Fathom Analytics
Cookieless privacy analytics with EU Isolation by default, founder-led since 2018
- HQ🇨🇦 Canada
- Founded2018
- LicenseProprietary (closed-source SaaS)
- ReferenceRead full review
Fathom Analytics vs Pirsch
Two privacy-first web analytics tools, compared side-by-side on the same axes. Data is descriptive — no rankings, no editorial winners.
Updated May 1, 2026
9 of 34 verified checks differ
Source: vendor docs & pricing pages
Pirsch
Cookieless EU-hosted analytics built in Germany, with open-source AGPLv3 core
- HQ🇩🇪 Germany
- Founded2021
- LicenseClosed-source SaaS · open-source AGPLv3 Go core
- ReferenceRead full review
At-a-glance
Five facts that most often qualify or disqualify a tool early.
| Fathom Analytics | Pirsch | |
|---|---|---|
| Price floor | $15/mo | $6/mo |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Hosting model | SaaS only | SaaS only |
| Data residency | EU / US | EU |
| Cookieless | Yes | Yes |
Privacy posture
Frameworks claimed and sub-processors disclosed under DPA.
Frameworks claimed
| Framework | Fathom Analytics | Pirsch |
|---|---|---|
| GDPR | Held | Held |
| CCPA | Held | Held |
| UK PECR | Held | Held |
| SOC 2 Type II | Not held | Not held |
| ISO 27001 | Not held | Not held |
| HIPAA | Not held | Not held |
Sub-processors
Fathom Analytics (4)
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Conva Ventures Inc Legal entity (data processor for customer's site visitors) 🇨🇦 Canada
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BunnyWay d.o.o. (Bunny.net) CDN, DNS, EU-region edge (named in DPA Appendix 1) 🇸🇮 Slovenia
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Amazon Web Services Cloud hosting for non-EEA traffic only (per Fathom DPA) 🇺🇸 United States
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Stripe Payment processing (named in privacy policy) 🇺🇸 United States
Pirsch (7)
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Emvi Software GmbH Legal entity operating Pirsch Analytics (Marvin Blum + Daniel Schramm) 🇩🇪 Germany
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Hetzner Online GmbH Cloud hosting (servers, database) 🇩🇪 Germany
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-
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Google Cloud EMEA Limited Google Workspace (corporate) 🇮🇪 Ireland
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Intuition Machines (hCaptcha) Sign-up / form anti-spam 🇺🇸 United States
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Datev eG Tax / accounting 🇩🇪 Germany
Pricing at common traffic levels
Cheapest published plan from each vendor that covers the listed pageview volume. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
| Traffic | Fathom Analytics | Pirsch |
|---|---|---|
| 10k pv/mo | $15/mo100k pv | $6/moStandard 10k |
| 100k pv/mo | $15/mo100k pv | $18/moStandard 100k |
| 500k pv/mo | $60/mo1M pv | $159/moPlus 1M |
| 1M pv/mo | $60/mo1M pv | $159/moPlus 1M |
Volumes between tiers follow each vendor's published pricing model. "Custom" indicates the vendor does not publish a price for that volume on their pricing page.
Feature matrix
All 38 verified checks across 4 categories.
Tracking & Reporting (15)
| Feature | Fathom Analytics | Pirsch |
|---|---|---|
| Pageviews & visitors | Yes Pageviews + unique visitors |
Yes Pageviews + sessions |
| Live visitor count | Yes Real-time count |
Yes Real-time |
| Top pages report | Yes By pageviews/visitors |
Yes By pageviews + entry pages |
| Top referrers | Yes Referrer + UTM breakdown |
Yes Referrer + channel grouping |
| UTM campaign tracking | Yes Source/medium/campaign |
Yes UTM source/medium/campaign/term/content |
| Country & city breakdown | Partial Country-level only; no city breakdown by privacy choice |
Yes Country + city level on all plans (local GeoIP DB) |
| Device, browser, OS | Yes Device, browser, OS |
Yes Device, browser, OS, screen size |
| Bounce / engagement | Yes Bounce rate |
Yes Engagement rate |
| Time on site | Yes Avg session duration |
Yes Avg session duration |
| Custom events | Yes fathom.trackEvent() with optional revenue (_value) |
Yes sa_event style API + non-interactive events + custom metadata |
| Goals / conversions | Yes Events with optional monetary value (revenue tracking) |
Yes Conversion goals + e-commerce revenue tracking |
| Funnels | No No funnel feature; events only, no multi-step funnel reports |
Yes Multi-step funnels — Plus tier only ($12+) |
| Outbound link tracking | Yes Via custom events |
Yes Auto-tracked outbound link clicks |
| File download tracking | Yes Via custom events |
