Web analytics tools count visitors, sources and conversions on a website, and in this market the price depends on what is metered: pageviews, events, hits or sessions.
This guide ranks twelve products on first-ninety-day effort, the real price once needed features are added, how data leaves, whether you can run without a partner, and who each suits.
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vendor. How that works.
In short
What web analytics software does
Web analytics software measures how visitors reach and use a website, reporting traffic, sources, pages and conversions, and increasingly adds event tracking, session replay and consent handling.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each web analytics tool is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Large organisations with dedicated analysts and an implementation team to run it
Small sites wanting a script tag and a one-page dashboard
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Single-page analytics from an Estonian company with public code
Ranked #1 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Open sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingEurope
In the first ninety days the work is small: one script tag, a one-page dashboard and a Google Analytics import. The real price depends on which tier holds the features you use, because Starter allows one site and three years of data, Growth three sites, and only Business adds funnels, custom properties and the Stats API.
Pageview growth moves you between tiers. Leaving is less risky because the code is public and a self-run edition exists, with fewer features.
What stands out
Open source
Self-host option
Pageview tiers
Where it costs you
Funnels and ecommerce revenue attribution appear only on the Business tier
The self-run Community Edition lacks funnels, user journeys, ecommerce revenue goals, SSO and the sites API
Right for
Marketing teams and small sites wanting a one-page traffic report without a consent banner
Wrong for
Teams needing session replay, heatmaps or per-user product analysis
EstoniaPublished tiers by monthly pageviews; 30-day trial; cloud or community edition
Open code web analytics you can run yourself or rent in Frankfurt
Ranked #2 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Open sourceSelf-hostablePublished pricingAsia-Pacific
Matomo is the one product here where the first-ninety-day choice is architectural: rent Cloud in Frankfurt or install the GPL code on your own server.
Cloud includes hosting, updates and backups and prices by monthly hits; On-Premise is free to download but features sit in bundles from Team upward, each limited by users and hits. Leaving works in both directions, because the vendor says it can import On-Premise data into Cloud or export Cloud data for On-Premise use.
What stands out
Open source
Cloud or on-premise
No data sampling
Where it costs you
Funnels, heatmaps and session recordings are paid plugins or bundles on On-Premise
Each On-Premise bundle caps users and monthly hits, so growth moves you to the next bundle
Right for
Teams that want full data ownership and a choice between hosting and renting
Wrong for
Buyers who want one flat price without plugin bundles
New ZealandCloud tiers by monthly hits, published; On-Premise core is free, bundles paid
One feature set for every plan, priced only by monthly pageviews
Ranked #3 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Pricing here is the simplest in the group: one feature set, a pageview ladder and 50 sites included, with extra packs of 50 sites at a monthly price. The first ninety days cost little time because the trial can run beside your current tool.
Watch the meter: events share the pageview allowance, and a sustained overage leads to an email and later a pause of dashboard and API access. The vendor says you can export your data before cancelling.
What stands out
Same features on all plans
50 sites included
EU data isolation
Where it costs you
Custom events and API events share the same pageview allowance
Anonymised data is stored on US servers after EU routing
Right for
Agencies and publishers running many small sites on one allowance
Wrong for
Teams that dislike entering a card to start a trial
CanadaPublished tiers by monthly pageviews; 7-day trial with a card
Three-person Dutch analytics team that keeps data in the Netherlands
Ranked #4 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingEurope
Setup is short, since the dashboard is one page and the vendor lists no configuration beyond the script. The real price is traffic plus seats: the entry plan includes one user, each extra user adds a monthly fee, and the pageview count is averaged over previous months.
Enterprise needs a call. The 30-day proof of concept runs beside GA4, which tests the vendor's claim that GA4 misses visitors who reject consent.
What stands out
Free plan
Dutch hosting
Per-user seats
Where it costs you
The free plan keeps one month of history and requires a badge
Each extra user costs a further monthly fee
Right for
Small teams that want a published price and Dutch hosting
Wrong for
Larger teams that need many seats without per-user charges
NetherlandsFree plan for hobby sites; paid by pageviews, published; 14-day trial
MIT-licensed analytics with a usage-priced cloud and a free hobby tier
Ranked #5 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierOpen sourcePublished pricingNorth America
The first ninety days are cheap in hours: one tracker script, or an install from the MIT-licensed code if you accept the server work. Cost climbs on the meter, because every pageview, custom event and stored event property counts, and each is billed per event past the allowance.
