whats-best.ai
Search Sign in

Web Analytics

Plausible Analytics

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Plausible Insights OÜ · plausible.io

Compare with Google Analytics 4 → Compare with Simple Analytics → Report an error on this page Is this your product? →

Link to this page

Plausible Analytics: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Plausible Analytics: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Plausible Analytics at a glance

Vendor
Plausible Insights OÜ
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
Data hosting
Default not stated; pages mention the EU and Germany source, captured 29 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Plausible Analytics 2.5/5, the mean of 6 judges. Plausible Analytics, a cookieless open-source web analytics service from Plausible Insights OÜ of Tartu, Estonia, scores highest on consent and privacy (upper cluster 8–9; range 0–9): the pages publish the counting method — a daily salt hash, salt deleted every 24 hours, raw IP and User-Agent never stored — and an independent legal assessment supports consent-free analytics under GDPR, CCPA and PECR. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 29 Oct 2026 to 1 Nov 2026; evaluated by the panel 30 Oct 2026. all sources

Plausible Analytics alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

Weighted verdict

Runs marketing for a Shopware shop selling outdoor gear in Germany and Austria, with a monthly ad budget split between Google, Meta and two price comparison sites. Since the consent banner went live, a third of the orders no longer show a source. Wants revenue per campaign that matches the shop backend, a checkout funnel that shows where carts are left, conversions sent back to the ad platforms, and numbers that hold without a click on "accept".

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

Panel median The E-Commerce Marketing Lead This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The E-Commerce Marketing Lead
Traffic, sources & campaign reports 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Goals, events, funnels & e-commerce 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Consent-free operation & data minimisation 4 of 5 4.5 of 5
Data access, export & self-hosting 4 of 5 4 of 5
Installation, integrations & performance 4 of 5 4 of 5
European sovereignty 4 of 5 4 of 5
Pricing transparency 3 of 5 3 of 5

Traffic, sources & campaign reports

How this is scored

What the standard reports show: page views, visits and visitors, entry and exit pages, referrers, search engines and social networks as sources, campaigns tagged with UTM parameters, countries, devices and browsers, a real-time view, date comparisons, segments and filters, custom dashboards, scheduled email reports, shared or public dashboards, and whether reports are sampled or complete.

0 — Not a web analytics product; website traffic cannot be measured with it.

3 — Page views and visitors over time with top pages and referrers; campaign parameters, segments and report sharing are basic or not described.

5 — A dashboard with pages, referrers, UTM campaigns, countries and devices, a real-time view, date comparison, filters across all reports, email reports, and dashboards shared with clients or colleagues.

8 — Custom segments and saved views, custom dashboards and report builders, channel grouping that can be configured, Search Console or ad platform data shown beside the traffic, unsampled reports stated, several sites and roll-up reporting in one account, and annotations.

10 — Reporting that a whole organisation runs on: custom dimensions and calculated metrics, anomaly alerts, multi-site and multi-brand roll-ups with roles per site, report accuracy and how visitors are counted explained in a published methodology, and every report reproducible from the raw data.

Report an error

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

Pages, entry and exit pages, sources, referrers, UTM tags and channels with automatic grouping for Paid Search and Affiliates, countries through to cities, devices and browsers, a real-time view refreshing every 30 seconds, saved personal and site segments with combinable filters, annotations, a consolidated dashboard across my sites, weekly or monthly email reports and Search Console data beside the traffic. That covers nearly everything I need to judge my Google and price-comparison spend. We found no public information on custom dashboards or report builders, or on ad-platform cost data shown beside the traffic. 1 4 12 18

Report an error

Goals, events, funnels & e-commerce

How this is scored

How the product measures what visitors do: goals for pages and events, custom events with properties, outbound links, downloads, form submissions and scroll depth tracked without code, funnels with drop-off, e-commerce tracking of orders, revenue and products, attribution of conversions to channels and campaigns, cohorts and retention, and conversion data passed back to ad platforms.

0 — Counts page views only; no goals, events or conversions can be defined.

3 — Goals for a page or a custom event; funnels, revenue and attribution are basic or not described.

5 — Goals and custom events with properties, outbound links and file downloads tracked, funnels with drop-off per step, revenue attached to goals or orders, and conversions broken down by source and campaign.

8 — Full e-commerce tracking (products, cart, checkout, orders, revenue) with plugins for named shop systems, several attribution models compared, cohorts and retention, user journeys or paths, forms and scroll depth tracked without code, and conversions sent back to Google Ads, Meta or other ad platforms server to server.

