Plausible Analytics
UmamiPlausible vs Umami: The Best Open-Source Privacy Analytics in 2026
Quick Verdict
Choose Plausible Analytics if...
Best for marketing sites, content brands, and EU-based teams who want a finished, beautiful analytics product and don't need funnels or retention reports.
Choose Umami if...
Best for SaaS teams, product analytics use cases, and self-hosters who want funnels and retention reports without enterprise pricing.
If you're searching for Plausible versus Umami, you've already made the most important decision: ditching Google Analytics for something cookieless, lightweight, and privacy-respecting. The only question left is which of the two open-source darlings is the right fit for your site.
On paper, Plausible and Umami look almost identical. Both are MIT/AGPL-licensed, both ship as a sub-2 KB script, both are GDPR/CCPA/PECR compliant out of the box without a cookie banner, and both let you choose between a managed cloud plan and free self-hosting. They're so similar that most "best privacy analytics" lists lump them together and call it a day.
But spend a week swapping between them in production and the differences get loud. Plausible is the polished, opinionated product — narrow feature set, gorgeous single-page dashboard, EU-hosted infrastructure, and a price tag that climbs fast once you cross 100K monthly pageviews. Umami is the developer-leaning toolkit — funnels, retention cohorts, custom event reports, journey maps, and a self-hosted experience that's genuinely turnkey on a $5 VPS. One is a finished SaaS; the other is a flexible engine.
This comparison is written for people actually choosing between the two — indie hackers, privacy-conscious marketers, and engineering teams escaping GA4 — not for SEO. We'll walk through the feature gap, the pricing math (which matters more than people think once you cross 1M events), the self-hosting reality, and the specific scenarios where each tool wins. If you want broader options first, browse our web analytics category or our roundup of analytics & BI tools.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Plausible Analytics | Umami |
|---|---|---|
| Intuitive Single-Page Dashboard | ||
| Lightweight Script (<1 KB) | ||
| Privacy-First, No Cookies | ||
| Open Source & Self-Hostable | ||
| UTM Campaign Tracking | ||
| Goal & Custom Event Tracking | ||
| Conversion Funnels | ||
| Ecommerce Revenue Attribution | ||
| Google Analytics Import | ||
| Stats API & Integrations | ||
| Real-Time Dashboard | ||
| Custom Event Tracking | ||
| Funnel Analysis | ||
| User Journey Visualization | ||
| Retention Analysis | ||
| Goals & UTM Tracking | ||
| Privacy-First Design | ||
| Lightweight Script | ||
| REST API |
Pricing Comparison
| Pricing | Plausible Analytics | Umami |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | ||
| Starting Price | 9/month | 9/month |
| Total Plans | 4 | 4 |
Plausible Analytics- 1 site
- 10k monthly pageviews
- 3 years data retention
- Intuitive dashboard
- Email and Slack reports
- Google Analytics import
- Goals and custom events
- Saved segments
- Everything in Starter
- Up to 3 sites
- Up to 3 team members
- Team management
- Shared links
- Embedded dashboards
- Shared segments
- Everything in Growth
- Up to 10 sites
- Up to 10 team members
- 5 years data retention
- Custom properties
- Stats API (600 requests/hour)
- Looker Studio connector
- Ecommerce revenue attribution
- Funnels
- Consolidated view
- Everything in Business
- 10+ sites
- 10+ team members
- 600+ Stats API requests/hour
- Sites API access
- SSO
- Managed proxy
- Scheduled raw event exports
- 5+ years data retention
- Priority support
Umami- 10K events/month
- 3 websites
- 6 months data retention
- Unlimited team members
- Real-time dashboard
- 100K events/month
- 50 websites
- 2 years data retention
- Unlimited team members
- Email support
- 1M events/month
- Unlimited websites
- 7 years data retention
- All reports
- Priority support
- Custom event limits
- Unlimited websites
- Custom data retention
- Dedicated support
- SLA
Detailed Review
Plausible Analytics is the polished end of the open-source analytics spectrum — a finished, opinionated product that does a small number of things exceptionally well. Built and hosted in the EU (Germany), it ships as a sub-1 KB script that lands you on a single, beautifully designed dashboard showing pageviews, sources, devices, locations, and goals at a glance. There's no learning curve and no configuration: you paste a snippet, wait a few minutes, and your stakeholders can read the dashboard without a tutorial.
For the comparison at hand, Plausible's biggest strength is focus. It deliberately omits funnels, retention cohorts, and journey maps that Umami includes, and that minimalism is a feature for marketing teams who just want to know which posts are working and where traffic is coming from. The 30-day GA-style email reports, shareable public dashboards, and per-site goal tracking are all polished in a way that feels SaaS, not toolkit.
The trade-off is price. Plausible's managed cloud starts at $9/mo for 10K pageviews and scales to roughly $90/mo at 1M pageviews — affordable until you cross into product-analytics volumes, at which point Umami becomes meaningfully cheaper. Self-hosting (Plausible Community Edition, AGPL) is free but requires PostgreSQL and ClickHouse, which is heavier infrastructure than Umami's PostgreSQL/MySQL footprint.
