Pirsch vs Umami

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 11 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

Umami

Open-source self-hosted privacy analytics

HQ🇺🇸 USA
Founded2020
LicenseMIT
ReferenceRead full review

At-a-glance

Five facts that most often qualify or disqualify a tool early.

	Pirsch	Umami
Price floor	$6/mo	Free
Free tier	No	Yes
Hosting model	SaaS only	SaaS + self-host
Data residency	EU	US
Cookieless	Yes	Yes

Privacy posture

Frameworks claimed and sub-processors disclosed under DPA.

Frameworks claimed

Framework	Pirsch	Umami
GDPR	Held	Held
CCPA	Held	Held
UK PECR	Held	Not held
SOC 2 Type II	Not held	Not held
ISO 27001	Not held	Not held
HIPAA	Not held	Not held

Sub-processors

Pirsch (7)

Emvi Software GmbH Legal entity operating Pirsch Analytics (Marvin Blum + Daniel Schramm) 🇩🇪 Germany
Hetzner Online GmbH Cloud hosting (servers, database) 🇩🇪 Germany
Stripe Payment processing 🇺🇸 United States
AWS EMEA SARL AWS SES (transactional email) 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
Google Cloud EMEA Limited Google Workspace (corporate) 🇮🇪 Ireland
Intuition Machines (hCaptcha) Sign-up / form anti-spam 🇺🇸 United States
Datev eG Tax / accounting 🇩🇪 Germany

Umami (6)

Umami Software, Inc Legal entity (data processor for Cloud customers) 🇺🇸 United States
Vercel Inc Cloud hosting (Next.js app, edge functions) 🇺🇸 United States
ClickHouse Cloud Analytics database (US/EU regions) 🇺🇸 United States
Hetzner Online GmbH EU compute for EU-tier customers 🇩🇪 Germany
Stripe Payment processing 🇺🇸 United States
Cloudflare DNS, CDN, DDoS protection 🇺🇸 United States

Pricing at common traffic levels

Cheapest published plan from each vendor that covers the listed pageview volume. Retrieved May 1, 2026.

Pricing comparison at four traffic tiers.
Traffic	Pirsch	Umami
10k pv/mo	$6/moStandard 10k	$0/moHobby
100k pv/mo	$18/moStandard 100k	$0/moHobby
500k pv/mo	$159/moPlus 1M	$20/moPro
1M pv/mo	$159/moPlus 1M	$20/moPro

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.

Differences only (11)

Tracking & Reporting (15)

Feature	Pirsch	Umami
Pageviews & visitors	Yes Pageviews + sessions	Yes Pageviews + visitors
Live visitor count	Yes Real-time	No Cloud only feature
Top pages report	Yes By pageviews + entry pages	Yes By pageviews/visitors
Top referrers	Yes Referrer + channel grouping	Yes Referrer + UTM breakdown
UTM campaign tracking	Yes UTM source/medium/campaign/term/content	Yes Auto-detected from referrer
Country & city breakdown	Yes Country + city level on all plans (local GeoIP DB)	Yes Country + city
Device, browser, OS	Yes Device, browser, OS, screen size	Yes Device + browser
Bounce / engagement	Yes Engagement rate	Yes Bounce rate
Time on site	Yes Avg session duration	Yes Avg session duration
Custom events	Yes sa_event style API + non-interactive events + custom metadata	Yes Custom events with property tracking; v3.1 added Custom Boards
Goals / conversions	Yes Conversion goals + e-commerce revenue tracking	Yes Cloud goals; self-host via SQL
Funnels	Yes Multi-step funnels — Plus tier only ($12+)	Yes Custom Boards (v3.1+); flat funnel reports
Outbound link tracking	Yes Auto-tracked outbound link clicks	Yes Via custom events
File download tracking	Yes Auto-tracked file downloads	Yes Via custom events
404 / error tracking	Yes Native 404 page tracking + traffic-spike alerts	No Manual events

Privacy & Compliance (9)

