Plausible
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Plausible Review (2026)

Privacy-first GA alternative, EU-hosted, simple dashboard

🇪🇪 Estonia Since 2018 AGPL-3.0

The pitch is honest. Plausible doesn't try to replace Google Analytics — it covers maybe 80% of what most teams actually look at, with a 1 KB script and zero cookies. The dashboard fits on a single screen, no dropdowns, no Explorations.

— Mark Sutton, editor
↗ Visit Plausible plausible.io See pricing Privacy passport Feature matrix
Plausible Analytics dashboard with realtime visitor stats
Main dashboard view
Editor score 4.7/5 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
From $9/mo Cloud + self-host
GitHub ★ 24,709 1389 forks · last commit today
Hosting Self-host ✓ EU hosted
Privacy passport

Plausible compliance at a glance

GDPR posture, sub-processors under DPA, per-jurisdiction stance, and encryption — everything a procurement team checks.

GDPR ✓ Compliant EU General Data Protection Regulation EU's omnibus privacy law requiring a lawful basis for processing personal data (consent, legitimate interest, etc.). Applies to anyone handling EU-resident data. Plausible's posture: Legitimate interest.
CA
CCPA ✓ Compliant California Consumer Privacy Act California Consumer Privacy Act — rights for California residents (access, deletion, opt-out of sales). Triggered at $25M revenue or 50k+ CA-consumer records.
UK PECR ✓ Compliant UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations sit on top of GDPR specifically for cookies and electronic marketing. PECR Reg 6 governs analytics-cookie consent.
SOC 2 · II ✕ Not held SOC 2 Type II SOC 2 Type II — independent audit verifying security/availability controls operate effectively over 6+ months. Standard B2B procurement requirement.
ISO27001
ISO 27001 ✕ Not held ISO/IEC 27001 information-security ISO/IEC 27001 — international information-security management standard, certified by accredited bodies on a 3-year renewal cycle.
HIPAA ✕ Not held US HIPAA (with BAA) US health-data law requiring a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for any tool touching protected health information. Without BAA the tool cannot legally process PHI.

Per-jurisdiction posture

🇫🇷
France CNIL No banner CNIL has confirmed cookieless analytics with no PII does not require consent.
France · CNIL CNIL has confirmed cookieless analytics with no PII does not require consent.
🇬🇧
United Kingdom UK ICO / PECR Banner recommended UK ICO has not issued a Plausible-specific blessing; PECR Reg 6 likely doesn't apply since no cookies are set, but the regulator hasn't confirmed in writing. Most UK teams run Plausible banner-free.
United Kingdom · UK ICO / PECR UK ICO has not issued a Plausible-specific blessing; PECR Reg 6 likely doesn't apply since no cookies are set, but the regulator hasn't confirmed in writing. Most UK teams run Plausible banner-free.
🇩🇪
Germany TTDSG Banner recommended TTDSG §25 stricter reading by some German DPAs — disclosure recommended.
Germany · TTDSG TTDSG §25 stricter reading by some German DPAs — disclosure recommended.
🇮🇹
Italy Garante Banner recommended Italian Garante is the strictest in EU — most use cases trigger consent.
Italy · Garante Italian Garante is the strictest in EU — most use cases trigger consent.

Sub-processors (8)

GDPR Art. 28 disclosure — third parties under DPA that may receive data.

Plausible Insights OÜ Legal entity (data processor for customer's site visitors) Estonia
Hetzner Online GmbH Cloud hosting (servers, ClickHouse database) Germany
UpCloud Database hosting + data exports Finland
Bunny.net CDN, DNS, DDoS protection Slovenia
Paddle.com Payment processing (Merchant of Record) United Kingdom
hCaptcha Sign-up anti-spam Germany

● Collected

  • URL of page visited
  • HTTP referrer
  • User-Agent (parsed to browser/OS family — not stored verbatim)
  • Country (derived from IP, then IP discarded)
  • Session duration

● Explicitly NOT collected

  • IP address (used only to derive country + 24h-rotating session hash, never stored)
  • Device fingerprint
  • Cross-site tracking identifiers
  • Custom user IDs (unless explicitly sent via Custom Properties)
Data retention

Per plausible.io/#pricing: Starter 3 years · Growth 3 years (inherits Starter) · Business 5 years · Enterprise 5+ years. Self-hosted CE is unlimited (your ClickHouse). Account closure = data deleted without undue delay.

Encryption
  • In transit: TLS
  • At rest: Encrypted at rest (Hetzner-managed volumes)
DPA Yes · click through
✦ AI & Modern Capabilities

How Plausible works with AI agents

Tier 3 — no AI yet — vendor focuses on classic privacy-first analytics; no AI/MCP features advertised.

✕ AI Chat Not yet

Conversational natural-language interface

Not advertised by vendor

✕ MCP Server Not yet

Model Context Protocol — Claude / Cursor / Codex

Not advertised by vendor

✕ Agent API Not yet

Programmatic AI-agent endpoints

Not advertised by vendor

✕ AI Insights Not yet

Anomaly detection / hypothesis / summaries

Not advertised by vendor

✕ Export for AI Not yet

Structured export formatted for LLM ingestion

Not advertised by vendor

Strengths & weaknesses

What makes Plausible worth a look — and where it falls short.

