Plausible Analytics is an open-source web analytics service built as a lightweight replacement for Google Analytics. The script you embed is tiny and sets no cookies, keeping no personal data or IP address, so the usual consent banner is not needed. The hosted service runs on EU infrastructure. Founded in 2018 by the team behind Plausible Insights.
Reviewed by Marco Wollank
Rate Plausible Analytics: No account needed
Threat level
Covered
A covered pick. Anyone can use it as a private drop-in, with no setup or know-how. Enough for most people. Threat levels
Our take
Plausible is the pick for a site owner who wants honest traffic numbers without a project to manage. The dashboard is a single page, the script is featherweight, and because it stores no personal data or IP addresses you can usually retire the consent banner. The honest catch is the cost model: the hosted plan is a paid subscription, and the only free route is to self-host the Community Edition, which means running a server. That trade is deliberate, since a paid company has no reason to monetise your visitors. Pick Plausible if you value simplicity and EU hosting and will pay or self-host. Look at a deeper tool if you need funnels.
Website at a glance
plausible.io
D score 30
Weak website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested today
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
Plausible Analytics alternatives
Umami Self-hosted, cookie-free analytics with a clean dashboard and a generous free cloud tier. MIT-licensed and simple to run.
Matomo The most full-featured Google Analytics replacement: self-host or cloud, with a GDPR-friendly cookieless mode. Open source, you own the data.
GoatCounter Deliberately minimal, cookie-free analytics that ships as a single Go binary. Free hosted tier for non-commercial sites, open source.
Frequently asked
- Is Plausible a real alternative to Google Analytics?
- For most sites, yes. It gives you the numbers a typical owner actually reads: visitors, top pages, sources, countries, and goal conversions, on one screen. It drops the parts of Google Analytics that exist to feed ad targeting. If you live in funnels and audience segments you will notice the gap, but if you want to know what is working without a profile of every visitor, it covers the job.
- Does Plausible need a cookie consent banner?
- No. The script sets no cookies and stores no personal data or IP addresses, so in the usual case there is nothing to consent to and the banner can come down. That is a compliance and a user-experience win at once. Confirm your own legal position, but the design is built to avoid the banner rather than manage it.
- Is Plausible free?
- Two routes. The hosted cloud service is a paid subscription, which is how an independent company funds the work without selling data. The Community Edition is free and open source under the AGPL, so you can self-host it on your own server at no licence cost. You are choosing between paying with money and paying with your own server time.
- Where is my visitor data stored with Plausible?
- On the hosted plan, data is processed on EU-owned infrastructure and does not leave the EU, which is the point of the Schrems II era. If you self-host the Community Edition, the data lives wherever you put the server, fully under your control. Either way it stays out of an advertising company's reach.
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