Pros
- Single-screen dashboard that non-technical stakeholders read instantly — ideal for client reports and exec emails
- EU-hosted (Germany) with no US data transfer, which simplifies procurement for European customers
- Sub-1 KB script — measurably lighter than Umami's ~2 KB and a real Core Web Vitals win on slow connections
- Polished extras like shareable public dashboards, GA import wizard, and weekly email reports work out of the box
- Deliberately narrow feature set means less dashboard noise for marketing-focused use
Cons
- No funnels, retention cohorts, or user journey reports — Umami beats it for product analytics
- Cloud pricing climbs faster than Umami's at higher pageview tiers (1M+ pageviews)
- Self-hosting requires both PostgreSQL and ClickHouse, a heavier setup than Umami's
Umami is the developer-leaning side of the privacy-analytics coin — broader feature set, friendlier self-hosting story, and aggressively cheaper cloud pricing once you scale. It's MIT-licensed (more permissive than Plausible's AGPL), has 35K+ GitHub stars, and is genuinely turnkey to run yourself: PostgreSQL or MySQL, a single Docker container, done in under 10 minutes on a $5 VPS.
Where Umami pulls clearly ahead of Plausible is in product-analytics features. Funnels, retention cohorts, user journey visualization, and goal tracking are all included on the free self-hosted version and on every cloud tier. If you're tracking SaaS onboarding flows, e-commerce checkout drop-off, or any multi-step user behavior, Umami gives you the reports natively — with Plausible you'd need to bolt on a second tool.
The cloud pricing is the other quiet win. Umami Cloud starts at a real $0/mo for 10K events (not a trial — perpetual free) and tops out at $49/mo for 1M events. The same volume on Plausible runs closer to $90/mo. The trade-offs: the dashboard is denser and a bit less designer-polished than Plausible's, the script is ~2 KB versus sub-1 KB, and self-hosting — while easier than Plausible — still expects you to be comfortable with Docker and a database.
Pros
- Funnels, retention cohorts, and user journey reports included on every plan — Plausible has none of these
- Genuine free cloud tier (10K events/mo, forever) — Plausible only offers a 30-day trial
- Self-hosting is meaningfully simpler — single Docker container, PostgreSQL or MySQL, no ClickHouse required
- MIT license is more permissive than Plausible's AGPL for teams embedding analytics into commercial products
- Cloud pricing scales better — roughly half of Plausible's cost at 1M+ events
Cons
- Dashboard is denser and less polished than Plausible's — non-technical stakeholders need a brief walkthrough
- Tracking script is ~2 KB versus Plausible's sub-1 KB — small but real Core Web Vitals difference
- Cloud is hosted in the US (with EU options on enterprise), which is a procurement issue for some EU buyers
Our Conclusion
After all the head-to-head detail, the decision is actually pretty clean.
Pick Plausible if you want a finished product, you value a dashboard a non-technical stakeholder can read in 10 seconds, you're EU-based and care that your data is too, and your traffic sits comfortably under 1M monthly pageviews. It's the better choice for marketing-led teams, agencies presenting to clients, content sites, and anyone who would rather pay $9–$19/month than ever look at a Docker compose file.
Pick Umami if you're technical, you want funnels/retention/journey reports without paying enterprise pricing, you're tracking events (not just pageviews) at meaningful volume, or you want the option to self-host with full data ownership. It's the better choice for SaaS dashboards, product analytics on a budget, multi-site portfolios, and teams who'd rather spend an hour on Docker than $200/month at scale.
Still on the fence? Run both for two weeks. They install in under five minutes each, and the cloud free tiers (or trial) cover almost any side project. You'll know which dashboard you actually open after three days. For most readers we'd lean Plausible for marketing sites and Umami for product/SaaS — but the "wrong" choice here is genuinely hard to make.
If either tool falls short on advanced features like heatmaps or session recording, you may need a heavier platform — see our analytics-bi category for options. And if you're escaping a different incumbent, our Google Analytics alternatives and Mixpanel alternatives lists may help.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Plausible or Umami cheaper?
Self-hosted, both are free. On managed cloud, Umami is significantly cheaper at every tier — Umami Pro is $49/mo for 1M events, while Plausible's comparable Growth plan is around $90/mo for 1M pageviews. Umami also has a perpetual free tier (10K events/mo); Plausible only offers a 30-day trial.
Can I self-host both Plausible and Umami for free?
Yes, both are open source. Umami is MIT-licensed, runs on PostgreSQL or MySQL, and deploys cleanly with Docker — most users have it running in under 10 minutes on a $5 VPS. Plausible Community Edition (AGPL) is also free to self-host but requires PostgreSQL plus ClickHouse, which makes the infrastructure footprint larger.
Which has better features: Plausible or Umami?
Umami has more analytics features out of the box — funnels, retention cohorts, user journey maps, and goals are all included even on the free self-hosted version. Plausible focuses on a curated set of essential metrics (pageviews, sources, devices, goals, custom events) and intentionally avoids feature bloat.
Are Plausible and Umami both GDPR compliant?
Yes. Both are cookieless, store no personal data, and don't require a cookie consent banner under GDPR, CCPA, or PECR. Plausible additionally hosts all infrastructure in the EU (Germany), which can be a procurement requirement for some European companies.
Can I migrate from Google Analytics to Plausible or Umami?
Both let you import historical data — Plausible has a Google Analytics import wizard and Umami offers CSV import. In practice, most teams run the new tool alongside GA4 for a month, then cut over once they trust the numbers.
Which is better for a SaaS product dashboard?
Umami, in most cases. Its custom event tracking, funnels, and retention reports are designed for product analytics use cases, and the API is well-documented for embedding analytics into customer-facing dashboards. Plausible can do custom events but isn't optimized for the multi-step funnel workflows that SaaS teams typically need.