Google Analytics 4 vs Plausible Analytics

Google Analytics 4

The captured pages advertise an advertising workspace with cross-channel ROI and attribution reports, shareable reports, unsampled total-data reports in the premium tier, and Search Console and ad platforms among the named integrations. Beyond that we found no public information on the captured pages about the standard report contents — page views, top pages, referrers, countries, devices, segments, filters or a real-time view.

Plausible Analytics

Every report I would ask for is documented: pages, entry and exit pages, channels, sources, referrers, UTM tags, countries down to city, browsers, operating systems and devices, a real-time view updating every 30 seconds, filters with saved personal and site segments, annotations, email reports and a consolidated view across sites, with Search Console data shown alongside the traffic. Custom properties double as custom dimensions in the API, and the counting method is published (a daily hash, 30-minute session timeout). What I could not find: any statement that reports are unsampled, configurable channel grouping, or evidence that every report can be rebuilt from the raw data.

Google Analytics 4

Google Ads conversion tracking and remarketing, an advertising workspace with attribution models to evaluate, cross-channel ROI reports and machine-learning predictions of audience behaviour are documented. We found no public information on the captured pages about goals, funnels with drop-off per step, e-commerce revenue and product tracking, or cohorts and retention.

Plausible Analytics

The documented set is broad: pageview goals without code changes, custom events with properties, outbound links, file downloads, form submissions, 404s and scroll depth tracked automatically, funnels in three types with drop-off per step and revenue per step, revenue goals filterable by source, campaign, entry page, country and device, user journeys, and WooCommerce and Shopify revenue integrations. Still missing for the top rating: product-, cart- and checkout-level e-commerce, cohort and retention reports, compared attribution models, and any way to send conversions back to Google Ads or Meta — I found no public information on those.

Google Analytics 4

Consent mode is documented down to the individual ping fields and per-storage-type behaviour, GA4 states IP addresses are never stored or logged, EU IP addresses are deleted before recording, and the exact detailed location and device fields that stop being collected when the per-region toggle is off are listed. Against that: detailed data is collected by default, the default consent state assumes everything granted with advertising cookies and advertising identifiers, unique identifiers and IP addresses appear among the collected data types, and we found no public information tying the position to named law or supplying privacy-policy wording — the CMP partner list suggests a banner is expected, not avoided.

Plausible Analytics

This is the strongest consent-free case I can check on paper: no cookies, no persistent identifiers, no cross-site or cross-device tracking, a published counting method (daily salt hash over IP address and User-Agent, salt deleted every 24 hours, raw IP and User-Agent never stored), URL query parameters discarded except campaign and referral parameters, and an independent legal assessment by a data protection expert supporting consent-free processing under GDPR, CCPA and PECR via legitimate interest, with the code open to inspection. The gaps: no citation of §25 TDDDG or the CNIL exemption, no per-data-type retention settings, and no supplied wording for the customer's privacy policy.

Google Analytics 4

The premium tier promises a daily BigQuery export covered by an SLA together with unsampled total-data reports, and the processing terms commit to deleting all remaining customer personal data within a maximum of 180 days after the term — though deletion may carry a fee based on Google's reasonable costs. We found no public information on the captured pages about a reporting API, CSV export of reports, a historical-data import, or any self-hosted or open-source edition.

Plausible Analytics

The data has exits: a documented stats API with filters, segments and custom-property dimensions, an events API and a sites API, per-report CSV exports, a site-settings export in the same format as the CSV import so it can be reimported into another Plausible site, GA4 history import, daily raw event exports to S3-compatible storage on Enterprise, and an AGPL-licensed self-hosted edition with its own install guide. But read the fine print: dashboard CSVs are capped at the top 300 entries per report (100 for pages), the raw export sits behind Enterprise, the Community Edition explicitly omits funnels, user journeys, e-commerce revenue goals, SSO and the sites API, and both dashboard export and the stats API stop working without an active subscription — only the site-settings export survives to get the data out before deletion.

Google Analytics 4

Implementation is documented around gtag.js commands, Google Tag Manager templates, a Firebase SDK for apps, the analytics domains a content security policy must allow, and a long list of named consent-management partners. We found no public information on the captured pages about the script's size, plugins for named CMS or shop systems, single-page-app support, team roles and permissions, single sign-on, or a public status page.

Plausible Analytics

Installation is documented end to end: a head snippet with a testing tool, an official WordPress plugin with WooCommerce revenue tracking and proxy mode, guides for thirteen named platforms including Shopify, automatic single-page-app routing plus a hash-based tracker, Android, Swift, Flutter and Qt SDKs, a Google Tag Manager template, a first-party script proxy, server-side collection via the events API, team roles up to single sign-on on Enterprise, and a public status page reporting 99.99% uptime over 90 days. Script weight is stated comparatively — 135KB less JavaScript per visitor than Google Analytics. I found no published SLA, no white-label option and no named protocol for the single sign-on; the self-hosted edition comes with community support only.

Google Analytics 4

The contracting entity is Google Ireland Limited in Dublin with a published data processing agreement, an ISO 27001 certification and a subprocessor list — but the same terms allow processing in any country where Google or its subprocessors maintain facilities, and the EU arrangement is collection over EU domains and servers with EU IP addresses deleted before traffic is forwarded onward to Analytics servers. With the parent in California and US Cloud Act exposure flagged for the subprocessor chain, this is a European front door in front of an unrestricted back end, not a European chain.

Plausible Analytics

The chain checks out where it matters for visitor data: the contracting entity is Plausible Insights OÜ in Tartu, Estonia (imprint with registration number 14709274), hosting is on Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany with the statement that visitor data never leaves the EU, the CDN is Bunny in Slovenia and the database on UpCloud in Finland, and a DPA is published and applies automatically to all customers. Two reservations keep this from the top: Paddle (payments), Postmark (the email reports) and several optional processors appear on the list without a stated location, and no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification is claimed anywhere I read. The self-hosted Community Edition, installable on any server in any country, is the exit door — with the caveat that you also own the security patching.

Google Analytics 4

A free standard product and a paid Analytics 360 positioned for large enterprises are described, so a buyer knows two editions exist. We found no public information on the captured pages about any price, tier structure, traffic bands, feature add-ons, minimum term or what happens when traffic exceeds a tier, so no annual cost can be computed from these pages.

Plausible Analytics

Starter at €9/month for up to 10k monthly pageviews on one site, Growth at €14/month for 3 sites, Business at €19/month for 10 sites, two months free on yearly billing, a 30-day trial with no credit card, and a self-hosted edition with no fees to the vendor. A buyer still cannot compute the full annual cost: the pageview bands for Growth and Business are not given, there is no stated overage handling, the captured pages give no VAT treatment or minimum term, and single sign-on and scheduled raw exports live on an Enterprise plan priced only as 'Custom Contact us'.