Head to head
Cloudflare Web Analytics vs Plausible Analytics
Free and shallow, or paid and decisive. Scored on ten weighted measures, with every price read on the same day.
Cloudflare Web Analytics
6.9/10
No. 9 of 30
Plausible Analytics
8.0/10
No. 2 of 30
If your site is already behind Cloudflare, switch its analytics on. It is free, cookieless, needs no consent banner, and on proxied sites it needs no client-side JavaScript at all because the edge already sees every request. It also reports genuine Core Web Vitals field data. There is no argument for not having it.
That is not the same as it being enough, and this comparison is really about where shallow stops being sufficient.
The verdict
Plausible, as the tool you make decisions with, while keeping Cloudflare's switched on underneath it.
Cloudflare Web Analytics reports pageviews, visits, referrers, paths, countries, browsers, devices and Core Web Vitals, and then it stops. There are no goals, no funnels, no events worth the name, no segmentation and no behaviour tooling. You cannot answer a conversion question with it. Export is limited and retention sits on Cloudflare's terms, so it is a baseline layer rather than a system of record.
Plausible adds goals, saved segments, automatic scroll-depth tracking, Search Console integration, campaign and channel grouping, a report for traffic arriving from AI tools, and funnels and an API on its Business tier. It is the difference between glancing at a number and acting on one.
The pairing is genuinely worth having rather than a compromise. Cloudflare measures at the edge, so it is immune to ad blockers, and the gap between its figure and a script-based tool's tells you what blocking is costing you.
Side by side
| Cloudflare Web Analytics | Plausible Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 6.9 / 10 | 8.0 / 10 |
| Rank on this list | No. 9 of 30 | No. 2 of 30 |
| From | Free for everyone | £9 per month |
| What that buys | Free whether or not your site is proxied through Cloudflare | 10,000 monthly pageviews, on a Starter tier |
| Free tier | The whole product is free | No, but the community edition is free to self-host |
| Cookies | None | None, so no consent banner |
| Script size | Small, or none at all if your site is proxied | About 1 KB |
| Hosting | Cloudflare | EU, on European-owned infrastructure |
| Trading since | 2020 | 2019 |
| Price | Free for everyone | £9/mo at 10k pageviews |
| Client-side script | None on Cloudflare-proxied sites | About 1 KB |
| Goals and conversions | Not offered | On every tier |
| Segments and saved reports | Not offered | On every tier |
| Funnels | Not offered | Business tier |
| Core Web Vitals field data | Yes, measured at the edge | Not offered |
| Export and retention | Limited, on Cloudflare's terms | CSV export; 3 to 5 years |
The ten measures, scored
| Measure | Cloudflare Web Analytics | Plausible Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Insight quality | 5 | 9 |
| Privacy architecture | 9 | 9 |
| Value for money | 10 | 8 |
| Setup and time to data | 9 | 9 |
| Script weight | 10 | 9 |
| Analytical depth | 3 | 7 |
| Behaviour tooling | 1 | 2 |
| Data ownership | 4 | 8 |
| Accuracy | 7 | 8 |
| Vendor conduct | 7 | 7 |
| Weighted overall | 6.9 | 8.0 |
Higher is better. The overall figure is the weighted mean, relative to the 30 tools on this list. How this works.
Which one should you pick
Choose Cloudflare Web Analytics if
Your site is on Cloudflare and you want a free, script-free baseline plus real Core Web Vitals. Switch it on regardless of what else you run.
Choose Plausible Analytics if
You need goals, segments and funnels, and a history that is yours and portable.
Common questions
Is Cloudflare Web Analytics good enough on its own?
Only for the simplest sites. It has no goals, no funnels, no events of substance and no segmentation, so any question about conversion is out of reach. It works best as a free baseline layer underneath a fuller tool.
Does Cloudflare Web Analytics need a script?
Not if your site is proxied through Cloudflare. In that mode measurement happens at the edge with no client-side JavaScript, which is the lightest possible option and immune to ad blockers.
Should I run both?
For a site on Cloudflare, yes. Use the free one as an edge-measured sanity check that blockers cannot remove, and Plausible for decisions. Where the two disagree, the gap measures what blocking is costing you.
Do both avoid the cookie banner?
Yes. Both are cookieless and store no personal identifiers, so neither needs consent for analytics purposes in the UK or EU.
Both entries above are desk reviews written from published evidence, and every judgement is my opinion rather than a statement of fact. Read the full reviews for Cloudflare Web Analytics and Plausible Analytics, or tell me where I have got something wrong.