Plausible and Umami are the two open-source, cookieless analytics tools most people shortlist after leaving Google Analytics 4. Both skip cookies, both can run without a consent banner for basic traffic stats, and both offer a hosted cloud or a self-hosted install. They differ on price shape, licence, where the cloud runs and how far each goes past a traffic dashboard.
Prices and limits below were checked on plausible.io and umami.is/pricing on 10 October 2026, in US dollars, monthly billing.
Quick verdict
- Pick Umami if you want a real free tier, many sites on one plan, or a permissive MIT licence to self-host and modify. Its cloud Hobby plan is free for one site and 100K events a month.
- Pick Plausible if you want the most polished small dashboard, EU-only hosting and processing, a built-in Search Console panel, and you are happy to pay from day one after a 30-day trial.
- Pick neither on its own if you need Search Console history beyond Google's 16 months or want an agent to read your data. That is covered at the end.
Plausible vs Umami at a glance
| Plausible | Umami | |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking | No cookies, no persistent identifier | No cookies, no personal data collected |
| Cloud hosting | EU only, on European-owned infrastructure | US and EU servers |
| Free cloud tier | No (30-day free trial, no card) | Yes, Hobby: 1 site, 100K events/month |
| Entry paid cloud plan | Starter $9/month (up to 10k monthly pageviews, 1 site) | Pro $20/month (1M events, up to 20 sites) |
| Pricing unit | Monthly pageview tiers | Events (pageviews plus custom events and stored properties) |
| Data retention (cloud) | 3 years on Starter and Growth, 5 years on Business | 6 months Hobby, 2 years Pro, 5 years Business |
| Team members | Up to 3 on Growth, up to 10 on Business | Up to 10 on Pro, unlimited on Business |
| Open-source licence | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-hosting | Community Edition | Free self-hosted install |
| Search Console | Built-in integration shows search queries in the dashboard | Not listed on the pricing page |
| API | Stats API on Business (600 requests/hour) | API access on Pro and above |
| MCP access | Not listed on the plans when checked | Listed on Pro and above |
| Funnels | Business plan | All plans, including Hobby |
| Session replay and heatmaps | Not listed | Business plan |
Pricing compared
The two vendors price on different units, so compare at your real volume rather than by headline.
Plausible sells traffic tiers. At up to 10k monthly pageviews, Starter is $9 a month for one site, Growth is $14 for up to 3 sites and 3 team members, and Business is $19 for up to 10 sites, 10 team members, funnels, the Stats API and 5-year retention. Prices rise with the pageview tier you pick, and yearly billing gives two months free. There is a 30-day free trial with no card.
Umami Cloud sells event allowances. Hobby is free with 100K events a month, one website and 6 months of retention. Pro is $20 a month with 1 million events, up to 20 websites and 2 years of retention, then $0.00003 per extra event. Business is $200 a month with 10 million events, unlimited websites, 5 years of retention, session replays and heatmaps, then $0.00002 per extra event. Each pageview counts as one event, and each stored event property also counts as one event, so heavy custom-event tracking uses the allowance faster than raw traffic suggests. Paid plans have a 14-day trial.
What that means in practice:
- One small site: Umami Hobby is free; Plausible Starter is $9 a month.
- An agency with 15 small client sites: Umami Pro covers up to 20 sites on one $20 plan if total events stay under 1 million. Plausible Business stops at 10 sites, so you would need Enterprise or a second account.
- One busy site with deep custom events: price both at your actual volume. Umami's per-property counting and Plausible's pageview tiers diverge quickly.
Privacy and hosting
Both tools are built to avoid cookies and personal data. Plausible states it does not process personal data or track individual users, and that visitor data is processed only on servers owned by European companies and never leaves the EU. Umami states it does not use cookies, does not collect personally identifiable information, and runs its cloud on US and EU servers.
If your legal brief is "EU data residency, full stop", Plausible's EU-only processing is the simpler story. If you need full control, both can be self-hosted, which moves the residency question onto your own servers. Whether you still need a banner depends on your jurisdiction and on anything else your site sets, not on the analytics tool alone: do I need a cookie banner for analytics?
Self-hosting and licence
This is the biggest structural difference.
- Plausible is licensed under AGPL-3.0. You can self-host the Community Edition, but if you modify it and offer it as a network service, the AGPL requires you to share those changes.
- Umami is licensed under MIT. You can self-host, fork and embed it with very few conditions. Umami notes that its cloud adds features such as email reports and the streaming API that the self-hosted version does not have.
For a developer who wants to ship analytics inside their own product, MIT is the easier licence. For a site owner who just wants to self-host a dashboard, both work.
Features beyond the dashboard
Plausible leans into marketing and SEO: automatic scroll-depth tracking, UTM campaigns with channel grouping, a report on traffic from AI tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, a Google Analytics import, revenue goals, and a Search Console integration that shows queries next to on-site stats. Funnels and the Stats API sit on the Business plan.
Umami leans into product analytics: funnels, user retention, user journeys, revenue and attribution reports on every plan, custom dashboards, and, on Business, session replays and heatmaps. API access and MCP access start on Pro.
Neither stores Search Console history. Plausible's integration displays what Google still holds, which is 16 months. Umami does not list a Search Console integration.
Where SiteLine fits
SiteLine is a third shape: cookieless analytics plus a stored Google Search Console archive in one account, with both exposed to AI agents over read-only MCP. It backfills about 16 months of Search Console data on connect, keeps it while you subscribe so it does not expire, and stores up to 25k rows per day per report. Plans start at $4.99 a month with a 7-day trial and no card.
If you are choosing between Plausible and Umami mainly for traffic stats, pick one of them. If the real gap is Search Console data disappearing or agents that cannot see your numbers, compare SiteLine directly: SiteLine vs Plausible and SiteLine vs Umami.
More comparisons: Plausible vs Matomo, Plausible vs Fathom, best privacy analytics in 2026, and open-source web analytics.
FAQ
Is Umami cheaper than Plausible?
At low volume, yes. Umami Cloud's Hobby plan is free for one site and 100K events a month, while Plausible starts at $9 a month after its trial. At higher volume it depends on how many custom events and properties you store, because Umami counts each stored property as an event.
Is Plausible or Umami better for GDPR?
Both avoid cookies and personal data. Plausible processes all visitor data in the EU on European-owned infrastructure. Umami Cloud has US and EU servers. Self-hosting either one puts data location under your control.
Can I self-host Plausible and Umami for free?
Yes. Plausible's Community Edition is AGPL-3.0 and Umami is MIT. You pay for the server and your own time keeping it updated.
Does Umami have a Search Console integration?
Umami's pricing page does not list one. Plausible has a built-in Search Console integration that shows search queries in the dashboard. Neither keeps Search Console data past Google's 16-month window.
Which has more features, Plausible or Umami?
Umami includes more product-analytics reports on lower plans, such as funnels, retention and journeys, plus session replay and heatmaps on Business. Plausible has fewer reports but adds scroll depth, AI-referrer reporting and Search Console in a simpler dashboard.
Can AI agents read Plausible or Umami data?
Umami lists MCP access on Pro and above. Plausible lists its Stats API on Business; its plans did not list MCP when we checked. SiteLine exposes both cookieless analytics and Search Console history over read-only MCP on every paid plan: the Google Search Console MCP guide.