billed yearly) with a 14-day trial and no card. It lists extra users at $20 a month each and says it uses no cookies. Best suited for: a hobby site, or anyone who wants to try paid features for two weeks first.
4. Cloudflare Web Analytics, for sites already on Cloudflare. Cloudflare's documentation describes it as privacy-first analytics "without changing DNS or using Cloudflare proxy" and lists it as available on all plans. That page does not state limits or cookie behaviour, so check those before relying on it. Best suited for: a site that already sits on Cloudflare and needs basic counts at no extra cost.
A full suite
5. Google Analytics 4, for Google's own reporting, free. Google's page says it is offered "free of charge", with Analytics 360 as a separate enterprise product whose price is not listed there. Google's help page for standard properties lists up to 14 months of user-level and event-level data retention for explorations and funnel reports (standard aggregated reports are unaffected) and a sampling limit of 10M events per Explore query. Whether you need a consent banner depends on your law (see whether Google Analytics is GDPR compliant). Cost questions are covered in Google Analytics pricing. Best suited for: anyone who runs ads or wants Google's own reporting without paying.
6. Matomo, for a suite you can host yourself. Its pricing page lists Matomo Cloud from €29 a month at 50,000 hits and 30 websites, two months free on annual billing and a free trial with no card. Self-hosted Community is free with unlimited users and hits, and you pay only for your own hosting. An optional Team bundle at €275 a month adds email support for up to 4 users and 5 million hits. Best suited for: someone who wants a full suite and wants the data on their own server, and can look after that server.
Behaviour and product analytics
7. Umami, for open source with a free plan. Its pricing page lists a free Hobby plan (100,000 events a month, one website, 6 months of data), Pro at $20 a month (1 million events, up to 20 websites, 2 years of data) and Business at $200 a month. It says it is open source and can be self-hosted for free. Best suited for: a developer who wants to own the tool or to start free on one site.
8. PostHog, for product teams. Its documentation describes web analytics as "a simple dashboard of the numbers every website team looks at", with session replays alongside, and its pricing page is headed "Start free, scale when you need". Our PostHog pricing guide has a calculator for the cost at your event volume, and PostHog's pricing page has the current prices. Best suited for: a team that wants traffic, replays and product analytics in one place.
9. Microsoft Clarity, for free recordings and heatmaps. Microsoft's documentation says "Clarity is a free service forever" and lists session recordings, heatmaps, funnels and a dashboard. It is a behavioural tool first. Best suited for: finding where visitors get stuck on a page, alongside a traffic tool.
Several sites and revenue
10. Stickybeak, for everyone on all your sites at once. It shows every site you own on one live wall and ties revenue to the channel, campaign or ?ref= code it came from. Its pricing page lists a free Side Project plan up to 10,000 pageviews a month, Solo at $20 a month up to 500,000 pageviews (revenue and the API start here) and Team at $200 a month, with 30 days free and no card. It is in early access with no launch date, and it does not claim to match every report in a full suite. Best suited for: an owner of several sites, some of them selling something, who wants one live screen. See real-time website analytics for what live reporting adds.
Which website analytics tool fits your use case
| Your situation | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One small site, no budget | Google Analytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics or a Simple Analytics free plan | All three are free to start; limits differ, so read them first. |
| One site, want short reports | Plausible, Fathom or Simple Analytics | Built to show visits, sources and top pages. |
| Run ads, want Google's reports | Google Analytics 4 | Free, with Google's own reporting. |
| Want the data on your own server | Matomo or Umami | Both can be self-hosted; you carry updates and backups. |
| Need to see where visitors get stuck | Microsoft Clarity or PostHog | Recordings and heatmaps show behaviour a traffic count cannot. |
| Several sites, some selling | Stickybeak, or a tool with a high site count such as Fathom | One live screen for every site, with revenue by channel. |
What a website analytics tool is, and what it is not
A website analytics tool counts the people who visit your site and shows where they came from, which pages they read, what device they used and, in some tools, which of them did something you care about, such as buying or signing up. You add one script or tag to your pages, and the tool turns what that script sees into reports.