Strengths 8

  • Tiny 1KB script
  • Cookieless by default
  • No GDPR banner needed*
  • Public dashboards
  • Open source AGPL
  • Native GA4 importer
  • Stats API on every plan
  • Self-hostable Community Edition

Weaknesses 6

  • Funnels only on $39 Business plan
  • Starter ($9) limited to 1 site
  • Looker Studio only on Business+
  • No mobile SDK
  • No heatmaps
  • No US data residency

Feature matrix

All 38 verified checks across 4 categories. Hover any row for the editor's note.

Tracking & Reporting 15

  • Pageviews & visitors ✓Yes
  • Live visitor count ✓Yes
  • Top pages report ✓Yes
  • Top referrers ✓Yes
  • UTM campaign tracking ✓Yes
  • Country & city breakdown ✓Yes
  • Device, browser, OS ✓Yes
  • Bounce / engagement ✓Yes
  • Time on site ✓Yes
  • Custom events ✓Yes
  • Goals / conversions ✓Yes
  • Funnels ✓Yes
  • Outbound link tracking ✓Yes
  • File download tracking ✓Yes
  • 404 / error tracking —No

Privacy & Compliance 9

  • Cookieless by default ✓Yes
  • No personal data collected ✓Yes
  • GDPR-compliant out of the box ✓Yes
  • Data hosted in EU ✓Yes
  • Data hosted in US —No
  • Self-hostable ✓Yes
  • Open source ✓Yes
  • Data retention period Forever
  • Bot & spam filtering ✓Yes

Setup & Integrations 10

  • Script weight (KB) 1
  • Single-snippet install ✓Yes
  • WordPress plugin ✓Yes
  • Proxy / first-party domain ✓Yes
  • Public API ✓Yes
  • Data export (CSV/JSON) ✓Yes
  • Google Search Console connector ✓Yes
  • Email digests ✓Yes
  • Slack / webhook alerts ✓Yes
  • Public shareable dashboard ✓Yes

Pricing & Plans 4

  • Free tier exists —No
  • Entry price ($/mo) $9/mo
  • Price at 100k pageviews $39/mo
  • Unlimited sites on entry plan —No

Plausible vs alternatives

How it compares to the closest 3 rivals on key buyer-decision fields.

Fathom Analytics

Fathom Analytics

Cookieless privacy analytics with EU Isolation by default, founder-led since 2018

  • From$15/mo
  • HostingSaaS only
  • EU-hostedYes
  • CookielessYes
Read review → Compare side by side →

Compare Plausible against

Side-by-side comparisons with other tools in the directory.

Plausible vs Fathom Analytics → Plausible vs GoatCounter → Plausible vs Matomo → Plausible vs Pirsch → Plausible vs Simple Analytics → Plausible vs Umami →

Pricing tiers

Real plans, real numbers — pulled from plausible.io (verified May 2026).

Trial

Trial/30 days

Full access

  • ✓ No credit card
Starter

$9/mo

10k pv

  • ✓ 1 site
  • ✓ Custom events
  • ✓ Goals
Growth

$14/mo

10k pv

  • ✓ 3 sites
  • ✓ 3 team members
  • ✓ Shared links
Business

$39/mo

100k pv

  • ✓ + Funnels
  • ✓ + Looker Studio
  • ✓ + Sub-folder views
Enterprise

Custom

1M+ pv

  • ✓ + SLA
  • ✓ + Audit log
  • ✓ + SSO
  • ✓ Contact sales

Tech specs

Stack, repo health, deployment options — for engineers evaluating self-host.

Stack

  • Written inElixir
  • DatabaseClickHouse
  • FrontendPhoenix LiveView
  • LicenseAGPL-3.0
  • Min specs2 GB RAM · CPU with SSE 4.2 / NEON

GitHub github.com/plausible/analytics

  • Stars★ 24,709
  • Forks1,389
  • Open issues71
  • Last committoday

Deploy

  • · Docker Compose
  • · WordPress plugin (10,000+ active installs)

Used by

Companies and projects that publicly trust Plausible.

Hugging Face
37signals
Ghost
Penpot
Tor Project
Mark Sutton

Editor review

Independently reviewed by Mark Sutton, cross-checked against vendor documentation. Click any panel to expand.

+ What it does well

The pitch is honest. Plausible doesn't try to replace Google Analytics — it covers maybe 80% of what most teams actually look at, with a 1 KB script and zero cookies. The dashboard fits on a single screen, no dropdowns, no Explorations.

You can self-host. AGPL-3.0 license, official Docker Compose setup. If the company disappears tomorrow, your install keeps working. That alone is worth more than the price tag.

Privacy is the default, not a feature flag. No cookies, no fingerprinting, IP processed in-memory only and never stored.

