Plausible Analytics
Lightweight, cookie-free analytics that measures your traffic without a consent banner or shipping visitors to Google. Open source, EU-hosted.
Reviewed by Marco Wollank
Replace today:
Google Analytics
The Best Privacy-Friendly Analytics in 2026
Private alternatives to Google Analytics, vetted against our public criteria.
Showing 4 of 4
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.
No matches for those filters.
How they compare
| Tool | Leans toward | Based in | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| | Simplicity | Estonia | Paid |
| | Self-hosting | · | Free |
| | Depth | New Zealand | Free |
| | Minimalism | · | Free |
Every page on your site that loads Google Analytics sends your visitors to Google and hands it the raw material for an advertising profile. In the EU that also means a consent banner standing between readers and your content. Privacy-friendly analytics measure the same traffic without cookies, without the banner, without routing a single visitor through an ad company. You still see who came, what they read, what they did. The data just stays yours.
Why you can’t just turn off tracking in Google Analytics
There is no setting inside Google Analytics that stops the data leaving for Google. The product exists to feed an advertising business, so the visitor data it collects is the point, not a side effect you can switch off. That is the structural reason several EU data-protection authorities, starting with Austria and France, have ruled standard Google Analytics use unlawful: the transfer of visitor data to the United States cannot be configured away. Consent mode and IP anonymisation soften the edges but leave the core data flow intact. The only real fix is to stop sending the data in the first place, which is what every tool on this page is built to do.
How we pick
Every tool here is measured against our public listing criteria: it must measure traffic without cookies or a cross-site identifier, and keep no profile of your visitors. It also has to stay open about where the data lives and how the company is funded, since a tool paid for with money has no reason to monetise the people you send it. We favour tools you can self-host or run on infrastructure that keeps data out of an ad ecosystem. We only list a tool we would happily embed on our own site.
What to look for in privacy-friendly analytics
Start with the script. It should be lightweight and set no cookies, storing no personal data or IP address, so you carry no consent burden and your pages stay fast. Then weigh how much depth you actually use. A blog needs visitor counts and referrers; a marketing site may want goals and funnels, which only the heavier tools provide. Check the hosting question too, since a self-host keeps the data fully under your control while a hosted plan trades some control for zero maintenance. Last, look at the funding model: a tool you pay for with money has no reason to monetise your visitors, which is the whole problem with the free option you are leaving.
Will I lose the data I rely on?
For most sites, no. The numbers a typical owner reads day to day, the visitor counts, the referrers, the popular pages, the conversions, are exactly what these tools report, and often more honestly, because a cookieless tracker counts the visitors who would have declined a Google consent banner. What you give up is the ad-targeting layer and the per-visitor profile that powered it. If your job genuinely runs on deep segmentation, pick a tool like Matomo that keeps that depth on your own server. If it does not, a simpler tracker tells you what is working without the surveillance.
How to switch
Switching is a one-line change. Remove the Google Analytics snippet from your template and drop in the new tool’s script tag, and data starts arriving within minutes. Most tools let you import your Google history or run both in parallel for a while, so you keep continuity while you build trust in the new numbers. If you are replacing Google more broadly, our Google Analytics alternatives page walks through the move, and the de-Google playbook covers the rest of the ecosystem. The same logic applies to any other third-party script on your pages: a comment system can quietly ship visitor data the moment a page renders, so it is worth auditing once the analytics are clean.
Frequently asked
- Do privacy-friendly analytics need a cookie consent banner?
- Usually not. The tools here measure traffic without cookies or persistent identifiers, so in the common case there is nothing to consent to and the banner can come down. That removes a compliance headache and a thing your visitors have to click before they read anything. Confirm your own legal position, but the whole design goal is to avoid the banner rather than manage it.
- Will I lose the data I rely on if I leave Google Analytics?
- You keep the numbers most owners actually read: visitors, top pages, sources, countries, and goal conversions. What you drop is the ad-targeting machinery and the cross-site profile of each visitor. If your work depends on deep funnels and audience segments, choose a heavier tool that keeps them. If you mainly want to know what is working, the simpler tools give you that on one screen.
- Are these analytics accurate if they block nothing and set no cookies?
- Often more accurate, not less. Cookie banners and consent gates cause Google Analytics to miss everyone who declines, while a cookieless tool counts every visit the same way. The counting method differs, so totals will not match Google's number for number, but the trend you actually act on is clean and not full of holes left by people who clicked reject.
- Can I self-host my analytics instead of paying a service?
- Yes, and most of these tools are built for it. Self-hosting keeps the data on infrastructure you control and removes any subscription. The cost is your time: you run and update the software, and for most of these a database. If that is more than you want, a hosted plan or a free cloud tier trades a little control for zero maintenance.
- How do privacy-friendly analytics make money without selling my visitors?
- By charging for the product instead of the data. The hosted services run on subscriptions, which is the honest version of the deal: you pay with money rather than with your visitors. The open-source ones are free to self-host because you supply the server. Either way nobody is reselling your traffic to advertisers, which is the trade Google Analytics makes.
- Is it hard to switch from Google Analytics?
- The switch itself is quick. You remove the Google snippet and add the new one, a single line in your template, and data starts flowing in minutes. Most tools offer a way to import or run alongside Google for a while so you do not lose history. The real adjustment is reading a simpler dashboard, which takes a day, not a project.