# Umami vs GoatCounter

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/umami-vs-goatcounter/

Every value below is read from Umami's and GoatCounter's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Umami | GoatCounter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| What the free plan includes | The Hobby plan: up to 100K events a month, one website, six months of data retention and community support. Self-hosting the open-source app is free as well. | Reasonable 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. |
| Entry paid plan | $20/month for Pro on Umami Cloud: 1 million events a month included, then $0.00003 per additional event, up to 20 websites and 10 team members. A free Hobby plan covers 100K events and one website. | None. 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. |
| Sites or apps included | Up to 20 websites and 10 team members on Pro, the entry paid plan. The free Hobby plan covers one website; Business is unlimited. | Not 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. |
| AI and search crawler tracking | Not supported — Stated for self-hosted Umami; the Cloud pages do not address bots | Not supported |
| Self-hostable | Supported | Supported |
| Works without cookies | Supported | Supported |

## Where they differ

### What the free plan includes

- Umami: The Hobby plan: up to 100K events a month, one website, six months of data retention and community support. Self-hosting the open-source app is free as well. ([source](https://umami.is/pricing))
- GoatCounter: Reasonable 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. ([source](https://www.goatcounter.com/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Entry paid plan

- Umami: $20/month for Pro on Umami Cloud: 1 million events a month included, then $0.00003 per additional event, up to 20 websites and 10 team members. A free Hobby plan covers 100K events and one website. ([source](https://umami.is/pricing))
- GoatCounter: None. 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. ([source](https://www.goatcounter.com/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Sites or apps included

- Umami: Up to 20 websites and 10 team members on Pro, the entry paid plan. The free Hobby plan covers one website; Business is unlimited. ([source](https://umami.is/pricing))
- GoatCounter: Not 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. ([source](https://www.goatcounter.com/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

## Which should you choose?

Pick Umami if A site that wants open-source analytics it can self-host for free or buy as a managed service. Pro is $20 a month for up to 20 websites and two years of data, and the free Hobby plan covers one website and 100K events a month.

Pick GoatCounter if 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: Umami — You think in pageviews rather than events. Umami counts each pageview as one event and each saved event property as another, so a million events buys fewer than a million pageviews. Umami Cloud servers are in the US and the EU with no region promised; Plausible and Pirsch both state EU or German hosting.

Consider something else: GoatCounter — 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.

## Documented by only one

One side documents these and the other does not. An absence is a missing source, not a stated "no" — except where a line says the other page was READ on a date and does not mention it, which is a sourced observation and the only one-sided case this site leans on.

- Kind of free offer: Umami: Free tier
- Pricing model: Umami: Usage-based on monthly events. Pro is $20 with 1 million events included and $0.00003 per extra event; Business is $200 with 10 million included and $0.00002 per extra event. Each pageview is one event, and each saved event property counts as one more. Going over the limit is billed, not cut off.
- Revenue attribution from a payment provider: Umami: Limited — Revenue sent as event data; no payment-provider connection
- Retention window: Umami: Two years of data retention on Pro, the entry paid plan. Hobby keeps six months; Business keeps five years.
- GDPR / data residency: Umami: Umami Cloud servers are in the US and the EU, and Umami describes the product as GDPR and CCPA compliant. The page does not say which region a given account is placed in.
  - GoatCounter: not stated on https://www.goatcounter.com/, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 78% Umami / 22% GoatCounter — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Umami or GoatCounter?**

Umami: $20/month for Pro on Umami Cloud: 1 million events a month included, then $0.00003 per additional event, up to 20 websites and 10 team members. A free Hobby plan covers 100K events and one website.
GoatCounter: None. 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.

**Should I choose Umami or GoatCounter?**

Pick Umami if A site that wants open-source analytics it can self-host for free or buy as a managed service. Pro is $20 a month for up to 20 websites and two years of data, and the free Hobby plan covers one website and 100K events a month.
Pick GoatCounter if 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.