8 Best Google Analytics Alternatives (Free and Paid)

The best free Google Analytics alternatives are Umami (free cloud plan up to 100K events a month), PostHog (1M analytics events a month free), Clicky (free for one site up to 3,000 pageviews a day), and Simple Analytics (free hobby plan). Matomo and Plausible are free if you host them yourself. If you want a simpler, privacy-friendly tool and don’t mind paying, Plausible starts at $9 a month and Fathom at $15.

I wrote this list for two reasons. Google replaced Universal Analytics with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) back in 2023, and if you found Universal Analytics a bit complex, you probably hate GA4 (I do, with passion). If you stick with GA4 anyway, setting up content grouping makes it a lot more organized.

The second reason is privacy. I want to know how visitors find my site, what they click, and how my content is performing, but I don’t want their data feeding Google’s ad business, which is a big part of why Google Analytics is free.

Google Analytics is still the default: W3Techs counts it on 81.7% of websites whose traffic analysis tool it can identify (November 2026). The tools below are the ones worth a look if you want out.

Full disclosure: I co-founded Simple Analytics, the first pick on this list (you can read how we grew it), so weigh that pick with that in mind.

Pricing and Free Plans Compared

Prices below are from each vendor’s pricing page, checked November 2, 2026. “Free to self-host” means the software is free, but you run and pay for the server.

Tool	Free option	Paid plans from	Best for
Simple Analytics	Free hobby plan (5 sites, 1 month of history, badge required)	$20/mo (100K pageviews)	Simple, privacy-first stats
Matomo	Free to self-host	$26/mo Cloud, excl. tax (50K hits)	A full GA4 replacement
Fathom	7-day free trial only	$15/mo (100K pageviews)	Simple, privacy-first stats
Plausible	30-day free trial, or free to self-host	$9/mo (10K pageviews)	Simple stats, open source
Clicky	Free for 1 site, 3,000 pageviews/day	$9.99/mo	Real-time stats on a budget
Piwik PRO	Free trial only	$25,000/year	Enterprise and regulated industries
PostHog	1M analytics events/mo free	Usage-based	Product analytics
Umami	Free for 1 site, 100K events/mo	$20/mo	A free cloud plan

Which Ones Are Actually Free?

If you searched for a free Google Analytics alternative, these are the options with a real free tier, not just a trial:

• Umami’s Hobby plan covers one website and 100K events a month, with 6 months of data retention.
• PostHog gives you 1M analytics events and 5K session recordings a month. It’s built for product teams, so expect a learning curve.
• Clicky’s free plan tracks one site up to 3,000 pageviews a day and keeps 30 days of history.
• Simple Analytics is free forever for hobby sites: up to 5 websites and the latest month of data, with a badge on your site.
• Matomo, Plausible, and Umami are open source, so you can self-host them for free if you’re comfortable running a server.

Two free tools sit outside the main list. Cloudflare Web Analytics is free, works by adding a JavaScript snippet (your site doesn’t have to run through Cloudflare), and doesn’t use cookies. Microsoft Clarity is free with no traffic limits and focuses on heatmaps and session recordings, so it pairs well with a lighter analytics tool.

1. Simple Analytics

If you hate GA4 and its complexity, you’ll love Simple Analytics. As the name suggests, it’s simple and easy to install. Like Google Analytics, you add a script to your website (or use Google Tag Manager), and within minutes your dashboard starts filling with data:

Simple Analytics is privacy-first: no cookies and no personal data from your visitors, so you don’t need a consent banner for it. You can still track events like button clicks and checkouts, set up goals and funnels, get scheduled email reports, and import your old Google Analytics data.

The free hobby plan covers up to 5 websites with one month of history and a required badge. Paid plans start at $20 a month for 100K pageviews, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card needed (Simple Analytics pricing).

2. Matomo

Of all the alternatives, Matomo comes closest to Google Analytics. It has most of the same depth (ecommerce, funnels, heatmaps, session recordings) and most of the complexity, but it’s privacy-friendly. It still collects personal data, but you own 100% of it and it isn’t sold to third parties.