Feature	Pirsch	Umami
Cookieless by default	Yes Cookieless: no localStorage; 24-hour salt rotation per vendor privacy policy	Yes Cookieless tracking; visitor hash with salt rotation (monthly default, configurable)
No personal data collected	Yes IPs hashed in-memory then dropped; salt rotates every 24 hours per privacy policy	Yes IP not stored; used in-memory for geo + salted hash
GDPR-compliant out of the box	Yes TTDSG-compliant by design (no terminal storage); legitimate-interest basis	Partial Vendor claims no banner needed (cookieless + no PII); not a legal opinion, EU DPAs may differ on Schrems-II/US infra
Data hosted in EU	Yes Hetzner Gunzenhausen (Bavaria); EU-only processing	Partial Mixed: Vercel + Cloudflare (US), ClickHouse (US/EU), Hetzner (EU)
Data hosted in US	No EU-only — no US data residency	Yes Vercel + Cloudflare US primary; control plane US-hosted
Self-hostable	Partial Enterprise tier on-premise install; Go library embed in your own backend (no turnkey self-host)	Yes Free, Docker
Open source	Partial AGPLv3 Go library core (1,018+ stars); dashboard/SaaS closed-source	Yes MIT
Data retention period	Forever Unlimited / lifetime of subscription on paid plans	Configurable Hobby 6 mo · Pro 2 yr · Business 5 yr · Self-host: indefinite
Bot & spam filtering	Yes Bot/spam filter	Yes Bot detection

Setup & Integrations (10)

Feature	Pirsch	Umami
Script weight (KB)	4 Vendor claims ~4 KB; verified ~4.4 KB uncompressed	2 ~2 KB gzipped (4.5 KB uncompressed); same gzipped basis as peers
Single-snippet install	Yes data-code attribute	Yes data-website-id attribute
WordPress plugin	Yes Official plugin v2.1.1; 200+ active installs (open-source MIT)	No No official plugin; community "Integrate Umami" by Ancocodet (2k+ installs)
Proxy / first-party domain	Yes pirsch-php-proxy + pirsch-go-proxy for first-party tracking	Yes Configurable via TRACKER_SCRIPT_NAME env (rename to dodge adblockers)
Public API	Yes REST API + SDKs (Go, JS, PHP, Java); OAuth2 client credentials	Yes Full REST API (websites, stats, events, sessions, reports, realtime)
Data export (CSV/JSON)	Yes CSV	Yes CSV
Google Search Console connector	Yes Native Google Search Console plugin — pulls keywords/positions into dashboard	No No native GSC connector
Email digests	Yes Email reports + traffic-spike notifications	Yes Cloud
Slack / webhook alerts	Yes Webhooks for traffic alerts; not Slack-native	No No native Slack
Public shareable dashboard	Yes Public + embeddable dashboards on all plans	Yes Share-link toggle

Pricing & Plans (4)

Feature	Pirsch	Umami
Free tier exists	No 30-day trial only; no permanent free tier	Yes Hobby plan = permanent free (100k events/mo, 3 sites, 6mo retention)
Entry price ($/mo)	6 Standard tier · 10k pageviews/mo · 50 sites · GA importer + REST API	20 Cloud Pro tier (1M events/mo, 20 sites, 2yr retention)
Price at 100k pageviews	18 Standard tier at 100k pageviews/mo	20 Pro covers 1M events/mo (well over 100k benchmark)
Unlimited sites on entry plan	Partial 50 sites Standard · Unlimited sites Plus tier ($12+)	Partial 3 sites Hobby · 20 sites Pro · unlimited Business · unlimited Self-host

Where they differ

Axes where the two tools take materially different approaches. Each paragraph describes both vendors in parallel structure.

Pricing model

Pirsch starts at $6/mo and reaches $18/mo at 100k pageviews. Umami starts at $0/mo and reaches $19/mo at the same volume. Both vendors publish per-tier pricing on their public pages.

License & deployment

Pirsch is licensed under Closed-source SaaS · open-source AGPLv3 Go core and is not available for self-hosting. Umami is licensed under MIT and is available for self-hosting.

Hosting jurisdiction

Pirsch data residency: EU. Schrems II posture: eu only no transfer. Umami data residency: US. Schrems II posture: sccs.

Cookieless mechanism

Pirsch uses daily salt hash for visitor uniqueness. Umami uses daily salt hash. Both mechanisms operate without setting cookies on the visitor's browser.