Google Analytics alternatives in 2026: ten compared
The best Google Analytics alternative depends on what you run: Matomo or Umami if you want to host it yourself, Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics or Pirsch if you want a hosted tool that stays simple, Cloudflare Web Analytics, GoatCounter or a free plan from Umami or Simple Analytics if you want it free, PostHog if you want product analytics too, and Stickybeak if you own several sites.
TL;DR
- The real choice is between open source tools you can host yourself, hosted tools that keep it simple (several with a free plan), and tools built to watch several sites at once.
- Ten alternatives, Stickybeak included, from each vendor's own pages as of 23 October 2026.
Stickybeak shows every site you own on one live wall and ties revenue to the channel, campaign or ref code it came from. It is in early access. Free up to 10k pageviews a month, then $20 a month for Solo.
Get early accessThe short version
- Host it yourself: Matomo (Community edition, "Free forever") and Umami ("open-source and can be self-hosted for free"). GoatCounter and Plausible also publish their code.
- Hosted and simple: Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics and Pirsch. All four sell a hosted service; none lists a free plan except Simple Analytics, which does for hobby sites.
- Free and hosted for you: Cloudflare Web Analytics ("for free"), GoatCounter (free for reasonable public usage), Umami Cloud's Hobby plan (100K events a month, one website) and Simple Analytics' free plan for hobby sites.
- Product analytics as well: PostHog, whose free tier includes 1M analytics events a month.
- Several sites of your own, with revenue by channel: Stickybeak, which is free to 10k pageviews a month and covers every site you own on one price.
The list below is alphabetical, not a ranking. We make Stickybeak, so it sits in the list like the others and gets the same kind of entry. The right pick depends on what you run, and the last sections help you narrow it down.
What a Google Analytics alternative is, and what it isn't
A Google Analytics alternative is a tool that counts visitors, pages, sources and goals on your site without sending the data to Google. Some are cookieless (see privacy-friendly analytics for what that does and doesn't mean), some are open source, and some can be installed on your own server.
What they are not: a drop-in copy of GA4. Google says its tool is free of charge, works with Google Ads and Google Search Console, and offers "intuitive and flexible reporting". If you rely on those, an alternative will cover the everyday numbers (visitors, sources, top pages, goals) but not all of the rest. That is why it helps to write down what you actually use before you switch (see "Before you switch" below).
Side-by-side comparison
"Not stated" means the page we read did not say, not that the vendor lacks it. Stickybeak's row comes from our own pricing page and docs.
| Tool | Free option | Paid, as listed | Sites | Cookies, in the vendor's words | Data and self-hosting | Revenue and API |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Web Analytics | "for free" | No price listed for analytics | Not stated | "does not use any client-side state, such as cookies or localStorage" | Add a JavaScript beacon, or proxy the site through Cloudflare. Self-hosting not stated. | Not stated |
| Fathom | No free plan. "7-day free trial. Card required." | From $15 a month at the 100k pageview level on the page we read | "Every plan includes at least 50 sites" | "No cookie banners required" | EU data isolation mentioned. Self-hosting not stated. | "Event and revenue tracking"; analytics API |
| GoatCounter | "free for reasonable public usage" | No paid plans stated; donations via GitHub Sponsors | Not stated | Identifies visits without cookies | Open source; "self-host it for any purpose". Script adds about 3.5 KB. | JSON API; revenue not stated |
| Matomo | Cloud free trial, no card. Self-hosted Community edition "Free forever". | Cloud from €22 a month at 50k hits (€38 at 100k); self-hosted paid bundles from €275 a month | 30 websites on Cloud Business | Not stated on the pricing page | Cloud data "stored in Frankfurt, Germany"; self-host anywhere you run a server | eCommerce tracking in all plans; HTTP Analytics and Tracking APIs |
| Pirsch | "free 30-day trial with no credit card required" | Standard from $6 a month at 10k pageviews | 50 on Standard; unlimited on Plus | "Cookieless Tracking" offered | Hosted in Germany; on-premise on the Enterprise plan | E-commerce revenue and conversion goal tracking; RESTful API and SDKs |
