Google Analytics 4 vs Plausible Analytics

Google Analytics 4

The captured pages document cross-web-and-app user analysis, an advertising workspace with cross-channel ROI and attribution reports, shareable reports, and IP-derived country and device fields, with Analytics 360 adding intra-day freshness within one hour and unsampled total-data reports. I found no public information on referrers, UTM campaign reports, a real-time view, date comparisons, segments or email reports, so this sits between basic traffic counts and the full dashboard bundle my clients ask for.

Plausible Analytics

The standard reports cover pages, entry and exit pages, sources, channels, UTM tags, countries, devices and a real-time view refreshing every 30 seconds, with saved segments, filters across all reports, weekly and monthly email reports to unlimited recipients, and password-protectable shared links for clients. Annotations, Search Console data beside the traffic and a consolidated roll-up across sites are also documented. We found no public information on configurable channel grouping or a stated position on report sampling.

Google Analytics 4

Key events with Google Ads conversion tracking and remarketing, conversion and behavioural modelling to fill consent gaps, evaluation of attribution models, and machine-learning prediction of future audience actions in the paid tier are all documented. I found no public information on funnels with drop-off, e-commerce tracking of orders and revenue, or outbound-link and download tracking, so the conversion story stops short of the full package.

Plausible Analytics

Pageview goals need no code, outbound links, downloads, form submissions, scroll depth and 404s are measured automatically, and custom events carry properties. Funnels run two to eight steps with per-step drop-off and three strictness modes, revenue attaches to goals with WooCommerce and Shopify integrations plus attribution by source and campaign, and user journeys are documented. We found no public information on product-level e-commerce reports, cohorts and retention, or conversions passed back to Google Ads or Meta.

Google Analytics 4

Consent mode is unusually well documented: when analytics storage consent is denied no Analytics cookies are read or written, cookieless pings go to Google, regional defaults, ads data redaction and 34 named CMP partners are listed, and EU IP addresses are deleted before recording and never logged, with detailed location and device collection switchable per region. The default, though, assumes all consent granted with ad cookies written and advertising IDs collected, and Google uses data for personalised advertising and AI training, so a banner stays part of every client install. I found no public information on configurable retention periods.

Plausible Analytics

No cookies and no persistent identifiers, with the counting method published down to the formula: a daily salted hash of IP and User-Agent, the salt deleted every 24 hours, and raw IP and User-Agent never stored. An independent legal assessment backs the consent-free position on legitimate interest, the code is open source for inspection, and the data policy documents which fields are kept. We found no public information on recognition by a named authority or retention settings per data type.

Google Analytics 4

Analytics 360 documents a daily BigQuery export with an SLA plus unsampled total-data reports, and the data processing terms commit Google to deleting all remaining customer data within a maximum of 180 days after the term. I found no public information on a reporting API, CSV export of reports, an import of historical data, or a self-hosted edition — for my clients that leaves the paid export as the only documented way out.

Plausible Analytics

A documented stats API for reporting, an events API for server-side collection, dashboard CSV exports, a site export that re-imports into another Plausible site, GA4 history import and Enterprise daily raw event exports to S3-compatible storage cover our data needs. The Community Edition is AGPL-licensed with an install guide for our own servers, though the captured pages state it is published without funnels, user journeys, e-commerce revenue goals, SSO and the sites API, and dashboard CSVs hold the top 300 entries per report. Deletion on cancellation with a final export window is documented.

Google Analytics 4

Implementation evidence centres on Tag Manager (consent mode with minimal coding via community templates, custom tags with consent settings), the Firebase SDK for apps, and the CSP domains required for collection, with named integrations to Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Display & Video 360, Google Cloud, Search Console and Salesforce. For my WordPress, TYPO3 and Shopify clients I found no public information on CMS plugins, script size, an own tracking domain against ad blockers, client logins or a public status page — that gap is what decides this for an agency install.

Plausible Analytics

The script is stated at 54 times smaller than Google Analytics, a server-side events API exists, the official WordPress plugin handles WooCommerce revenue tracking, in-dashboard stats and proxy mode, and Shopify, GTM, automatic SPA routing and mobile SDKs are documented. First-party script proxying to bypass ad blockers, a status page showing 99.99 percent uptime over the last 90 days and view-only versus full-access team roles round it out. We found no public information on a TYPO3 guide, agency white-label or SLA terms, and community plugins are explicitly not maintained by the vendor.

Google Analytics 4

Google Ireland Limited in Dublin is the contracting entity with a published data processing agreement, a subprocessor list and ISO 27001, and EU visitors' data is collected through EU domains and servers with IP lookups on EU servers before forwarding. The same terms permit processing in any country where Google or its subprocessors maintain facilities, servers run worldwide, the parent company sits in California and US Cloud Act exposure is flagged — EU collection in front of worldwide processing is exactly what my clients would have to accept.

Plausible Analytics

The contracting entity is Plausible Insights OÜ in Tartu, Estonia, hosting is on Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany with the database on UpCloud in Finland and the CDN on Bunny in Slovenia, and the captured pages state visitor data never leaves the EU. Subprocessors are listed with locations, the DPA applies automatically to all customers, the company is bootstrapped with no outside investors, and the self-hosted edition keeps every visitor record on our own servers. A few optional support and payment subprocessors sit outside the EU, and we found no public information on ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification.

Google Analytics 4

A free GA4 and a paid Analytics 360 are the stated editions, with 360 positioned for large enterprises with enterprise-level support and SLAs, but the captured marketing and documentation pages give no price figure, traffic-based scaling rule, site or user counts, or add-on costs. I cannot compute a client's annual cost from these pages, so a viral client's bill stays unpredictable.

Plausible Analytics

Starter is €9 /month up to 10k monthly pageviews, Growth €14 /month with 3 sites and 3 team members, Business €19 /month with 10 sites, funnels, e-commerce revenue attribution and the stats API, yearly billing gives 2 months free, the trial is 30 days without a credit card, and the self-hosted edition charges no fees to the vendor beyond my own server costs. Feature gating per plan is public, but the captured pages show only the prices at the 10k pageview band, so I cannot compute the cost at higher traffic volumes. We found no public information on overage handling, extra-site pricing, minimum term or the Enterprise tier, which is listed as "Custom — Contact us".