Retention stretches from six months on Hobby to two years on Pro and five on Business. The vendor says Umami Cloud data can be exported through the API or dashboard.
What stands out
Open source
Event-based billing
Cloud or own server
Where it costs you
Session replays, heatmaps and white-labelling sit only on the Business plan
Stored event properties count as extra events against the allowance
Right for
Developers and small teams happy with event-based billing, cloud or own server
Wrong for
Buyers who need SSO or an uptime guarantee below Enterprise
United StatesFree hobby plan; Pro and Business billed monthly by events, published
Analytics suite with a consent manager, hosted in Sweden or private cloud
Ranked #6 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Piwik PRO answers the procurement question first: the data can live in EU data centres or a private cloud, consent is handled as a first-class concept, and the analytics, tag manager, consent and Data Activation modules share one collection layer.
For public bodies, banks and healthcare that is often decisive. Judged purely as a customer data platform it is modest, with simpler profile unification and a Business plan that caps Data Activation at 300 profiles a month, and you will be paying for analytics you may already have elsewhere.
What stands out
Consent manager included
Sweden hosting
Action-based meter
Where it costs you
Many destinations run through webhooks and automation tools
Identity resolution is lighter than the enterprise products
Right for
European organisations where consent and hosting location drive the decision
Wrong for
Consumer brands needing deep identity matching and many destinations
PolandPublished Business and Enterprise tiers; 30-day trial without a card
Product analytics with replay and flags, free until you add a card
Ranked #7 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
The first ninety days depend on scope: pageview analytics alone is quick, while replay, flags and experiments each add decisions. The pricing page lists a monthly free allowance for every product and a billing limit per product that you can set, so cost is capped by choice.
Paid use lifts projects from one to six and retention from one year to seven. EU Cloud runs in Frankfurt. The vendor's docs say self-managed deployments are unsupported.
What stands out
Free tier
Per-product billing
MIT-licensed code
Where it costs you
Each product is metered on its own, so the invoice has many lines
The free plan limits you to one project and one year of data
Right for
Product and engineering teams who want analytics, replay and flags in one tool
Wrong for
Marketers who want a single-page traffic report with no setup
United StatesFree tier every month; pay as you go per product once a card is added
Event-based product analytics with a free plan and EU data residency
Ranked #8 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
Expect engineering time for setup, because the product is built around tracked events, though Mixpanel lists web analytics among its reports. The meter is events: 1M on the free plan, up to 20M on Growth.
Saved reports are limited to 5 per seat on Free and unlimited above. EU data residency must be chosen when a project is created and sends calls to EU endpoints. Session replay, heatmaps, experiments and flags come with each plan under their own caps.
What stands out
Free plan
EU data residency
Unlimited seats
Where it costs you
Web traffic is one report type inside a product-analytics tool, not its main view
Growth stops at 20M events a month, then a quote is needed
Right for
Product teams measuring funnels and retention across web and mobile apps
Wrong for
Site owners who just want pageviews and referrers on one page
Not stated by the vendorFree plan up to 1M events; Growth by event volume; Enterprise by quote
Event-based product analytics where the free plan allows 2M events
Ranked #9 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Amplitude covers product analytics, session replay, experimentation and guides on one platform, and all plans include unlimited seats. The free plan gives 2M events and 10,000 monthly replays; Plus adds custom events, behavioural cohorts and heatmaps.
The jump to Growth adds A/B/n testing, conversion drivers and 20,000 replays but is priced by event volume through sales. Startups under $10M in funding with fewer than 20 employees receive a free year of Growth.
What stands out
Free plan
Unlimited seats
AI analytics
Where it costs you
Growth and Enterprise prices are not shown on the pricing page
A/B testing is not part of the free or Plus plans
Right for
Product teams that want analytics, replay and experiments on one event meter
Wrong for
Small sites that need a published price at every tier
United StatesFree plan up to 2M events a month; Plus needs a card; Growth by quote
Autocapture product analytics, now part of Contentsquare, free to 10k sessions
Ranked #10 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
Heap's pitch is automatic capture: the vendor says one snippet records the whole experience, which should shorten first-ninety-day instrumentation. The cost lies in sessions and tiers: Free keeps six months of history, Growth twelve, and Pro and Premier are priced by session volume on request.
Ownership matters too, since Heap now sits inside Contentsquare and its privacy policy has moved there. Check roadmap and contract terms with the new parent before committing.