| Plausible | "30-day free trial · No credit card required". Code is public; you can run it yourself. | Starter $9 a month (up to 10k pageviews), Growth $14, Business $19 | One on Starter, up to 3 on Growth, up to 10 on Business | "No cookies, no persistent identifiers, no cross-site or cross-device tracking" | "Made and hosted in the EU"; code is public | Ecommerce revenue attribution and Stats API on Business |
| PostHog | 1M analytics events a month free, every month, no card | Usage-based per product above the free allowance | Free plan includes one project; paid plans more | Not stated | Cloud in the US (Virginia) or EU (Frankfurt); an MIT-licensed open source product too | Not stated |
| Simple Analytics | Free plan for hobby sites: 5 websites, 1 month of history, badge required. 14-day trial, no card. | $20 a month on monthly billing at the 100k level; 2 months free yearly | 5 on the free plan | "No cookies, no consent banners, no personal data" | "Stored in the EU", primary infrastructure in the Netherlands. Self-hosting not stated. | API on Enterprise; revenue not stated |
| Stickybeak | Side project plan: free up to 10k pageviews a month. 30 days free on paid plans, no card. | Solo $20 a month (500k pageviews), Team $200 (10M), Agency $2,000 (100M) | Every plan covers every site you own | Standard mode: first-party cookies on your own domain. Privacy mode: none. | Hosted service, built on Cloudflare. Script under 4 KB compressed. | Revenue by channel and API from Solo up |
| Umami | Hobby plan $0: up to 100K events a month, 1 website, 6 months of retention. Self-host free. | Pro $20 a month (1 million events), Business $200 | 1 on Hobby, up to 20 on Pro, unlimited on Business | "Umami does not use cookies" | Cloud servers "in the US and EU"; open source | Revenue report on Hobby and up; API on Pro |
Check each vendor's pricing page at your monthly traffic level; included volumes differ. Whether you need to ask visitors for consent depends on your law and your setup, not on a vendor's line; for Google's own tool see whether Google Analytics is GDPR compliant.
The ten alternatives, one by one
Alphabetical. Each entry says who it suits and where it stops.
Cloudflare Web Analytics
Cloudflare calls it "Privacy-first, lightweight, accurate web analytics" and offers it "for free". It "does not use any client-side state, such as cookies or localStorage", and you add it with a JavaScript beacon or by proxying the site through Cloudflare, so a site doesn't have to be on Cloudflare. Where it stops: the page we read did not mention revenue tracking, an API, a site limit or data retention. Best suited for: anyone who wants basic traffic numbers for nothing and has no use for goals or sales.
Fathom
Fathom is hosted. Its pricing page says "Every plan includes at least 50 sites", with more in packs of 50 for "$10/month or $100/year", and lists "Event and revenue tracking" and an analytics API. Where it stops: there is no free plan ("Nope"), the trial is seven days with a card, and its pricing page doesn't mention self-hosting. Best suited for: an owner or agency with many small sites who wants a paid, hosted tool with no server work.
GoatCounter
GoatCounter is open source and says you can "self-host it for any purpose". The hosted service is "currently offered for free for reasonable public usage", the script adds about 3.5 KB, and there is a JSON API. Where it stops: the pages we read did not cover revenue tracking or paid plans, and it says sending "millions of pageviews/day" isn't what the free service is for. Best suited for: personal sites and small businesses that want a free hosted counter.
Matomo
Matomo comes as Cloud or self-hosted, with eCommerce tracking in every plan, HTTP Analytics and Tracking APIs, and a Cloud free trial with no card. Self-hosting the Community edition is "Free forever"; Cloud starts at €22 a month for 50k hits (€38 for 100k). Its Cloud data is "stored in Frankfurt, Germany", and self-hosters choose where it lives. Where it stops: self-hosting means you run the server, the updates and the backups, and the paid self-hosted bundles, which add plugins and email support, start at €275 a month (€230 a month billed yearly). Best suited for: people who want GA-style reports and control of where the data lives.
Pirsch
Pirsch is "Made and hosted ... in Germany", offers "Cookieless Tracking", e-commerce revenue and conversion goal tracking, and a RESTful API with SDKs. Standard starts at $6 a month at 10k pageviews and includes 50 websites, with a "free 30-day trial with no credit card required". Where it stops: the pricing page we read did not list prices at 100k or 1M pageviews, and on-premise hosting is on the Enterprise plan. Best suited for: small hosted setups across many sites at a low entry price.