You can self-host Matomo On-Premise for free with unlimited users and hits, or pay for Matomo Cloud, which starts at $26 a month (excl. tax) for 50K hits, with 2 months free on annual billing (Matomo pricing). There’s no free Cloud plan, just a free trial with no credit card. Matomo also has a Google Analytics importer to bring your history over.

3. Fathom Analytics

Fathom is another simple analytics tool. It focuses on a clean dashboard with the metrics most sites need: no heatmaps, segments, or heavy customization. You get custom events, email reports, a Google Analytics importer, and cookie-free tracking.

Comparing Fathom to Simple Analytics is probably a matter of taste. Both are privacy-friendly and easy to use. One difference: Fathom receives each visitor’s IP address and turns it into an anonymized visitor hash, while Simple Analytics says it doesn’t collect personal data at all.

Plans start at $15 a month for up to 100K pageviews across 50 sites, after a 7-day free trial that needs a card. Fathom says plainly it has no free plan (Fathom pricing). There is a free, self-hosted Fathom Lite, but it’s the original version: it no longer gets new features, it uses cookies, and it lacks events and the current dashboard.

4. Plausible

Plausible is in the same camp as Fathom and Simple Analytics: straightforward, lightweight, and cookie-free. It’s open source, so you can self-host it for free. The main difference is how it counts visitors. It hashes each visitor’s IP address and browser details with a salt that rotates every 24 hours, and says it never stores raw IP addresses (Plausible data policy).

Hosted pricing starts at $9 a month for the Starter plan (one site, 10K monthly pageviews). Growth is $14 for up to 3 sites, and the $19 Business plan adds funnels, custom properties, and ecommerce revenue attribution. There’s a 30-day free trial with no credit card, but no free hosted plan.

5. Clicky

Clicky is an OG analytics tool, and you can tell. It’s barebones and looks like a product built in 2006. But it does the job, shows real-time visitor data, and is one of the cheapest options here.

The free plan covers one site and 3,000 pageviews a day, with 30 days of history. Paid plans start at $9.99 a month for 10 sites and 30,000 daily pageviews, and every new account gets a 21-day trial of premium features like heatmaps, uptime monitoring, and goals (Clicky pricing).

6. Piwik PRO

Piwik PRO started as a commercial offshoot of Piwik, the open-source project that renamed itself Matomo in 2018 (number two on this list). It’s more commercially focused than Matomo and has no open-source version. In 2023, Piwik PRO merged with Cookie Information, a Danish consent-management company, but it still runs as its own analytics brand.

Piwik PRO matches GA4 on features and customization, with a tag manager, consent manager, and audience tools built in. It’s priced for enterprises: the Enterprise plan starts at $25,000 a year, and a Healthcare Enterprise plan with a HIPAA business associate agreement starts at $30,000 (Piwik PRO pricing). For a small site, the simpler tools above make more sense.

7. PostHog

PostHog is a great tool. The product is well organized, it looks clean, and the branding is on point. It’s primarily a product analytics platform that also does website analytics, with session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, and surveys in the same place.

If you need an all-in-one replacement for Google Analytics and are willing to get your hands dirty, it’s worth a try. It’s open source and the free tier is generous: 1M analytics events and 5K session recordings every month, with no card required (PostHog pricing). The downside is that it’s overkill if you just want to see your traffic.

8. Umami

Umami started as an open-source, self-hosted project and now also offers a hosted cloud version. It’s cookie-free, easy to read, and covers the basics: pageviews, referrers, custom events, and real-time data.

The free Hobby plan covers one website and up to 100K events a month, with 6 months of data retention. Pro is $20 a month for 1M events and 2 years of retention, with a 14-day free trial (Umami pricing). Or self-host it for free.

Is a Google Analytics Alternative Right for You?

There are plenty of analytics tools, and one of these will fit your use case:

• Matomo or Piwik PRO if you want a one-to-one GA4 replacement, or PostHog if product analytics matters more.
• Simple Analytics, Fathom, or Plausible if you want something private and simple.
• Umami, Clicky, or the Simple Analytics hobby plan if it has to be free or cheap.

If you want to explore simpler analytics but wonder what you’d miss from GA4, Simple Analytics wrote a deep dive comparing the metrics and features side by side.

Let me know if you have any questions or recommendations. Happy to help!