It is not the same as a search tool. Google Search Console tells you how your site appeared in Google search before anyone clicked, and analytics tells you what happened after. Our guide to SEO and Google Analytics shows how to read the two together.
It is also not the same as a behaviour tool. A session recording replays what one visitor did on a page, and a heatmap adds up where visitors clicked and scrolled across many pageviews. A traffic tool counts the visits themselves. Some products do both: PostHog puts session replays beside its web analytics, and Clarity has a dashboard beside its recordings and heatmaps.
Finally, tools can define visitors and sessions differently, so their totals may differ. One counts a unique visitor by a cookie, another by a daily hash, and each draws the line between sessions in its own place (our bounce rate guide shows one example). Run any new tool beside your old one for a few weeks before you trust the difference. Ad blockers also hide a share of visitors from many tools. If you want to see what any site gets before you install anything, the free website traffic checker shows estimated visits and landing pages.
How we picked and compared these tools
We kept to criteria a buyer can check on a vendor's own pages:
- Free option: is there a free plan, and what limit does it carry?
- Price to start: the cheapest paid plan the vendor lists, with the traffic it covers.
- Privacy: what the vendor says about cookies, in its own words.
- Sites and users: how many websites a plan includes.
- The job it is built for: traffic stats, a full suite, behaviour or several sites.
We make Stickybeak, one of the ten, and applied the same criteria to it. Where a vendor's page does not state something, the table says so rather than guessing, and a missing mention is not proof that a tool lacks the feature. The tools are grouped by need, not ranked, because the right one depends on what you run.
How to choose, and how to switch
- Write down the three questions you ask most, such as "where do buyers come from?" Pick the tool that answers those on its first screen.
- Check the traffic you have. Prices rise with pageviews, so compare plans at your own volume, and at ten times it.
- Install it beside your current tool. Numbers will differ for the reasons above. If you are moving off Google, how to remove Google Analytics covers the tag and the property.
- Tag your links. Clean UTM parameters make any tool's channel report more useful.
- Watch for bots and AI visits. See bot traffic and referral traffic from AI tools.
Questions
What is the best website analytics tool?
There isn't one best tool. Google Analytics is free, Plausible, Fathom and Simple Analytics keep reports short, Matomo and Umami can be self-hosted, PostHog and Clarity watch behaviour, and Stickybeak puts several sites on one live screen. Pick by what you need to see.
What is the best free website analytics tool?
Google Analytics says it is free of charge, Microsoft says Clarity is free forever, and Cloudflare Web Analytics is available on all Cloudflare plans. Simple Analytics and Umami both list a free plan, with limits on data history or events.
Is Google Analytics still the best option?
It costs nothing and covers a lot. If you only want visits, sources and top pages, a simpler tool such as Plausible or Fathom may be enough. See our guide to Google Analytics alternatives.
Do I need a website analytics tool that does not use cookies?
It depends on your law and setup, not on a vendor's line. Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics and Umami say they use no cookies. Whether you need a consent banner is a question for your own adviser.
How much does website analytics cost?
From nothing to about $20 a month for most small sites. Plausible starts at $9 a month, Fathom is $15 a month at 100,000 pageviews, and Simple Analytics and Umami Pro are $20 a month. Prices rise with traffic.
Which website analytics tool is best for several websites?
Fathom says every plan includes at least 50 sites, Umami Pro allows up to 20 and Simple Analytics includes 5. Stickybeak shows every site you own on one live wall. Plausible and the rest also work across sites, so compare how each reports them together.
Sources, all checked on 23 October 2026: Plausible, plausible.io. Fathom, pricing. Simple Analytics, pricing. Cloudflare, Web Analytics documentation. Google, Google Analytics and standard property limits and data retention. Matomo, pricing. Umami, pricing. PostHog, pricing and web analytics docs. Microsoft, Clarity overview. Stickybeak, our pricing page. Vendors change their plans; if one has moved on, tell us and we will fix it.