Yes Auto-tracked file downloads |
| 404 / error tracking | No Not built-in; vendor /uptime page returns 404 |
Yes Native 404 page tracking + traffic-spike alerts |
Privacy & Compliance (9)
| Feature | Fathom Analytics | Pirsch |
|---|---|---|
| Cookieless by default | Yes Cookieless: no localStorage/sessionStorage; daily salt rotation (24h UTC) on visitor hash |
Yes Cookieless: no localStorage; 24-hour salt rotation per vendor privacy policy |
| No personal data collected | Yes IPs not stored; used in-memory for geo + daily salt hash |
Yes IPs hashed in-memory then dropped; salt rotates every 24 hours per privacy policy |
| GDPR-compliant out of the box | Yes Vendor claims no banner needed (no PII, no terminal storage); legitimate-interest basis |
Yes TTDSG-compliant by design (no terminal storage); legitimate-interest basis |
| Data hosted in EU | Yes EU Isolation: EU IPs routed to AWS Frankfurt; only aggregated stats leave EU |
Yes Hetzner Gunzenhausen (Bavaria); EU-only processing |
| Data hosted in US | Yes Non-EU traffic on AWS US (us-east-1) |
No EU-only — no US data residency |
| Self-hostable | No Cloud-only (no self-host) |
Partial Enterprise tier on-premise install; Go library embed in your own backend (no turnkey self-host) |
| Open source | No Closed-source SaaS |
Partial AGPLv3 Go library core (1,018+ stars); dashboard/SaaS closed-source |
| Data retention period | Forever Forever for life of account; full CSV export + Stats API |
Forever Unlimited / lifetime of subscription on paid plans |
| Bot & spam filtering | Yes Auto-filters bots, crawlers, DDoS, spam |
Yes Bot/spam filter |
Setup & Integrations (10)
| Feature | Fathom Analytics | Pirsch |
|---|---|---|
| Script weight (KB) | 2 Vendor claim "just 2 KB"; ~1.7 KB gzipped |
4 Vendor claims ~4 KB; verified ~4.4 KB uncompressed |
| Single-snippet install | Yes data-site attribute |
Yes data-code attribute |
| WordPress plugin | Yes Official WP plugin v3.3.1; 102,958 downloads, rating 4.8/5 |
Yes Official plugin v2.1.1; 200+ active installs (open-source MIT) |
| Proxy / first-party domain | Yes Built-in custom domain proxy — no nginx config needed |
Yes pirsch-php-proxy + pirsch-go-proxy for first-party tracking |
| Public API | Yes Stats API + Tracking API; documented at usefathom.com/api |
Yes REST API + SDKs (Go, JS, PHP, Java); OAuth2 client credentials |
| Data export (CSV/JSON) | Yes CSV + API |
Yes CSV |
| Google Search Console connector | No No native GSC connector |
Yes Native Google Search Console plugin — pulls keywords/positions into dashboard |
| Email digests | Yes Daily / weekly / monthly reports; unlimited recipients |
Yes Email reports + traffic-spike notifications |
| Slack / webhook alerts | Partial Webhook via API; not headlined as Slack-native |
Yes Webhooks for traffic alerts; not Slack-native |
| Public shareable dashboard | Yes Shareable read-only links per site |
Yes Public + embeddable dashboards on all plans |
Pricing & Plans (4)
| Feature | Fathom Analytics | Pirsch |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier exists | No 30-day trial only; no permanent free tier |
No 30-day trial only; no permanent free tier |
| Entry price ($/mo) | 15 100k pageviews/mo entry tier (continuous pageview ladder, not named tiers) |
6 Standard tier · 10k pageviews/mo · 50 sites · GA importer + REST API |
| Price at 100k pageviews | 15 $15/mo covers 100k pv; per-pageview-based pricing ladder |
18 Standard tier at 100k pageviews/mo |
| Unlimited sites on entry plan | Yes 50 sites included on every plan |
Partial 50 sites Standard · Unlimited sites Plus tier ($12+) |
Where they differ
Axes where the two tools take materially different approaches. Each paragraph describes both vendors in parallel structure.
Pricing model
Fathom Analytics starts at $15/mo and reaches $24/mo at 100k pageviews. Pirsch starts at $6/mo and reaches $18/mo at the same volume. Both vendors publish per-tier pricing on their public pages.
License & deployment
Fathom Analytics is licensed under Proprietary (closed-source SaaS) and is not available for self-hosting. Pirsch is licensed under Closed-source SaaS · open-source AGPLv3 Go core and is not available for self-hosting.
Hosting jurisdiction
Fathom Analytics data residency: EU / US. Schrems II posture: eu only no transfer. Pirsch data residency: EU. Schrems II posture: eu only no transfer.
Cookieless mechanism
Fathom Analytics uses daily salt hash for visitor uniqueness. Pirsch uses daily salt hash. Both mechanisms operate without setting cookies on the visitor's browser.
Continue exploring
More comparisons and reference pages on this site.