− Weaknesses & gotchas

The price ladder is steeper than it looks. Starter is $9/mo but caps at 1 site. To get 3 sites you pay $14 (Growth). Funnels and Looker Studio export are paywalled to the $39 Business tier — for a tool that markets simplicity, locking conversion tracking behind two upgrades feels off-brand.

No mobile SDK, no heatmaps, no native ecommerce. If you came from GA4 hoping to keep those, you'll be disappointed.

Community Edition is not feature-equivalent to Cloud. Funnels, GA4 importer, and team SSO are Cloud-only — self-hosters get core analytics, nothing more.

EU-only data residency. Some US-only teams prefer their analytics under the same flag — Plausible is hosted on Hetzner Germany and Bunny CDN Slovenia.

★ Best for

Best for content sites, blogs, indie SaaS, and any team where "GDPR-handled, never have to think about it" beats deep funnel analytics. Real customers include Hugging Face, 37signals, Ghost, Penpot, and Tor Project — that's the kind of crowd it's built for.

Real value kicks in at the $39 Business tier — that's where funnels, sub-folder views, and Looker Studio export unlock.

Not for ecommerce funnels with multi-step checkout, product analytics teams who need session replay, or anyone who must keep data in the US.

⚡ Setup walkthrough

1. Sign up, add a domain → get a 1 KB snippet.
2. Paste it in the of every page. WordPress users: install the official plugin (10,000+ active installs) — no theme edits needed.
3. Optional but recommended: route stats through a stats.yourdomain.com subdomain (Plausible Proxy) to dodge ad-blockers. The proxy guide is in vendor docs.
4. Verify in real-time by opening your site in another tab.

Total time: ~2 minutes.

↔ Migrating from GA4

Plausible ships a native GA4 importer — pulls historical pageviews from Google Analytics 4 so you don't lose year-over-year context. There's also an Umami importer if you're switching open-source tools. Universal Analytics support was retired by Google in 2024, so don't expect that.

What does not migrate: custom events and goals — you'll need to re-define them (~10 min for most setups). Multi-touch attribution and audience segments don't survive either, but those weren't trustworthy in GA4 anyway.

Recommended: run both side-by-side for a week to sanity-check the numbers before dropping GA.

Help & FAQ

Where to get help with Plausible and the questions buyers email us about.

Support

HoursMon-Fri 09:00-17:00EET (UTC+2/+3)
ChannelsEmail · Github issues · Docs
LanguagesEnglish
Response SLA~24h

FAQ (7)

Is Plausible Analytics actually GDPR compliant out of the box?

Yes for most EU jurisdictions. Plausible does not set cookies, does not collect IP addresses (uses in-memory daily-rotating salt hashes), and does not track users across sessions. CNIL (France) and UK ICO have publicly confirmed cookieless analytics with no PII does not require consent. Germany (TTDSG) and Italy (Garante) take stricter readings — most teams in those markets still display a brief notice in their privacy policy mentioning Plausible, but no consent banner is needed under the typical interpretation.

How does Plausible track visitors without cookies?

It generates a server-side hash of your IP address + User-Agent + a daily-rotating salt. The hash is used to count unique visitors within a 24-hour window. After midnight UTC the salt rotates and yesterday's hashes become unlinkable to today's hashes — so cross-day tracking is impossible. The IP itself is never stored to disk.

What is the difference between Plausible Cloud and self-hosted Plausible CE?

Plausible Cloud is the hosted SaaS at plausible.io — you pay $9-149/mo depending on traffic. Plausible Community Edition (CE) is the AGPL-3.0 open-source release — you run it yourself on a VPS, free, with full data sovereignty. CE has the same tracker and most features, but a few Cloud-only features (Looker Studio integration, full team-management UI, certain enterprise features) are paid Cloud add-ons.

Which Plausible plan should I pick?

Starter ($9/mo at 10k pv) for a single personal site or blog. Growth ($14+/mo) when you need 3 sites or team members. Business ($39+/mo) only if you need Funnels, Looker Studio integration, or sub-folder views — these are the only Cloud-only features. Above 1M pv/month you should plan for Enterprise pricing or move to self-hosted CE on a beefier VPS.

Can I migrate my Google Analytics data to Plausible?

Plausible ships a free GA4 Importer that pulls historical aggregate data from Google Analytics 4 and lays it underneath your live Plausible numbers. Custom dimensions, audiences, and BigQuery exports do not migrate — those are GA4-specific concepts. The recommended pattern is: install Plausible alongside GA4 for 30 days to validate parity, then drop GA4.

Does Plausible work with WordPress, Shopify, or Webflow out of the box?

Yes. WordPress: official plugin (10,000+ active installs). Shopify: paste the snippet into theme.liquid. Webflow: Project Settings → Custom Code. There are also community-maintained integrations for Ghost, 11ty, Hugo, Next.js, Nuxt, and most static-site generators.

What happens to my data if Plausible Insights OÜ shuts down?

You can export your data at any time via the Stats API or CSV. Plausible is open source under AGPL-3.0 — if the company ever shuts down, you can spin up a self-hosted Community Edition instance and continue with your own data. Plausible has been profitable and growing since 2020.