Counter alternatives

3 tools to consider instead of Counter, shown against it.

Counter GoatCounter Pirsch Analytics Umami
Vendor Counter.dev open-source project Martin Tournoij (independent open-source project) Emvi Software GmbH Umami Software, Inc.
Pricing model Free Free Usage-based Free tier + paid plans
Free tier Yes Yes No Yes
Deployment Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted
Open source Yes (AGPL-3.0) Yes (EUPL-1.2) Yes (AGPL-3.0) Yes (MIT)
Best for Developers and hobby-site owners who want the smallest possible privacy-friendly analytics widget and are comfortable without event or funnel tracking. Individual site owners, developers, and small teams wanting a free-to-self-host, single-maintainer tool without commercial pricing tiers. Teams that want a cookieless GA alternative hosted in the EU with built-in funnels and A/B testing, not just pageview counts. Developers and teams who want either a free, fully self-hosted analytics stack they control end-to-end, or a low-cost managed alternative billed by event volume instead of pageviews.
Pricing

"Pay when ready": the hosted service is fully free to use with no quotas or feature restrictions and no enforced payment; the vendor invites optional voluntary contributions once logged in. No numeric price tiers are published.

Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.

The hosted goatcounter.com service is free for reasonable public/personal or small-to-medium business use (no published price tiers or hard limits), sustained by voluntary GitHub Sponsors donations; self-hosting is free and unrestricted.

Hosted (goatcounter.com) Free
Self-hosted Free (open source)

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Priced by combined monthly page views and events on a sliding scale, starting at $6/month for 10,000 monthly page views on up to 50 websites; a 30-day free trial is offered, not a permanent free tier.

Standard $6/month
Plus $12/month
Enterprise Custom quote

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Self-hosting is free and unlimited; Umami Cloud uses usage-based pricing billed per event (pageview + custom events), with a free Hobby tier and paid Pro/Business/Enterprise tiers.

Hobby (Cloud) $0/month
Pro (Cloud) $20/month
Business (Cloud) $200/month
Enterprise (Cloud) Custom

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Features
  • Cookieless visitor tracking (no cookies, logging, or IP fingerprinting for site visitors)
  • Daily unique-visitor counts as the core metric
  • Referral tracking showing which sites link to yours
  • Geographical, device, platform, browser, and screen-size breakdowns
  • Deliberately narrow, single-purpose dashboard with no funnels or event tracking
  • Fully open-source frontend and backend, self-hostable via an official Docker recipe
  • Live public demo dashboard
  • Cookieless unique-visitor identification with no persistent personal data storage
  • No GDPR consent notice required per vendor
  • Lightweight script (~3.5KB) plus JavaScript-free tracking-pixel option
  • Server-side/middleware integration and log-file import as alternatives to the JS snippet
  • Browser, location, screen-size, referrer and campaign tracking
  • Full data export and account cancellation at any time
  • High-priority accessibility support (screen readers)
  • Fully self-hostable, complete open-source codebase on GitHub
  • Cookieless, GDPR/CCPA/PECR-compliant tracking with no consent banner required
  • Custom event tracking and conversion goals
  • Funnel visualization (Plus tier and above)
  • A/B testing with segmentation (Plus tier and above)
  • Session-level analysis and drill-down
  • Built-in URL shortener
  • RESTful API and SDKs, plus a WordPress plugin
  • Import from Google Analytics, Plausible and Fathom
  • Free, unlimited self-hosting (MIT license) alongside a managed Umami Cloud option
  • Event-based usage metering (pageviews + custom events count together)
  • Cookieless tracking with no consent banner required
  • Funnel analysis, user retention, and user journey reports
  • UTM parameter and revenue/attribution reporting
  • Session replays and heatmaps (Cloud Business tier and above)
  • API and MCP (Model Context Protocol) access
  • Data export with no vendor lock-in

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