What stands out
Part of Contentsquare
Free plan
Session-based meter
Where it costs you
The Growth price appears only after the snippet is installed
Warehouse integration and region-specific storage need the top tier
Right for
Product teams that prefer automatic capture over writing event code
Wrong for
Buyers who want a price list before installing anything
United StatesFree plan up to 10k sessions; Growth estimated after install; higher tiers by quote
Free standard analytics tied to Google Ads, with a paid 360 tier
Ranked #11 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingNorth America
The first ninety days cost little because the tool is free, but the price is paid in other ways.
User-level data is deleted after 2 or 14 months depending on the setting, and BigQuery export of raw events is the route to keep it, capped at 1M daily events on standard properties. Exit is workable if you export early. The terms are with Google LLC; 360 is a separate contract.
What stands out
Free standard version
Google Ads link
BigQuery export
Where it costs you
User-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months, not longer
Standard BigQuery export is capped at 1M events a day
Right for
Advertisers already running Google Ads and Search Console who accept Google's terms
Wrong for
Buyers who need long-term raw data retention inside the tool
United StatesFree standard version; 360 is a paid tier with no price on vendor pages
Enterprise analytics suite with data feeds and Customer Journey Analytics
Ranked #12 of 12 in Best Web Analytics Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
The documentation devotes separate guides to implementation, administration, components and export, which suggests ninety days of project work rather than a script tag. Cost is not visible in the pages we could read.
Exit is possible through data feeds in hourly or daily batches to an S3, Google Cloud or Azure bucket, plus Data Warehouse exports. Independence is low: the documentation describes integrations with other Adobe solutions.
What stands out
Enterprise suite
Data feeds
Customer Journey Analytics
Where it costs you
The documentation shows no prices or trial, so budgeting needs a sales conversation
Data feeds need your own cloud storage bucket and an admin to configure them
Right for
Large organisations with dedicated analysts and an implementation team to run it
Wrong for
Small sites wanting a script tag and a one-page dashboard
Not stated by the vendorNot stated in the vendor documentation
Web analytics software measures how visitors reach and use a website, reporting traffic, sources, pages and conversions, and increasingly adds event tracking, session replay and consent handling. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
11 of the 12 tools here publish what they cost; the other 1 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Plausible, Matomo, Fathom Analytics, Simple Analytics, Umami, Piwik PRO, PostHog, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Heap, Google Analytics.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 12 vendors are established in 7 countries across 4 regions (North America 6, Europe 3, Elsewhere 2, Asia-Pacific 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
03
Consider whether you want the source
3 of these are open source: Plausible, Matomo, Umami. Hosting one yourself trades a subscription for maintenance.
Pageviews, events, hits, actions or sessions: what each meter counts
Every vendor in this category meters something different, so a monthly price is only comparable once you convert your traffic into each unit. Plausible and Fathom Analytics count pageviews, and Fathom adds custom events to the same allowance. Matomo Cloud prices on hits. Piwik PRO counts actions, a wider unit that includes tag manager and consent manager loads and API requests.
Umami counts events, and saved event properties count as events too. Heap sizes its paid tiers by sessions, while Mixpanel and Amplitude use events. Take one month of your real traffic, convert it into each unit, and add the extras each meter pulls in before you rank by price.
Export one busy month of traffic and convert it to each vendor's unit.
Ask what happens past the allowance: automatic tier change, per-event charge or a pause.
Check whether custom events, tag loads or API calls count against the same allowance.
Where visitor data is processed, and what the EU option really means
Several products here lead with European processing, and the details differ more than the headlines. Plausible says visitor data is processed on European-owned servers and never leaves the EU. Simple Analytics says data stays in the Netherlands. Piwik PRO's Business plan is hosted in Sweden, with other regions and private cloud on Enterprise. Matomo Cloud stores data in Frankfurt.
Fathom Analytics, a Canadian company, routes EU visitors to EU servers and then stores anonymised data on US servers. Mixpanel and PostHog offer EU hosting as a choice made at setup, with PostHog's EU cloud in Frankfurt. Read the processing description, not the flag on the pricing page, and match it to what your data protection officer actually asked.
Ask where raw IP addresses are processed and where aggregated data is stored.
Confirm the hosting region is selected at signup, because it may not be changeable later.
Check the contracting entity's country as well as the server location.
Traffic dashboards against product analytics: Mixpanel, Amplitude, Heap and PostHog
A web analytics tool answers where visitors come from and what they read; product analytics answers what identified users do. The two groups here price differently. Plausible, Fathom Analytics and Simple Analytics sell one-page dashboards without per-user tracking. Mixpanel, Amplitude, PostHog and Heap sell free allowances measured in events or sessions and add replay, flags or experiments on top.