Plausible
Plausible says its script is "54 times smaller than Google Analytics", uses "No cookies, no persistent identifiers, no cross-site or cross-device tracking", and is "Made and hosted in the EU". Plans run from $9 (Starter, up to 10k pageviews, one site) through $14 (up to 3 sites) to $19 (up to 10 sites), with a "30-day free trial · No credit card required". Ecommerce revenue attribution and the Stats API sit on Business. The code is public, and Plausible says you can "run it yourself if you want to". Where it stops: Cloud lists a trial rather than a free plan, and the site count and revenue features depend on the plan. Best suited for: one to a few sites where a clean, small dashboard matters more than depth.
PostHog
PostHog has a web analytics product and says "Start free, scale when you need". Its free tier includes 1M analytics events a month, renews every month and needs no card; above that, pricing is usage-based per product. Its cloud runs in the US (Virginia) or the EU (Frankfurt), and it also has an MIT-licensed open source product. Where it stops: the free plan covers one project, and on it events past the limit are dropped; the pricing page did not cover cookies or revenue tracking. Best suited for: teams who already use, or want, a product analytics tool and web stats in one place. See PostHog pricing explained for per-event prices and a cost calculator, or check its pricing page.
Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics says "No cookies, no consent banners, no personal data" and keeps website data "stored in the EU, with our primary infrastructure in the Netherlands". It has a free plan for hobby sites (5 websites, 1 month of history, with its badge) and a 14-day trial with no card; paid starts at $20 a month on monthly billing at the 100k level, with two months free on yearly. Where it stops: API and BI access are listed on Enterprise, and revenue tracking and self-hosting weren't stated on the page we read. Best suited for: a few sites that want a privacy-first dashboard and the option to start free.
Stickybeak
Stickybeak shows every site you own on one live wall, with a per-minute chart and top countries for each, and ties revenue to the channel, campaign or ?ref= code it came from. It installs with one script tag, under 4 KB compressed. Pricing is by pageviews from real people across all your sites: free up to 10k a month, Solo $20 for 500k, Team $200 for 10M and Agency $2,000 for 100M, each with 30 days free and no card. It is made by Mitch at Flindev in Australia, who runs 21 websites and built it for himself first. Where it stops: it is in early access; revenue and the API start on Solo; it doesn't try to match every report in a full analytics suite; and several planned features (Stripe, Lemon Squeezy and Polar connections, alerts, share links) are marked "On the way" on the pricing page. Best suited for: owners of several sites, some of them selling something, who want one live screen and a sales number tied to its source.
Two limits to know about. Any site can use the hosted script. Serving it from your own domain, which ad blockers stop less often, is available only to some workspaces and needs the domain on Stickybeak's Cloudflare account. And renewals and refunds aren't recorded yet. The Google Analytics alternative FAQ answers the common questions, and analytics for multiple websites explains how several sites sit in one workspace.
Umami
Umami says it "is open-source and can be self-hosted for free", and that it does not use cookies and needs "No cookie banners". Its cloud has a Hobby plan at $0 (up to 100K events a month, one website, six months of retention), Pro at $20 a month with 1 million events and up to 20 websites, and Business at $200 with unlimited websites. Revenue reports are included from Hobby up; API access starts on Pro. Where it stops: the free cloud plan covers one website, and its limits are counted in events rather than pageviews. Best suited for: developers who want open source and a free place to start, hosted or on their own server.
Which one fits your use case
| You are | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One personal site, no budget | Cloudflare Web Analytics, GoatCounter, Umami Hobby | Free on the vendors' own pages |
| Comfortable running a server | Matomo, Umami, GoatCounter | Self-hosting is documented and free; you carry updates and backups |
| One to three sites, no server work | Plausible, Simple Analytics, Pirsch | Hosted, with a trial or free plan |
| Fifty small client sites | Fathom, Pirsch | Both list 50 sites on the entry plan |
| Needs GA-style reports and a data location you pick | Matomo | Cloud in Frankfurt, or self-host where you choose |
| Product team | PostHog | Product analytics with a free tier |
| Several sites of your own, some selling | Stickybeak | One live wall and revenue by channel, on one price for all sites |
Weighing Matomo against Google directly? Matomo vs Google Analytics compares hosting, data and cost side by side. Staying on Google Analytics for client sites? Google Analytics for agencies and many sites covers accounts, properties and access.
How to choose
These are the questions that come up most when people compare these tools.
Self-hosted or hosted?
Self-hosting (Matomo, Umami, GoatCounter, Plausible's public code) costs no subscription and keeps the data on your own server, but you carry the install, updates, backups and uptime. A hosted tool costs a monthly fee and removes all of that. If you have never run a database, start hosted; you can move later. For Plausible specifically, our Plausible pricing guide sets out its plans at each pageview tier and what the free Community Edition leaves out.
