Google Analytics 4 vs Plausible Analytics

Google Analytics 4

The captured pages describe cross-device and cross-platform analysis across web and apps, shareable reports, an advertising workspace with cross-channel ROI and attribution reports, and — in the paid edition — unsampled total-data reports with intra-day freshness; country, region and device data are derived from IP metadata and browser or device fields. We found no public information on referrers, campaign reports, a real-time view, segments, filters or scheduled email reports.

Plausible Analytics

The dashboard documentation covers pages, entry and exit pages, sources, channels and UTM tags, countries, regions and cities, devices, browsers and operating systems, a real-time view refreshing every 30 seconds, saved personal and site segments, combined filters, Search Console data beside the traffic, a consolidated view across sites, annotations, and weekly or monthly email reports. Custom dashboards appear to be reached only through the Data Studio connector, channel grouping is described as automatic rather than configurable, and we found no public information stating that reports are unsampled.

Google Analytics 4

Key events with their pings, Google Ads conversion tracking and remarketing, and an advertising workspace in which attribution models are evaluated across channels are documented, together with conversion and behavioural modelling that fills gaps when consent is denied. We found no public information on funnels with drop-off, e-commerce or revenue tracking, or cohorts.

Plausible Analytics

Pageview and custom-event goals with custom properties, automatic tracking of outbound links, file downloads, form submissions, 404s and scroll depth without code changes, funnels of two to eight steps with per-step drop-off and three funnel types, revenue goals in multiple currencies filterable by source and campaign, user journeys, and setups for WordPress, WooCommerce and Shopify are all documented. We found no public information on product-level commerce tracking such as carts, checkout and orders, on cohorts and retention, on compared attribution models, or on conversions sent back to ad platforms.

Google Analytics 4

Consent mode is documented in unusual depth: with analytics storage denied no Analytics cookies are read or written and only cookieless pings leave the browser, whose contents are published; Google Analytics 4 stores and logs no IP addresses at all, and for EU, Swiss and UK visitors the address is used only to derive location and then deleted, with Google Signals and detailed location or device collection switchable off per region. What holds it at the middle level is that the default state assumes all consent granted and collects advertising identifiers, IP addresses and full URLs with click identifiers, activity data flows into the Google account for Google's own advertising purposes, and we found no stated reading of §25 TDDDG or any authority decision, no retention settings per data type, and no supplied wording for the site's privacy policy.

Plausible Analytics

The data policy lists exactly what is collected and how a visitor is counted — a daily salted hash of IP address, domain and user agent, with the salt deleted every 24 hours and the raw IP address and user agent never stored — alongside no cookies, no persistent identifiers and no cross-site or cross-device tracking, with an independent legal assessment titled "GDPR-compliant web analytics without consent" and PECR compliance cited. For my own sign-off standard I note the reading is stated against GDPR on a legitimate-interest basis, with pseudonymisation on arrival and full anonymisation within 24 hours; we found no public information on a position specific to §25 TDDDG, on retention settings per data type, or on supplied wording for the site's privacy policy.

Google Analytics 4

A daily BigQuery export is covered by a service level agreement, the premium edition promises unsampled total-data reports, and on termination Google deletes all customer personal data within a maximum of 180 days — for which a fee based on Google's reasonable costs may be charged. We found no public information on a reporting API, CSV export of reports, import of historical data, or any self-hosted edition.

Plausible Analytics

Exports are unusually well documented: a read-only stats API with full filter, operator and segment support alongside collection and site-management APIs, CSV files for every dashboard report, a site-settings export in a format that reimports into another Plausible site, daily raw event exports to the customer's own S3-compatible storage on Enterprise plans, a Google Analytics 4 import, no retention limit on the entry plan, and deletion on termination with a documented export window before the data is removed. The self-hosted Community Edition is AGPL-licensed with its own installation guide, though the vendor itself lists funnels, user journeys, revenue goals, SSO and the sites API as not part of it, so the hosted and self-hosted feature sets are not equal.

Google Analytics 4

Installation runs through gtag.js commands or Tag Manager templates, consent mode is activated with minimal coding alongside a long list of named consent management partners, apps are covered by the Google Analytics for Firebase SDK, and the required content security policy domains are documented, with enterprise support and service level agreements in the paid edition. We found no public information on the script's size, plugins or guides for named CMS and shop systems, single-page app support, team roles, single sign-on or a public status page.

Plausible Analytics

The script's weight is stated at 135KB less than Google Analytics, with an official WordPress plugin, guides for thirteen named website builders and CMSs, automatic single-page-app routing support, Android, iOS, Flutter and Qt SDKs, a Google Tag Manager template, a first-party script proxy against ad blockers, a server-side events API, view-only and guest roles, single sign-on on Enterprise, and a public status page showing 99.99% uptime over the last 90 days. We found no public information on white-label options for agencies or on published SLA and support terms.

Google Analytics 4

The contracting and service entity is Google Ireland Limited in Dublin with an Irish register number and VAT ID, a data processing agreement and a subprocessor list are published, and ISO 27001 certification is maintained with third-party audit. But the processing terms reserve the right to process customer data in any country where Google or its subprocessors maintain facilities, with replication between geographically dispersed data centres, and only the collection endpoints and IP lookups for EU, Swiss and UK visitors sit in the EU before traffic is forwarded on. No hosting location for the analytics processing itself is stated, the parent is Google LLC of Mountain View, California, and the captured facts record exposure to the US Cloud Act.

Plausible Analytics

The contracting entity is Plausible Insights OÜ of Tartu, Estonia, registry code 14709274, independent and bootstrapped with no outside investors; hosting is named and European — Hetzner in Germany for infrastructure, UpCloud in Finland for databases and exports — under the stated position that all visitor data is processed on EU-owned infrastructure and never leaves the EU, with a published DPA applying automatically, audit rights, a right to object to subprocessor changes, and a self-hosted edition the customer can run on its own servers. The subprocessor list is public, but locations are given only for the European infrastructure providers, leaving the email, support and payment links — Postmark, Paddle, Help Scout, Anthropic — unlocated, and we found no public information on ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certifications.

Google Analytics 4

The captured pages show a free Google Analytics alongside a paid Analytics 360 positioned for large enterprises with enterprise-level support and service level agreements. We found no public prices, no scaling by traffic, sites or users, and no overage, add-on, minimum-term or VAT terms on any captured page.

Plausible Analytics

The tiers are public with their inclusions — Starter at €9 /month for up to 10k monthly pageviews, Growth at €14 /month, Business at €19 /month, with sites and team members per plan and features such as the stats API and funnels mapped to tiers — plus a self-hosted Community Edition free of licence fees with community support only and a 30-day trial without credit card. The pricing page indicates traffic bands up to 10M+ monthly pageviews but the captured pages price only the 10k band, Enterprise is "Contact us", and we found no public information on overage handling, minimum term or VAT treatment.