Mixpanel and Amplitude give every plan unlimited seats, while Simple Analytics charges for each extra user. Heap relies on automatic capture, and PostHog bills each product separately, so the invoice grows with the number of modules switched on. A marketing site usually needs only the first group, and a software product often needs the second.
List the questions you ask weekly and mark which need user-level paths.
Price the add-on modules (replay, flags, experiments) separately from the core.
Count seats: some vendors include unlimited users, others charge per user.
Leaving: retention windows, exports and where raw data goes
Analytics history is the asset you lose on a switch, so check the retention window and the export route before the first tag goes live. Google Analytics deletes user-level data after 2 or 14 months, and raw events leave through BigQuery export, capped at 1M events a day on standard properties. Plausible Starter keeps three years and Business five.
Umami keeps six months on Hobby and two years on Pro. Fathom Analytics lets you export before cancelling, and Matomo says it can move data between Cloud and On-Premise. Piwik PRO gives raw data by API only on Business, with CSV exports to BigQuery or S3 as an add-on, and Adobe Analytics delivers raw data through feeds to a bucket you configure.
Request a sample export and open it before signing.
Note the retention window per plan, since it can be shorter than your reporting needs.
Ask what happens to stored data after cancellation.
What goes wrong most often when buying web analytics software
Comparing a per-pageview price with a per-event or per-action price as if the units matched.
Choosing a free plan for a marketing site and finding that seats, history or a badge are limited at that level.
Assuming a Google Analytics replacement keeps your old data, when retention windows and import options differ by product.
Treating a cookieless claim as a legal conclusion, when each vendor's processing description and contracting entity still need review.
07
Frequently asked questions
8 answers
What is the best web analytics software in 2026?
Plausible leads our ranking of 12. Plausible Insights OÜ of Tartu says it is bootstrapped, profitable and a team of ten, which makes it a one-product vendor you can buy without a partner.
Plans are priced by monthly pageviews and the 30-day trial needs no card. The catch sits in the tiers: funnels and revenue attribution start on Business, Starter covers one site, and the self-run Community Edition omits funnels, user journeys and the sites API.
Which web analytics tools publish their pricing?
11 of the 12, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Plausible: Published tiers by monthly pageviews; 30-day trial; cloud or community edition.
Matomo: Cloud tiers by monthly hits, published; On-Premise core is free, bundles paid.
Fathom Analytics: Published tiers by monthly pageviews; 7-day trial with a card.
Simple Analytics: Free plan for hobby sites; paid by pageviews, published; 14-day trial.
Umami: Free hobby plan; Pro and Business billed monthly by events, published.
Piwik PRO: Published Business and Enterprise tiers; 30-day trial without a card.
PostHog: Free tier every month; pay as you go per product once a card is added.
Mixpanel: Free plan up to 1M events; Growth by event volume; Enterprise by quote.
Amplitude: Free plan up to 2M events a month; Plus needs a card; Growth by quote.
Heap: Free plan up to 10k sessions; Growth estimated after install; higher tiers by quote.
Google Analytics: Free standard version; 360 is a paid tier with no price on vendor pages.
The other 1 quote per organisation.
Is there a free web analytics tool?
Simple Analytics, Umami, PostHog, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Heap, Google Analytics offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these web analytics software vendors established?
In 7 countries across 4 regions: North America 6, Europe 3, Elsewhere 2, Asia-Pacific 1.
Plausible: Estonia.
Matomo: New Zealand.
Fathom Analytics: Canada.
Simple Analytics: Netherlands.
Umami: United States.
Piwik PRO: Poland.
PostHog: United States.
Mixpanel: Not stated by the vendor.
Amplitude: United States.
Heap: United States.
Google Analytics: United States.
Adobe Analytics: Not stated by the vendor.
Which web analytics tools are open source?
Plausible, Matomo, Umami.
Which web analytics tools can you host yourself?
Plausible, Matomo. The other 10 are hosted by the vendor only.
What should you use instead of Plausible?
Matomo and Fathom Analytics are the next two on this page. Matomo is for teams that want full data ownership and a choice between hosting and renting; Fathom Analytics is for Agencies and publishers running many small sites on one allowance.
Who should not buy Plausible?
Teams needing session replay, heatmaps or per-user product analysis. Funnels and ecommerce revenue attribution appear only on the Business tier.
If your web analytics software product belongs among these 12, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
