Skip to content
inetGeek

GoatCounter

www.goatcounter.com · Web analytics
SEPT 2026 audit

Open-source web analytics offered as a free, donation-supported hosted service or a self-hosted app, with a roughly 3.5 KB script and no cookies.

Visit GoatCounter documentation
Compare GoatCounter with

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

Entry paid planNone. The hosted service is free for what GoatCounter calls reasonable public usage and funded by donations; beyond that the answer is to self-host rather than to pay.
Free tierYes
CategoryWeb analytics

Updated 6 criteria comparedSources last checked

01.Evaluation guide

Who it suits

A personal site or a small business that wants real analytics and no bill. The hosted service is free for what GoatCounter calls reasonable public usage, the script is around 3.5 KB, and there is a JavaScript-free tracking-pixel option.

Consider something else if…

The traffic is serious or the dependency is. There is no paid tier to escalate to and no commitment behind the hosted service — GoatCounter's own answer to heavy use is to self-host, which is a different job from paying someone.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Each value below links to the page it was read from, with the sentence it came from. Criteria GoatCounter does not publish are not listed.

Pricing
3 criteria
Free tierYes
Sources (1) →
  • GoatCounter — open source web analytics ↗

    “GoatCounter.com is currently offered for free for reasonable public usage. Running your personal website or small-to-medium business on it is fine, but sending millions of pageviews/day isn't.”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official site

What the free plan includesReasonable public usage, defined by example rather than by number: a personal site or a small-to-medium business is fine, millions of pageviews a day is not.
Sources (1) →
Entry paid planNone. The hosted service is free for what GoatCounter calls reasonable public usage and funded by donations; beyond that the answer is to self-host rather than to pay.
Sources (1) →
  • GoatCounter — open source web analytics ↗

    “You can self-host GoatCounter easily if you want to use it for more serious purposes. Donations are accepted via Github Sponsors to cover server costs.”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official site

Limits
1 criteria
Sites or apps includedNot stated as a number. The hosted service is bounded by what GoatCounter calls reasonable public usage rather than by a site count, and the self-hosted app has no such limit at all.
Sources (1) →
  • GoatCounter — open source web analytics ↗

    “GoatCounter.com is currently offered for free for reasonable public usage. Running your personal website or small-to-medium business on it is fine, but sending millions of pageviews/day isn't. You can self-host GoatCounter easily”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official site

Observability
1 criteria
Self-hostableSupported
Sources (1) →
Compliance
1 criteria
Works without cookiesSupported
Sources (1) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

Confirm by email; unsubscribe from any issue. Your address goes to Kit and nowhere else — what we do with it.

Compare GoatCounter with
GoatCounter vs Plausible Analytics

Every page here is sourced and dated.