Plausible Analytics

Plausible Analytics

Privacy-conscious website owners and marketers who want simple, GDPR-compliant analytics without cookie banners, complex reports, or Google's data collection

Analytics ★★★★☆ 4.4/5 Free self-hosted (Cloud from $9/mo) Visit Website

Pros

  • Script is under 1KB (compared to Google Analytics 4's 45KB+), resulting in measurably faster page loads and zero impact on Core Web Vitals scores
  • No cookies means no cookie consent banners needed — fully GDPR, CCPA, and PECR compliant out of the box without any configuration
  • Dashboard loads in under 1 second with all key metrics on a single page: visitors, pageviews, bounce rate, visit duration, referrers, and top pages
  • Self-hosted Community Edition is completely free and open source under AGPL license, giving full data ownership on your own infrastructure
  • Goal tracking, custom events, and revenue attribution work without cookies using a privacy-friendly hashing method that does not track individual users across sessions

Cons

  • No user-level analytics — you cannot see individual visitor journeys, session recordings, or build cohort analyses like you can with Google Analytics 4 or Mixpanel
  • Limited to 10 custom event goals per site on the Cloud plan; complex funnels with dozens of tracked actions require the self-hosted version or Business plan
  • No built-in A/B testing, heatmaps, or session replay — you still need tools like Hotjar or VWO for conversion rate optimization
  • Self-hosted version requires ClickHouse database which consumes 2-4GB RAM minimum, making it heavier to run than the lightweight script might suggest

Key Features

  • Real-time dashboard showing visitors, pageviews, bounce rate, and visit duration
  • UTM campaign tracking with source, medium, and campaign attribution
  • Custom event goals for tracking button clicks, form submissions, and purchases
  • Revenue attribution for e-commerce conversion tracking without cookies
  • API access for pulling analytics data into custom dashboards or reports
  • Email and Slack reports with weekly or monthly traffic summaries
  • Shared dashboard links with optional password protection for client reporting

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