Matomo vs Umami

What the numbers say

Both price rows are counted in events, and the two vendors count different things. A Matomo Cloud hit is any tracked interaction: a pageview, event, download, outlink, site search or content tracking request, and the help centre adds requests from AI assistants. In Umami, a pageview is one event, a custom event one more, and every stored event property another. The ladders above rest on different quantities, and your mix of pageviews, downloads and event properties decides how far apart they sit.

Storage works the same way. Matomo Cloud keeps data in Frankfurt; Umami Cloud runs servers in the US and the EU and asks you to pick the region at sign-up, which is why only one carries a US row. Retention shows the cheapest paid plan for both: Matomo Cloud’s Business plan keeps raw data for two years and reports with no end date, while Umami’s free Hobby plan keeps six months for one website and its Business plan keeps five years.

The script row compares files that do different amounts of work. Matomo’s tracker carries the functions its documentation lists, among them site search, ecommerce orders, content impressions and a heartbeat timer; Umami’s records pageviews and events, with a data attribute for clicks and a track function for the rest. We measured the file a self-hosted installation serves; the cloud serves a larger one with its plugins, as the Matomo card notes.

Who picks which

Matomo answers the question of breadth. Its own plugin runs Matomo inside WordPress, it documents shop platforms and site builders, it ships a tag manager, and it imports Google Analytics 4 reports. The wider reporting has a price: funnels, heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing and form analytics sit in the cloud Business plan and in paid plugins on your own server. Self-hosted, it asks for PHP 8.1 or newer with MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6, a stack most shared hosting already has.

Umami asks for Node.js 18.18 or newer and PostgreSQL 12.14 or newer, or the Docker image, so it suits teams already on that stack. Its plan table lists funnel, retention, user journey, goal, revenue and attribution reports on every cloud plan, including the free one; session replays, heatmaps and white-labeling begin with Business, and API access, email reports and data import with Pro. The vendor publishes no WordPress plugin, and for shops and site builders the table reads not confirmed.

Questions and answers

Can I move my Matomo data into Umami?

Not through a documented importer. Umami Cloud’s import page names two sources, a PostgreSQL export from a self-hosted Umami and a CSV export, and says imports are for Pro customers and run by the Umami team. Matomo is not named, so ask the team whether a file you prepare fits the CSV path.

Do the two price columns compare directly?

Only as far as your traffic allows. Both vendors bill by events, but Matomo counts downloads, outlinks and site searches among them, and Umami counts every stored event property. A site heavy in file downloads and one heavy in event properties move the two ladders differently.

Does either of them need a consent banner?

That depends on where you and your visitors are, on how the tool is configured and on what else your pages load. Matomo’s standard code sets first-party cookies and can be switched to a cookieless mode; Umami states that it counts visits without cookies. Where a vendor says no banner is needed, the card shows that as the vendor’s position. The cookieless page covers the mechanics; this directory does not give legal advice.