Google Analytics vs Plausible
Pricing
Google Analytics: Free
Plausible: From $9/mo, or self-hosted free
Description
Google Analytics: Google's free web and app analytics for traffic sources, user journeys and conversions, linked to Google Ads and Search Console
Plausible: Lightweight, privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative that does not need cookie consent
Pros
- Free of charge, with one property able to cover both your website and your app
- Integrates with Google Ads and Google Search Console
- Machine-learning features estimate which customers are likely to take an action next
- Script is under 1KB: it does not slow your site down at all
- No cookies means no GDPR consent banner needed
- Self-host for free if you have the technical skills
Cons
- Ties data to cookies and user identifiers, unlike cookie-free tools such as Plausible and Fathom
- The free version keeps user-level and event-level data for explorations for 14 months at most
- Longer retention (26 to 50 months) needs Analytics 360, the paid enterprise version
- No free hosted plan: $9/month minimum
- No funnels, cohorts, or advanced analysis
- Self-hosting requires server maintenance
Details
Google Analytics is Google’s own analytics service for websites and apps. You add a tag to your site or app and get reports on where visitors come from, what they do and which of them convert. It costs nothing.
It suits founders who run Google Ads or want the most detail without paying. The reports cover cross-platform journeys, attribution across channels and machine-learning forecasts.
Two limits are worth knowing. Data in explorations and funnel reports is kept for 2 or 14 months on the free version (standard reports are not affected), and the data is linked to cookies and identifiers. If you would rather not use cookies at all, look at Plausible or Fathom.
Plausible gives you clean website analytics in a script that weighs less than 1KB. No cookies, no consent banners, no complex setup. It is fully GDPR, CCPA, and PECR compliant out of the box because it does not collect personal data.
The dashboard shows visitors, page views, referrers, and top pages, the metrics you actually check. If you need user-level tracking, funnels, or A/B testing, this is not the tool. If you want to know “is my content working?” without the guilt of tracking your visitors, Plausible is the cleanest option. Self-hosting is free if you are comfortable managing a server; the hosted service starts at $9/month.
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