10 — Conversion analysis to the level of a product analytics suite: multi-touch attribution explained, funnels and cohorts on any event or property, revenue reconciled with the shop system, predictive or anomaly metrics with their method stated, and every conversion traceable to the raw event.

Report an error

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

Pageview goals without code changes, custom events with properties, automatic tracking of outbound links, file downloads, form submissions, 404s and scroll depth, plus funnels of 2–8 steps in sequential, flexible or strict modes with per-step drop-off — even counting a Stripe checkout detour as the same session — and revenue goals with total revenue, average order value, multi-currency support and attribution by campaign, landing page, country and device, including a WooCommerce revenue plugin and a Shopify guide. For my checkout funnel this is close to what I run reports for. We found no public information on cohorts and retention, on comparing several attribution models, or on conversions being sent back to Google Ads or Meta server to server — and the Google Analytics import comes in only as day-level aggregates, so historical order data arrives flattened. 4 13 14 17 20

Report an error

Data access, export & self-hosting

How this is scored

Whether the data stays the customer's and can leave with them: a reporting API and a raw event export, CSV export of every report, a scheduled export or sync to a data warehouse or BI tool (BigQuery, Snowflake, Looker Studio), no data sampling or limits on history, import of historical data from Google Analytics or another tool, open-source code, and a self-hosted or on-premise edition the customer runs on its own servers.

0 — No export of any kind; the data can only be viewed in the vendor's dashboard.

3 — A CSV export of reports; an API, raw data and history limits are basic or not described.

5 — A documented reporting API, CSV export of all reports, the retention period for raw data stated, and an import of historical data from Google Analytics or a stated migration path.

8 — Raw event data exportable or streamed to a named warehouse or BI tool, an API covering both reporting and data collection, no sampling stated, a self-hosted or on-premise edition with its own documentation, and the data returned or deleted on termination under stated terms.

10 — The customer owns the data end to end: open-source code under a named licence that runs fully self-hosted with feature parity stated, a complete raw export in an open format that another tool can import, and the deletion of every copy on termination documented.

Report an error

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

The customer retains full ownership of the website data, a Stats API covers reporting while an Events API covers collection, dashboard reports export as CSV (top 300 entries per report, top 100 for pages), a site-settings export is reimportable into another Plausible site, Google Analytics 4 history can be imported, and Enterprise plans deliver daily raw event data to my own S3-compatible storage. The Community Edition is AGPL-licensed and runs on my own server, though its documented feature set omits funnels, user journeys, e-commerce revenue goals, SSO and the Sites API, so parity is partial. Deletion after subscription lapse is documented, with an export window before the dashboards are removed. 5 6 10 17 18

Report an error

Installation, integrations & performance

How this is scored

What it takes to install and run: the size and loading of the tracking script, plugins and documented set-ups for named CMS and shop systems (WordPress, TYPO3, Shopify, Shopware, WooCommerce), single-page apps and mobile SDKs, a tag manager or Google Tag Manager template, server-side tracking and first-party proxying to avoid ad blockers, team roles and permissions, client and agency accounts, single sign-on, and an uptime or status page.

0 — No documented way to install the product on a website or app.

3 — A tracking snippet to paste into the site; plugins, SDKs, server-side options and roles are basic or not described.

5 — A documented snippet with its size stated, plugins or guides for several named CMS and shop systems, support for single-page apps, team members with roles, and an agency or multi-site account.

8 — A lightweight script or server-side collection documented, a first-party proxy or own tracking domain, SDKs for iOS, Android and named frameworks, a tag manager integration, granular roles per site, single sign-on (SAML), and a public status page with uptime history.

10 — Installation that scales across an organisation: server-side and client-side tracking with an equal feature set, an infrastructure-as-code or API-driven site set-up, white-label for agencies, SLA and support terms published, and the performance impact of the script measured and stated.

Report an error

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

A snippet goes into the head, the script is documented as 54 times smaller than Google Analytics with 135KB less JavaScript per visitor, and official routes exist for WordPress including WooCommerce revenue tracking, Shopify, a Google Tag Manager template, NPM, single-page-app frameworks and mobile SDKs such as Android, Flutter and Swift. Server-side tracking via the events API, a first-party script proxy to get past ad blockers, view-only and full-access team roles, single sign-on on Enterprise, an installation testing tool and a public status page showing 99.99% uptime over 90 days make this a solid operational package. We found no public information on a Shopware or TYPO3 plugin, so for my Shopware shop it is the manual snippet. 1 5 15 19 20

Report an error

European sovereignty

How this is scored

Who the contracting entity and the parent company are, where visitor data is collected, stored and processed, and who the subprocessors are (script CDN, collection endpoint, hosting, email reports, support and payment tools). Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; visitor data is personal data under European rulings, so the whole chain counts, not only the database. A self-hosted or open-source edition the customer runs on its own European servers counts as the customer's chain, whatever the vendor's seat.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement exist, but hosting location is unstated or non-EU and the subprocessors are not listed.

