Cookie Free Analytics

vs Matomo

Matomo alternative: no cookies, no PHP, no consent banner

Matomo (once Piwik) is what you install when the brief says “Google Analytics, but we own it”. Cookie Free Analytics is what you install when the brief says “pageviews, no banner, no farm of plugins”.

  • Cloud price

    Cookie Free Analytics
    from €4
    Matomo
    from ~€29 / mo

  • Self-host

    Cookie Free Analytics
    No
    Matomo
    Yes, free core

  • Cookies

    Cookie Free Analytics
    Never
    Matomo
    Optional — easy to leave on

  • Script

    Cookie Free Analytics
    Under 1 KB gzipped
    Matomo
    Heavier, GA-class

  • Heatmaps / replay

    Cookie Free Analytics
    Will not ship
    Matomo
    Paid plugins

  • Sampling

    Cookie Free Analytics
    None of the numbers we show
    Matomo
    Can sample at volume

  • Export / delete

    Cookie Free Analytics
    From the dashboard, no sales call
    Matomo
    You operate the DB

  • First-party install

    Cookie Free Analytics
    Path proxy; CNAME on a subdomain (c.yourdomain.com) on Hobby
    Matomo
    You host the JS

  • Hosted (our cloud)

    Cookie Free Analytics
    Frankfurt + Ireland
    Matomo
    Matomo Cloud, EU options

  • Open source

    Cookie Free Analytics
    No
    Matomo
    Yes (GPL)

Migrate from Matomo in a week

Create a free site and paste the script under 1 KB next to Matomo. Run both for a week. Compare pageviews, sources, and named goals.

There is no import. Your history stays in Matomo. You operate that database and its export.

Then remove Matomo. If no other tool sets a cookie, revisit the banner with your counsel.

Migration guide

Honest pricing

Published usage price, events not metered: €4 a month at 10,000 pageviews, €9 at 100,000, €26 at 1 million. Yearly billing charges 9 months for 12. Hobby is the real dashboard, free, with a badge.

Matomo Cloud starts from ~€29/mo. Self-hosted Matomo is free (GPL); you pay the server and the sysadmin. Competitor list prices as of 9 November 2026.

Pricing

Where your data lives

Beacons hit Vercel in Frankfurt. Pageviews sit in Postgres in Ireland (eu-west-1). The compute region is pinned in git. Vercel is a US company. Pageviews do not leave the EU. We do not forward rows to an advertising graph.

EU hosting · DPA

GDPR and the cookie banner

No cookie, ever. There is no cookie mode to leave on.

No lasting identifier. A visitor is counted with HMAC-SHA256, a pepper, and a daily salt we delete. The IP is discarded. A person is not followed from one day to the next.

No cookie banner for this script. If you still load Google Ads, Meta, or GA4, keep the banner for those tags. Your counsel owns the final call.

How a visitor is counted · En français : alternative à Matomo RGPD

Other Matomo alternatives

If self-hosting is why you picked Matomo, look at Umami (MIT licence, you run it) or Plausible (AGPL, also sold hosted in the EU).

If you want hosted, cookieless pageviews with events included from €4 a month, and no server to patch, that is us. We line all of them up on one page.

vs Umami · vs Plausible · All 16 compared

What they actually are

Self-hosted Matomo is free (GPL) and enormous: PHP, MySQL, optional cookies, heatmaps and session recording as paid extras even when you host it. Matomo Cloud starts around €29/month. It can run cookieless. It can also run very much like GA.

When to pick them

A DPA, a procurement team, or a regulator wants “the GA feature list on our servers”. Ecommerce, tag manager, intranet. That is Matomo’s job and it has been since 2007.

When to pick us

You do not want to operate PHP. You do not want a cookie mode you have to remember to turn off. You want a 1 KB script in EU regions and a dashboard a founder can read.

The honest bit

Matomo can do things we will refuse: session recording, on-prem everything, a plugin marketplace. If you need that depth, buy Matomo Cloud or budget a sysadmin. Do not buy us and hope we grow into Piwik.

Questions

What is a good Matomo alternative for GDPR?
It depends on why you use Matomo. If you need its feature list on your own servers, stay on Matomo and run it without cookies. If open source is a must, look at Umami or Plausible. If you want pageviews, sources and named goals with no cookie, no PHP, and data in Frankfurt and Ireland, Cookie Free Analytics is built for that. Hobby is free with a badge; Starter is €4 a month.
Is Cookie Free Analytics a Matomo alternative?
Only if you wanted Matomo for privacy and simplicity, not for GA-parity. Matomo is the full replacement. We are the small count. We take their trust lines — export, first-party, no sampling theatre — not their PHP stack.
Can Matomo run without cookies?
Yes. Plenty of people still leave cookies on. Cookie Free Analytics has no cookie mode to misconfigure.
Do I need a cookie banner for Cookie Free Analytics?
No cookie banner for this script. If you still load Google Ads, Meta, or GA4, keep the banner for those tags. Your counsel owns the final call.
Is Cookie Free Analytics open source?
No. Matomo is GPL. If open source and self-hosting are required, Matomo is the right choice.
Can I self-host Cookie Free Analytics?
No. Matomo’s core is free to self-host. We are a hosted product.
Where is the data stored?
Beacons hit Frankfurt. Pageviews sit in Postgres in Ireland (eu-west-1). They do not leave the EU. Vercel is a US company.
Start freeView sample dashboard

Hobby is free with a badge. No credit card.

Also compared: Google Analytics · Plausible · Simple Analytics · Fathom · Cloudflare Web Analytics · Umami · All 16