What will it cost as traffic grows?
Prices rise with volume at Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics, Pirsch and Matomo Cloud, and with events at Umami and PostHog. Open the vendor's pricing slider at your own monthly pageviews, and at ten times that. Stickybeak counts pageviews from real people across all your sites and charges one flat price per plan, so the number to check is your total across every site.
Do I still need a consent banner?
Several vendors say their tools need no cookie banner. That is their claim about their tool; whether a banner is required depends on your country, your other scripts and what you collect. Ask a lawyer if it matters to you.
How do I move from GA4?
Your old history stays in Google Analytics; export what you need first. Run the new tool beside it for a few weeks, because tools define visits, sessions and bounces differently, and then remove the old tag.
Before you switch
- Write down what you actually use in Google Analytics today. Most people use a handful of reports.
- Keep your old data. Export what you need before you turn anything off.
- Run the new tool beside the old one for a few weeks. Numbers will differ, because tools define visits, sessions and bounces differently (see the bounce rate guide).
- Tag your links. Clean UTM parameters make any tool's channel report more useful, and our UTM builder keeps them tidy.
- Check how it treats bots and AI visits. See referral traffic from AI tools and AI crawlers.
On Wix, the built-in reports and the Google Analytics connection are covered in Wix analytics: what it shows and how to add more. For Squarespace, see Squarespace analytics: what it shows and how to add more.
When you're ready to turn Google Analytics off, how to remove Google Analytics covers the tag and the property. If the tag is loaded through Google Tag Manager, GTM vs Google Analytics explains which of the two to remove, and whether you still need the container for a replacement.
Questions
What is the best alternative to Google Analytics?
There isn't one best tool; it depends on what you run. To host it yourself, look at Matomo or Umami. For a hosted tool that stays simple, look at Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics or Pirsch. For free hosted analytics, look at Cloudflare Web Analytics or GoatCounter. For several sites on one live screen with revenue by channel, look at Stickybeak.
Is there a free alternative to Google Analytics?
Yes. Cloudflare Web Analytics says it is free, GoatCounter is free for reasonable public usage, Umami Cloud's Hobby plan is $0 for up to 100K events a month on one website, Simple Analytics has a free plan for hobby sites, PostHog's free tier includes 1M analytics events a month, Matomo and Umami can be self-hosted for free, and Stickybeak is free up to 10k pageviews a month. Fathom lists no free plan, and Plausible Cloud starts with a 30-day free trial.
Which alternatives work without cookies?
Plausible says 'No cookies, no persistent identifiers, no cross-site or cross-device tracking'. Simple Analytics says 'No cookies, no consent banners, no personal data'. Umami says it does not use cookies, Fathom says 'No cookie banners required', Cloudflare Web Analytics says it does not use cookies or localStorage, and GoatCounter says it identifies visits without cookies. In standard mode Stickybeak sets first-party cookies on your own domain; privacy mode sets none. Whether you need a consent banner depends on your law and setup.
Which is best for running many sites?
Fathom says every plan includes at least 50 sites, and Pirsch lists 50 websites on Standard. Umami Cloud Pro lists up to 20 websites and Plausible Business up to 10. Stickybeak prices by pageviews across all your sites and shows them on one live wall.
Can I self-host a Google Analytics alternative?
Yes. Matomo's Community edition is 'Free forever', Umami says it is open-source and can be self-hosted for free, GoatCounter says you can self-host it, Plausible says its code is public, and PostHog has an MIT-licensed open source product. Pirsch lists on-premise hosting on its Enterprise plan. Fathom's pricing page doesn't mention self-hosting, and Stickybeak is a hosted service.
Is Stickybeak a Google Analytics replacement?
It covers live visitors, sources, goals and revenue by channel for every site you own. It does not claim to match every report in a full analytics suite, so run it beside your current tool first.
Sources, all read on 23 October 2026: Google Analytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics, Fathom pricing, GoatCounter and its API docs, Matomo pricing, Pirsch pricing, Plausible, PostHog pricing, Simple Analytics pricing, Umami pricing. Stickybeak facts come from our pricing page, docs, about page and home page. Prices and plans are as listed on that date, in each vendor's own currency. Vendors change their pages; if one has moved on, tell us and we will fix it.