Plausible

Active

Plausible is a web analytics tool offered as a cloud service that processes data in the EU and as a self-hosted Community Edition under the AGPL license. It counts visitors without cookies, and its cloud plans are sized by the monthly total of pageviews and custom events.

  • Web analytics
  • Cloud or self-hosted
  • Based in Estonia
  • Founded 2018
  • Checked 17 Sep 2026

Tracking script

2.43 KB compressed

5.83 KB uncompressed · measured 17 Sep 2026

0.5 KB1 KB5 KB10 KB50 KB100 KBAckee: 8.08 KBAdobe Analytics: 52.0 KBAmplitude: 64.0 KBAptabase: 1.27 KBCabin: 1.17 KBCounter.dev: 0.43 KBCountly: 36.4 KBCrazy Egg: 2.65 KBDataFast: 5.13 KBDatabuddy: 11.0 KBFathom Analytics: 2.04 KBFullstory: 93.7 KBGoatCounter: 3.24 KBGoogle Analytics 4: 145.9 KBHeap: 6.01 KB (loader file)Humblytics: 16.2 KBKoko Analytics: 0.81 KBLite Analytics: 1.09 KBLitlyx: 1.17 KBMatomo: 21.6 KBMicroanalytics: 1.15 KBMicrosoft Clarity: 0.51 KB (loader file)Mixpanel: 32.7 KBOpenPanel: 3.20 KBOvertracking: 4.80 KBPendo: 233.1 KBPirsch: 3.42 KBPiwik PRO: 22.9 KBPostHog: 95.3 KBPretty Insights: 6.83 KBRybbit: 10.6 KBSeline: 1.89 KBSentinelPro: 5.19 KBSimple Analytics: 3.74 KBStatable: 2.18 KBSwetrix: 6.05 KBTelemetryDeck: 0.47 KBTinyAnalytics: 6.99 KBUmami: 2.26 KBVemetric: 2.71 KBVisitors: 6.99 KBPlausible: 2.43 KB2.43 KB
Lighter than 27 of the 39 other measured scripts. Each line is one tool; hover to see which.

Measured: the personal script that the current installation guide issues (pa-….js). The older generic script.js was 1.25 KB compressed on the same day.

Price

From$9/mo
At 100k pageviews$19/mo

Billed by pageviews · checked 17 Sep 2026

$0$85$16910k100k1M10MUp to 10,000 pageviews: $9/mo (Starter)Up to 100,000 pageviews: $19/mo (Starter)Up to 200,000 pageviews: $29/mo (Starter)Up to 500,000 pageviews: $49/mo (Starter)Up to 1,000,000 pageviews: $69/mo (Starter)Up to 2,000,000 pageviews: $89/mo (Starter)Up to 5,000,000 pageviews: $129/mo (Starter)Up to 10,000,000 pageviews: $169/mo (Starter)$19/mo at 100k
Cheapest monthly price for each published traffic level, in pageviews. Hover a point for the plan.
All plans and prices →

Privacy and data

Cookies
None
no cookies or stored ID by default
Data location
EU
Cloud or self-hosted
Self-hosting
Available
Source code
Open source

Plans

Free plan
No
no free hosted plan
Billing unit
Pageviews
Sites on entry plan
Limited
Data retention
3 years

Strengths

  • Stores nothing in the visitor’s browser: the vendor states that it uses no cookies, browser cache or local storage. Unique visitors are counted with a daily hash of the site domain, IP address and user agent, with a salt that is deleted every 24 hours, and raw IP addresses are not stored.
  • Visitor data is processed and stored in the EU on infrastructure owned by European companies, according to the vendor.
  • Goals and custom events, email and Slack reports, saved segments and annotations are included from the Starter plan.
  • Historical Google Analytics 4 data can be imported as daily totals, and the Google Search Console integration shows the search terms behind Google traffic, with impressions, click-through rate and position.
  • The code is published under AGPL-3.0, and the Community Edition runs on your own server with Docker Compose.

Watch-outs

  • Custom events, such as outbound link clicks, file downloads, form submissions and events you send yourself, count toward the same monthly total as pageviews, added up across all sites in a team.
  • Starter covers one site, without team members or shared links. Funnels, user journeys, custom properties, ecommerce revenue attribution, the Stats API and the Data Studio connector require Business; SSO and the Sites API require Enterprise.
  • Starter and Growth keep data for three years, Business for five.
  • After two consecutive months above the plan’s volume, the vendor asks you to upgrade. Without an upgrade within a week, dashboards are locked, although stats are still collected.
  • The self-hosted Community Edition has no funnels, user journeys, ecommerce revenue goals, SSO or Sites API. It is released twice a year, uses basic bot filtering and relies on community support.

Who it suits

Plausible can suit site owners who want traffic, sources and goals on one page without building reports, and who prefer a tool that stores nothing in the visitor’s browser. The cloud service keeps visitor data in the EU, which helps when data location is a fixed requirement.