5 — EU hosting available and an EU contracting entity or EU representative, but parts of the chain (CDN, collection endpoint, email, support, payment) run through non-EU providers without a stated safeguard, or EU processing relies on a proxy in front of a non-EU service.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessors listed with their locations, a data processing agreement published, and security certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) stated — or a self-hosted edition documented that keeps every visitor record on the customer's own servers.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, or a self-hosted open-source edition with no call home, data export and deletion documented, and certifications published with their scope rather than implied.

Report an error

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

Plausible Insights OÜ, incorporated in Estonia with registration number and VAT ID published, is the contracting entity; visitor data is processed and stored in the EU only on EU-owned infrastructure — Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany, Bunny in Slovenia for CDN, UpCloud in Finland for databases — and the subprocessor list with locations is public alongside a data processing agreement in force automatically for all customers. An AGPL self-hosted edition documented to run on my own server keeps every visitor record in my own chain. Independent confirmation of entity, ownership and residency beyond the vendor's own pages was not available, and we found no public information on ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certifications, so I stop one step short of the top marks. 5 7 8 10 15

Report an error

Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: price per tier by monthly page views or events, what happens when traffic exceeds the tier, the number of sites and users included, which features (e-commerce, funnels, raw export, API, SSO, longer retention) cost extra, the free tier and its limits, the self-hosted edition and its support, minimum term and setup.

0 — No public prices at all; every customer is a sales call.

3 — A starting price or a free tier exists, but how cost scales with traffic, sites or features is unclear.

5 — Tiers are public with their price per traffic band and main inclusions, but at least one commonly needed piece (overage, extra sites, raw export, SSO, longer retention) is unpriced or "on request".

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its scaling rule (page views, events, sites, users), overage handling stated, add-ons priced, the self-hosted edition's cost or licence stated, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: annual cost derivable for a given traffic volume, site count and feature set, with every add-on, setup, support and overage fee and the cancellation and data-return terms published.

Report an error

The E-Commerce Marketing Lead

Starter at €9 /month up to 10k monthly pageviews with one site, Growth at €14 /month with three sites and three team members, Business at €19 /month with ten sites, funnels, e-commerce revenue attribution and the Stats API, Enterprise as contact us, yearly billing with 2 months free, a 30-day trial without credit card, and a free self-hosted Community Edition with community support only. The feature-to-plan mapping is public (funnels and the Stats API on Business, raw event exports and SSO on Enterprise). We found no public information on what happens when traffic exceeds a tier, on VAT treatment or a minimum term, and Enterprise is a sales conversation — so I cannot compute my real annual cost at my traffic level from these pages alone. 1 5 6 14 18

Report an error

European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Hosting location Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Hosting options Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Open source Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about Plausible Analytics

Is Plausible Analytics European?

Yes. whats-best.ai classifies Plausible Analytics as EU-Made.

Where does Plausible Analytics store data?

The default storage location for customer data is not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026. The vendor’s pages mention the EU and Germany as hosting locations, per the vendor’s page captured 29 Oct 2026.

Does Plausible Analytics have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Plausible Analytics?

As of 4 Nov 2026, the panel rates Matomo (4/5), Piwik PRO Analytics Suite (3.5/5) and Pirsch Analytics (3.5/5) highest among the other 17 Web Analytics products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Piwik PRO Analytics Suite (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Plausible Analytics alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Do you know more about Plausible Analytics? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (22)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage (with pricing) plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Features page plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Features page (cookieless analytics) plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Features page (e-commerce and revenue goals) plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Features page (self-hosted edition) plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 API documentation plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Legal notice plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Privacy policy plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Data policy (what is collected) plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Data processing agreement (dpa) plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Traffic, sources & campaign reports — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Traffic, sources & campaign reports — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Goals, events, funnels & e-commerce — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Goals, events, funnels & e-commerce — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  15. 15 Consent-free operation & data minimisation — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  16. 16 Consent-free operation & data minimisation — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  17. 17 Data access, export & self-hosting — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  18. 18 Data access, export & self-hosting — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  19. 19 Installation, integrations & performance — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  20. 20 Installation, integrations & performance — found from sitemap plausible.io Checked 29 Oct 2026 Details →
  21. 21 Security / trust page — found from the homepage plausible.io Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  22. 22 Open-source licence page — found from the homepage plausible.io Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →