GoatCounter pricing and review
Free, open source, cookieless analytics
Price list
Monthly price in dollars when billed monthly, by monthly pageviews and number of websites.
- 10,000 pageviews
- Free
- 50,000 pageviews
- Free
- 100,000 pageviews
- Free
- 250,000 pageviews
- Free
- 500,000 pageviews
- Free
- 1,000,000 pageviews
- Free
- 5,000,000 pageviews
- Free
- 10,000,000 pageviews
- Free
| Pageviews | 1 site | 3 sites | 10 sites | 50 sites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10k | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 50k | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 100k | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 250k | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 500k | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 1M | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 5M | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| 10M | Free | Free | Free | Free |
Prices exclude VAT.
Visit goatcounter.com
WireBoard vs GoatCounter
10,000 pageviews
- WireBoard
- Free
- GoatCounter
- Free
50,000 pageviews
- WireBoard
- Free
- GoatCounter
- Free
100,000 pageviews
- WireBoard
- $9 a month
- GoatCounter
- Free
1,000,000 pageviews
- WireBoard
- $49 a month
- GoatCounter
- Free
Live view
- WireBoard
- Live visitors, pages, sources and map, on every plan
- GoatCounter
- No live view; stats update every 10 seconds
Data hosted in
- WireBoard
- EU (Germany, Finland)
- GoatCounter
- EU (Finland, Germany)
Free plan
- WireBoard
- Yes
- GoatCounter
- Yes
No cookies needed
- WireBoard
- Yes
- GoatCounter
- Yes
Open source
- WireBoard
- No
- GoatCounter
- Yes
| Comparison | WireBoard | GoatCounter |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 pageviews | Free | Free |
| 50,000 pageviews | Free | Free |
| 100,000 pageviews | $9 a month | Free |
| 1,000,000 pageviews | $49 a month | Free |
| Live view | Live visitors, pages, sources and map, on every plan | No live view; stats update every 10 seconds |
| Data hosted in | EU (Germany, Finland) | EU (Finland, Germany) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| No cookies needed | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | No | Yes |
Prices for one website, billed monthly. WireBoard is made by the team behind Compare Analytics.
What GoatCounter is like
GoatCounter is an open source web analytics tool built and run by Martin Tournoij, a developer based in Ireland. It is available as a free, donation-supported hosted service at goatcounter.com, or as an app you install on your own server. It aims to offer simple, meaningful statistics as an alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo.
The tracking script adds about 3.5 KB to a page. GoatCounter does not use cookies and does not store IP addresses: it counts unique visits with a random session ID held in memory for up to eight hours. Data is kept as hourly and daily totals, which is why the developer considers a consent banner usually unnecessary. Reports cover pages, referrers, campaigns, browsers, systems, screen sizes, locations and languages.
The hosted service is free for reasonable public use, including personal sites and small-to-medium businesses, but not for millions of pageviews per day. There are no paid plans; donations go through GitHub Sponsors. The code uses a modified EUPL 1.2 licence and runs as a single binary with SQLite or PostgreSQL.
Features
- Cookieless tracking with no IP storage
- Script of about 3.5 KB
- No-JavaScript tracking pixel option
- Import pageviews from server log files
- Event and campaign tracking
- Unlimited sites per account
- CSV and JSON exports and a JSON API
- Email reports, daily to monthly
GoatCounter next to Google Analytics
| Feature | GoatCounter | Google Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Custom events | Yes | Yes |
| Goals | No | Yes |
| Funnels | No | Yes |
| Ecommerce | No | Yes |
| UTM campaigns | Yes | Yes |
| GA import | No | n/a |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Yes | Yes |
| Recordings | No | No |
| Heatmaps | No | No |
| Email reports | Yes | Yes |
| Shared dashboards | Yes | Via Looker Studio |
The same features for every tool
Good
- Hosted service is free, including for business sites
- Open source and self-hostable without restrictions
- Stores only aggregate data, no cookies
- Very small tracking script
- Data stored in the EU (Finland and Germany)
Less good
- No live view of current visitors
- Blocked by most ad blockers (about a third of pageviews missed, per its FAQ)
- Not meant for millions of pageviews per day
GoatCounter vs Plausible
