Google Analytics Alternative: 6 Options for Small Apps
The best Google Analytics alternative for a small app is a lightweight, cookieless tool that shows pages, referrers, countries and devices on one screen. Plausible, Fathom, Umami, Matomo, Clicky and Indiehacker Studio all do that. Which one fits depends on whether you want a free plan, self-hosting, or analytics bundled with support and revenue.
Google Analytics 4 is free and powerful, but it was built for marketing teams. If you run one or several side projects, you mostly want five numbers and no setup work. This guide compares six options that give you that, with prices checked on each vendor’s pricing page in October 2026.
Why do indie founders look for a Google Analytics alternative?
Three reasons come up again and again.
- GA4 is heavy for a small site. Events, data streams, explorations and custom reports are useful for a marketing team. For a solo founder checking whether yesterday’s launch post worked, it is a lot of clicking.
- Cookies and consent. GA4 sets cookies, so in many regions you need a consent banner before it loads. Many visitors decline, and the numbers you see shrink. Our guide on cookieless analytics without a cookie banner explains the trade-off.
- Data retention. On standard GA4 properties, event data is kept for 2 or 14 months. Longer options (26, 38 and 50 months) are reserved for Analytics 360, the paid tier. More on that in is Google Analytics free?
If none of that bothers you, GA4 is fine. If it does, here are the alternatives.
Which Google Analytics alternatives are worth a look?
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | Free option | Self-host | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plausible | $9/month, 10k pageviews | 30-day trial | Open source code | One clean dashboard |
| Fathom | $15/month, 100k pageviews | 7-day trial | No | Many sites on one plan |
| Umami | $20/month (Pro), 1M events | Hobby: 100k events, 1 site | Yes, free | Developers who self-host |
| Matomo | 29/month Cloud, 50k hits | On-Premise, free | Yes, free | Full GA-style reports |
| Clicky | $9.99/month (Pro) | 1 site, 3,000 pageviews a day | No | Real-time visitor detail |
| Indiehacker Studio | $12/month or $120/year | 1 project, 10k pageviews a month | No | Analytics plus chat, feedback and MRR |
Prices change, so check each pricing page before you sign up. Matomo’s page does not show the currency next to its Cloud price. Sources: Plausible, Fathom, Umami, Matomo, Clicky and Google’s data retention help page.
Plausible
Plausible is one of the best known privacy-first tools. One page with visitors, sources, pages, countries and devices, no cookies. It starts at $9 a month for up to 10,000 monthly pageviews, with a 30-day trial and no free plan. The code is open source if you prefer to run it yourself.
Fathom
Fathom starts at $15 a month for 100,000 pageviews, shared across all your sites. That makes it cheaper per site than most once you run several projects. There is no free plan; the trial is 7 days and asks for a card.
Umami
Umami is open source and free to self-host. Umami Cloud has a Hobby plan at $0 with 100,000 events a month for one website and 6 months of retention. Pro is $20 a month for 1 million events, 20 websites and 2 years of data. It is a favorite of developers who already run a server.
Matomo
Matomo comes closest to Google Analytics without Google. Goals, funnels, segments, ecommerce reports. The On-Premise Community edition is free with unlimited hits if you host it. Matomo Cloud starts at 29 a month for 50,000 hits. If you want the full reporting depth of GA, read our Matomo vs Google Analytics comparison.
Clicky
Clicky focuses on real-time data and individual visitor sessions. The free plan covers one website, 3,000 pageviews a day and 30 days of history. Pro starts at $9.99 a month for 10 websites. Clicky’s blog says tracking is cookie-free by default. Our Clicky analytics review goes deeper.
Indiehacker Studio
Indiehacker Studio is analytics for founders who run more than one product. One script on each site gives you cookieless analytics (live visitors, pages, referrers, UTM campaigns, countries, devices, custom events), plus a chat bubble for support, feedback and bug reports, plus Stripe MRR per project. No cookies, no IP stored.
The Free plan covers 1 project with 10,000 pageviews and 50 conversations a month. Pro is $12 a month or $120 a year with a 14-day free trial, for up to 50 projects and 1,000,000 pageviews. See the pricing section.
How do you choose the right one?
Ask four questions.
- Do you want to host it? Umami and Matomo On-Premise are free if you run the server. Everything else is hosted.
- How many sites do you run? Per-site pricing adds up. Fathom and Indiehacker Studio price by usage across all sites. If you juggle several apps, see running several side projects from one dashboard.
- Do you need deep reports? Funnels, segments and ecommerce attribution point to Matomo or GA4. Five numbers a day point to the simpler tools. What is web analytics? covers which numbers matter for a small product.
- What else do you pay for? If you also pay for a chat widget and a revenue dashboard, a bundle can replace three bills.
Is a cookieless alternative as accurate as GA4?
For pageviews, often more. With a consent banner and basic consent mode, GA4 doesn’t count visitors who decline, so they disappear from your reports. (Advanced consent mode sends cookieless pings and models the gap.) A cookieless script counts every pageview it receives.
For unique visitors, cookieless tools estimate. Some use a daily rotating hash, some a random id in the browser’s local storage, as Indiehacker Studio does. Returning visitors across days or devices are counted less precisely than with a long-lived cookie. For a small app, that trade is usually worth it. What is cookieless tracking? explains the methods.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free Google Analytics alternative?
Umami Cloud’s Hobby plan (100k events a month, one site), Clicky’s free plan (one site, 3,000 pageviews a day) and Indiehacker Studio Free (one project, 10,000 pageviews a month) are hosted and free. Matomo and Umami are free to self-host. See free website analytics for more.
Can I run Google Analytics and an alternative side by side?
Yes. Add both scripts for a few weeks and compare. Expect the cookieless tool to show more pageviews if your GA4 setup waits for consent.
Do I still need a cookie banner with a cookieless tool?
Not for cookies the tool doesn’t set. Whether you need consent for other storage or other scripts on your site depends on your region and your full setup. Our Google Analytics and GDPR guide covers the common cases. This is not legal advice.
Will I lose my old Google Analytics data if I switch?
Your GA4 data stays in GA4 until its retention period expires. Most alternatives start from zero on the day you install them, so export any reports you want to keep.
Try Indiehacker Studio
If you want simple analytics for every app you run, plus a chat bubble and Stripe MRR from the same script, start on the Free plan. One project, no card needed.
Your next step: create a free project, paste the script on one site, and open the dashboard. Pageviews show up as they arrive, and you can add your other apps later.