The plan structure also shapes who it fits. The entry plan is for one site and one person; shared dashboards, team members and more sites start on the Growth plan. Blogs and small business sites that need goals and custom events can use the lower plans, since both are included from Starter. Teams that need funnels, custom properties or the Stats API require the Business plan.

If you want to run the software yourself, the Community Edition is free but has fewer features than the cloud service; see open-source tools you can self-host.

Setup

When you add a site to your Plausible account, the setup screen shows its tracking snippet; later you can find it in the site’s settings under Tracking. Place the snippet in the head section of every page. There you can also switch on optional measurements, such as outbound links, file downloads and form submissions.

On WordPress, the vendor recommends its official plugin. Other routes include a Google Tag Manager template, an npm package, a proxy on your own domain and an Events API for server-side tracking.

The Community Edition runs with Docker Compose, together with PostgreSQL and ClickHouse. It needs a CPU with SSE 4.2 or NEON support, and the vendor recommends 2 GB of RAM or more.

  • Single snippet
  • WordPress plugin
  • First-party proxy
  • Public API (partly)
  • Data export
  • Search Console
  • Email reports
  • Slack or webhooks
  • Public dashboard

Moving from another tool

Plausible can import historical data from Google Analytics 4. In the site’s Imports & Exports settings, you connect your Google account, and the data is imported as daily totals, from your first Google Analytics visitor up to your first Plausible visitor. Imported data has no exit pages, scroll depth, UTM sources or ecommerce revenue, and it is not included in the consolidated view.

Stats from other tools can be imported from CSV files that follow Plausible’s CSV format. The same export and import moves a site between the Community Edition and the cloud service, but data imported from Google Analytics is left out of the export.

Features

As documented on the vendor’s own pages. “Partly” means the feature has limits or is only on some plans.

Tracking & Reporting

  • Pageviews & visitors: yes
  • Live visitor count: yes
  • Top pages report: yes
  • Top referrers: yes
  • UTM campaign tracking: yes
  • Country & city breakdown: yes
  • Device, browser, OS: yes
  • Bounce / engagement: yes
  • Time on site: yes
  • Custom events: yes
  • Goals / conversions: yes
  • FunnelsPartly
  • Outbound link tracking: yes
  • File download tracking: yes
  • 404 / error trackingPartly

Pricing & Plans

  • Unlimited sites on entry plan: no

Privacy & Compliance

  • Cookieless by default: yes
  • No personal data collected (vendor’s position): yes
  • No consent banner needed (vendor’s position): yes
  • Data hosted in EU: yes
  • Data hosted in US: no
  • Self-hostable: yes
  • Open source: yes
  • Data retention3 years
  • Bot & spam filtering: yes

Setup & Integrations

  • Single-snippet install: yes
  • WordPress plugin: yes
  • Proxy / first-party domain: yes
  • Public APIPartly
  • Data export (CSV/JSON): yes
  • Google Search Console connector: yes
  • Email digests: yes
  • Slack / webhook alerts: yes
  • Public shareable dashboard: yes

Platforms & frameworks

What the vendor documents. A platform that is not listed has no guide, plugin or package from the vendor.

  • Shopify: yes
  • WooCommerce: yes
  • Ghost: yes
  • Webflow: yes
  • Squarespace: yes
  • Wix: yes
  • DrupalPartly
  • ReactPartly
  • Next.js: yes
  • Vue / NuxtPartly
  • Static sites (GitHub / GitLab Pages)Partly
  • Google Tag Manager: yes
  • Server-side tracking: yes

Questions and answers

Does Plausible use cookies?

No. Plausible states that it uses no cookies, browser cache or local storage, and that it recognizes a returning visitor only within a day, through a hash whose salt is deleted every 24 hours. The vendor also says that its customers do not need a cookie banner for analytics; whether that holds for your site depends on the rules that apply to you and on your setup.

Do custom events count toward the Plausible plan?

Yes. Your plan is set by the monthly total of pageviews and custom events across all sites in a team, and custom events include outbound link clicks, file downloads, form submissions and events you track yourself.

What happens if my traffic goes over the plan limit?

One month over the limit requires no action. After two consecutive months over it, Plausible asks you to upgrade; if you do not upgrade within a week, dashboards are temporarily locked, while stats continue to be collected.

Is there a free plan?

No. Plausible offers a 30-day free trial that needs no credit card and includes the features and limits of the Business plan. The self-hosted Community Edition is free, but you run and maintain the server yourself.

Sources and checks

Status
Active, checked 17 Sep 2026
Prices
Checked 17 Sep 2026 on the vendor’s pricing page ↗
Tracking script
Measured 17 Sep 2026: downloaded and compressed the same way for every tool
Features
From the vendor’s pages, checked 18 Sep 2026
This page
Text updated 17 Sep 2026

How each value is collected: methodology. Why tools get no overall score: our reasoning.

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