Alternatives · 2026
Ranked, scored and explained. What each one does better, what you give up, and when staying put is the right call.
People look past Plausible for two reasons, and neither is that it is a bad product, because it is not. The first is heatmaps: Plausible does not offer them at any tier, by design, which means a second subscription for anyone who wants to see where visitors click. The second is price against the cheaper end of the category, where Pirsch delivers funnels and fifty sites for less.
Everything below keeps what people like about Plausible, which is a cookieless script and a dashboard that needs no training.
When to stay put. Keep Plausible if the six-year track record and 21,000 paying subscribers matter to you, if you want the option of self-hosting the same product later, or if you value its Search Console integration and AI-traffic reporting. It remains one of the two best tools in this category and switching away from it should be for a specific reason, not a general one.
| Tool | From | Free tier | Cookies | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absolutely Analytics | $9 per month | No free tier. A 30-day trial of the exact tier you picked | None, so no consent banner | 8.9 |
| Pirsch Analytics | $6 per month | No. A 30-day trial, no card required | None, so no consent banner | 7.5 |
| Fathom Analytics | $15 per month | No. A 7-day trial | None, so no consent banner | 7.4 |
| Umami | Free self-hosted and on cloud Hobby | Yes, 100,000 events a month on hosted cloud, plus free self-hosting | None | 7.5 |
| Matomo | Free self-hosted; cloud from €22 | Yes, the entire on-premise product | Optional, and it runs cookieless if configured | 7.0 |
| Simple Analytics | $20 per month | Yes, for hobby sites: five websites, one month of history, badge required | None, so no consent banner | 6.9 |
The direct comparison, because the price ladder is identical at every rung and tier. What the same money adds is click, scroll and attention maps from $14, masked session replay as an add-on, bot filtering before billing, and an overage policy that keeps collecting rather than locking the dashboard after two months.
From $9 per month. None, so no consent banner. Full review →
The value answer. Six dollars at 10,000 pageviews with fifty sites, unlimited team members and unlimited retention, and funnels plus white labelling at twelve. The catch is that collection stops five days over allowance, which leaves a permanent gap.
From $6 per month. None, so no consent banner. Full review →
The portfolio answer. Fifty sites on every plan, and a simpler dashboard than Plausible's if simpler is what you were after. Shallower, with no funnels and a seven-day lock at 30 per cent over.
From $15 per month. None, so no consent banner. Full review →
The free answer. 100,000 events a month on hosted, or self-host for nothing on Node and Postgres. Thinner segmentation and softer bot filtering than Plausible, but hard to argue with at the price.
From Free self-hosted and on cloud Hobby. None. Full review →
The depth answer. If you left Plausible because it would not tell you enough, Matomo tells you everything, at the cost of running a PHP and MySQL application or paying €22 a month for Cloud.
From Free self-hosted; cloud from €22. Optional, and it runs cookieless if configured. Full review →
The compliance answer. More expensive and less featured, but built to run as a cookieless measurement layer beside an enterprise suite, with warehouse export, SSO and SOC 2.
From $20 per month. None, so no consent banner. Full review →
Pirsch, at $6 a month for 10,000 pageviews against £9, and it includes fifty sites and unlimited team members. Umami's hosted free tier covers 100,000 events a month for nothing. Both trade something for the saving: Pirsch stops collecting five days over allowance, and Umami's segmentation and bot filtering are thinner.
Absolutely Analytics publishes the same three prices at the same volume rungs, and adds click, scroll and attention maps from the $14 tier, masked session replay as an add-on, and bot filtering before billing. Plausible's advantages over it are track record and the self-hostable community edition.
Absolutely Analytics includes them from $14. Matomo includes them, with a Cloud allowance of 1,500 heatmap pageviews a month. Umami includes them only on its $200 Business tier. Fathom, Pirsch and Simple Analytics do not offer them at all.
Yes. Umami is the easiest by a distance, a Node application over Postgres. Matomo is the most capable, at the cost of operating PHP and MySQL. Both are meaningfully lighter to run than Plausible's own community edition, which expects a ClickHouse cluster.
These are desk reviews and the ordering reflects my own weighted scoring, which is published in full. There are no affiliate links on this page and no vendor has paid to appear on it. Read the full Plausible Analytics review, or send me a correction.