Matomo vs Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

Matomo

The standard reports list top pages, entry and exit pages, referrers across more than 800 search engines and social networks, countries, devices, browsers and campaigns, with a real-time map and counter, custom segments from over 110 conditions, custom dashboards, scheduled email reports, annotations, roll-up reporting across many sites and Search Console keyword import, and an explicit statement of no data sampling. I found no published methodology for how visitors are counted and no configurable channel grouping, so it stays just below the top level.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

Audience, acquisition and behaviour reports come with real-time views, a drag-and-drop report builder over one hundred dimensions, metrics and filters, custom dashboards and segments, and sharing inside the organisation; campaign URLs are built for both their own and UTM parameters, and Google Search Console and Google Ads data can sit beside the traffic. Sampling is off by default with an option to enable it, and a plan covers up to twenty domains. We found no public information on annotations, configurable channel grouping or roll-up reporting across those sites.

Matomo

Goals, events covering clicks, video plays, downloads and form submissions, automatic download and outbound-link tracking, and a funnels product with per-step drop-off, segmentation by funnel step, validation and historical backfill are documented, alongside e-commerce analytics with plugins for WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, Shopify and shopware, multi-channel attribution, user cohorts and a Form Analytics feature showing where visitors leave forms — the abandonment view our public service forms need. The captured pages do not show conversions being sent back to ad platforms server to server, which keeps it below the very top level.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

Goals, custom events, form tracking and virtual page views are out of the box, with clicks, scrolls, downloads and form fills captured and funnels that can mix page views, custom events and downloads — close to what I need for spotting where daycare forms are abandoned. E-commerce goes deep with checkout analyses, shopping-behaviour reports, revenue, average order value, customer lifetime value, a Shopify integration and multi-channel attribution, plus user flows and individual user journeys. We found no public information on cohort or retention analysis, a comparison of several attribution models, or conversions passed back to ad platforms server-to-server.

Matomo

Banner-free operation is thoroughly documented: cookieless tracking with all cookies disableable, IP anonymisation or no IP storage at all, a no-PII configuration, customer-configurable retention, Do Not Track, an opt-out iframe and form, a one-click CNIL exemption configuration with a published self-assessment, CNIL approval to collect without tracking consent, and guides for privacy notice wording. I must flag two captured facts for German practice: the vendor recommends consent before cookieless or cookie-based tracking under German law, and the BfDI guideline requires consent for the bodies it supervises — though log-file analytics without terminal-device access is offered as a consent-free alternative with a limited report set.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

For a council that will not show a cookie banner this is the strongest area: the French authority CNIL is cited as permitting use without any consent, tracking runs anonymously when consent is ignored or refused, and anonymisation of IP addresses and purchase data is positioned against TDDDG and CNIL, with six selectable tracking methods, an opt-out and 25 months' retention on the Business plan. Data subject requests for deletion, modification and transfer are handled through the product, and the full request history can be shown to a data protection authority. We found no public information on how anonymous visitors are actually counted, per-data-type retention settings, or supplied wording for our privacy policy.

Matomo

The On-Premise edition is open source under the GPL licence, free forever, runs on our own MySQL database with no storage limits, and subprocessors are explicitly not applicable to it; the APIs return visitor-level data in CSV, JSON and XML, raw data can flow to BigQuery or Snowflake or be queried in SQL, historical Google Analytics data can be imported, migration works in both directions, and the data processing agreement promises deletion within 30 days of termination with export rights during that window. In the Cloud plan raw data is kept 24 months while report data is kept forever, which I note for long-range planning.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

A reporting API and a raw data export feed a data warehouse or BI tools in JSON, CSV or XML, sampling is off by default, historical data can be migrated from Google Analytics or Matomo, and the pricing page states raw data access is via API only. An on-premise deployment inside our own security perimeter is offered, with the vendor removable as data processor entirely, alongside a no-lock-in commitment and a dedicated database per customer. We found no public information on a named warehouse or BI target, an open-source licence, or data return and deletion terms at contract end beyond trial accounts.

Matomo

A five-minute install with one-click options for Softaculous, Installatron and a Debian package, official plugins for WordPress, Joomla, TYPO3, Drupal and the major shop systems, official iOS and Android SDKs, LDAP and SAML login, a Docker image with GPG-signed releases, and a thoroughly documented first-party tracker proxy with authentication and subdomain guidance give a realistic path inside the municipal data centre. I found no published script size, no status page with uptime history and no SLA, and single-page-app support is not explicitly named on the captured pages.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

Server-side tracking with a first-party collector and reverse proxy is documented in detail, with ready-made templates for the server-side Google Tag Manager and the partners Stape and TAGGRS, plus a tag manager with an extensive template library requiring no JavaScript. Single sign-on via SAML or Active Directory/LDAP, multi-level user permissions, a 99% SLA uptime guarantee and a Shopify integration are stated. We found no public information on the tracking script's size, mobile SDKs, plugins for CMSs like WordPress or TYPO3, or a public status page with uptime history.

Matomo

For the cloud edition the hosting is named — AWS in Frankfurt with backups in Dublin, with the vendor stating no data is transferred to the US — plus an EU representative in Germany, a published Article 28 DPA, ISO 27001 certification and a published subprocessor list; but the contracting entity is InnoCraft Ltd in Wellington, New Zealand, and the support and payment chain includes Help Scout in the USA, Paddle in the UK and USA, and US-based Twilio, Atlassian and HubSpot. What secures this level for my procurement office is the documented On-Premise edition: open-source, on our own servers in the country of our choice, with subprocessors declared not applicable, so every visitor record stays on the municipal chain.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

The contracting entity is Piwik PRO GmbH of Berlin with registry court and number published, a data processing agreement is offered, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications are stated, and EU hosting is named: Azure Germany or the Netherlands, ElastX in Sweden for the Business plan, or an on-premise deployment that removes the vendor as processor entirely — workable for our municipal data centre. We found no public information on subprocessors and their locations, which matters because the visitor-data chain counts as a whole, and the group also includes a Polish and a New York entity. Signable for procurement, but the chain is not fully evidenced.

Matomo

Most figures are public: 22 EUR per month excluding tax for the Business plan, additional hits at 5,000 for 2.2 EUR excluding tax, two months free on annual billing, prorated plan changes, 30 websites and 30 team members included, the Data Warehouse Connector from 5 EUR per month, and a free GPL download for the self-hosted edition. I found no full tier ladder, no minimum term and no prices for the premium plugins on the captured pages, so the annual cost for our traffic is not fully computable.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

The Business plan is unusually well documented: from €36 per month for up to 2 million actions and 20 domains with all four modules, 25 months' retention, a stated overage policy, an automatic 4% annual increase, auto-renewal with 30 days' notice, and payment methods with who bears the fees. Enterprise starts at €366 per month billed annually and a free entry plan exists, but Enterprise pricing is individual, depending on modules, action limit, hosting option and SLA package. We found no public information on the overage fee amount, SLA package prices, the on-premise edition's cost or VAT treatment, so a real annual total for our traffic volume is not computable from public pages alone.