Contentsquare vs Publytics

Compare Contentsquare and Publytics on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.

Both listed as alternatives to: Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics

Logo: Contentsquare

Contentsquare

France· Web Analytics

Needs review

Shortlist Contentsquare when a European-headquartered enterprise needs zone heatmaps, replay, journeys, and error-to-revenue analysis in one SaaS, with a public DPA and selectable Ireland hosting. Skip when you cannot accept AWS or Azure (US-group cloud), session replay of visitor pages, or a sales-led Pro and Enterprise stack. Consider Mouseflow for a smaller European heatmap and replay tool, or Plausible / Friendly Analytics when you only need privacy-first traffic analytics.

EU-operated (FR SAS)Zone heatmapsSession replayPublic DPAEU or US cloud regionISO 27001 (claimed)
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Logo: Publytics

Publytics

Italy· Web Analytics

Needs review

Shortlist when you need cookieless, unsampled publisher analytics with multi-site Network views and a public EU DPA from an Italian SaaS operator. Skip when you need self-hosting, product analytics at GA4/Adobe depth, or product-level ISO/SOC—consider Plausible (simpler privacy analytics / self-host options) or Matomo (self-host ownership) instead.

Cookieless trackingNo default samplingMulti-site NetworkEU-hosted (EuroVPS/Hetzner)Public B2B DPAPublisher-focused UX
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Highlighted rows differ between the two products.

Contentsquare vs Publytics: Snapshot
FeatureLogo: ContentsquareContentsquareLogo: PublyticsPublytics
Country of originFranceItaly
CategoryWeb AnalyticsWeb Analytics
Open sourceNoNo
Self-hostedNoNo
HeadquartersFranceItaly
Legal entityContent Square SAS, 7 rue de Madrid, 75008 Paris, FrancePublytics S.r.l. / Publytics SRL, Via Val Leventina 3 INT 1, 20148 Milan (MI), Italy (VAT IT13079420967)
Governing lawNot listedItaly / EU GDPR (processor under published DPA)
US parent / controlNo known US parentNo known US parent
CLOUD Act exposure (indicative)MediumLow
Hosting / residencyVisitor hosting on AWS and Azure: Ireland (eu-west-1 / North Europe) by default for EU customers, or Virginia. Free and Growth stay in Ireland. Backup region unnamed. Support: Zendesk (USA), Atlassian (Australia), Content Square, Inc. (USA). Sense: Bedrock, Azure LLMs, OpenAI (PA chat). VoC: Twilio, Daily.co, Postmark, Tremendous. Conversation Intelligence: Deepgram, Snowflake, Salesforce.Analytics infrastructure subprocessors in public DPA: EuroVPS (Euclid Services Ltd, Cyprus) and Hetzner Online GmbH (Germany). Data policy/DPA: EU storage (NL, DE, FI; DPA also IT); no transfer outside the EU for analytics processing. Account path: Stripe (payments), Brevo/Sendinblue (email).
Summary

Paris-headquartered experience intelligence platform: zone heatmaps, session replay, journey analysis, Voice of Customer, and Sense AI on AWS or Azure with selectable EU or US regions.

Cookieless web analytics SaaS for digital publishers: unsampled real-time and historical metrics, multi-site Network views, GA import, and EU-hosted measurement from an Italian company.

Tags
gdprexperience-analyticssession-replayheatmapsvoice-of-customerenterprise
gdprweb-analyticscookielesspublishersprivacyreal-time
At a glance: Contentsquare vs Publytics
At a glanceLogo: ContentsquareContentsquareLogo: PublyticsPublytics
HQParis, FranceMilan, Italy
Legal entity (typical EU)Content Square SASNot listed
Founded2012 (Paris)Not listed
HostingAWS and Azure, Ireland or VirginiaEuroVPS + Hetzner (EU regions)
DeploymentMulti-tenant SaaS (not self-hosted)Managed SaaS (not self-hosted)
Commercial modelFree and Growth self-serve; Pro and Enterprise sales-ledPageview tiers; free trial
Legal entityNot listedPublytics S.r.l. (VAT IT13079420967)
Open sourceNot listedNo (tracker uses MIT library code)
Key capabilities: Contentsquare vs Publytics
Key capabilitiesLogo: ContentsquareContentsquareLogo: PublyticsPublytics
EU-operated (FR SAS)YesNot listed
Zone heatmapsYesNot listed
Session replayYesNot listed
Public DPAYesNot listed
EU or US cloud regionYesNot listed
ISO 27001 (claimed)YesNot listed
Cookieless trackingNot listedYes
No default samplingNot listedYes
Multi-site NetworkNot listedYes
EU-hosted (EuroVPS/Hetzner)Not listedYes
Public B2B DPANot listedYes
Publisher-focused UXNot listedYes

Contentsquare

  • Zone-based heatmaps and journey analysis

    Experience Analytics maps clicks, hovers, and scrolls to page zones and attributes engagement, conversion, and revenue to those elements. Journey analysis (Pro and Enterprise) follows visitors from entry to exit so CRO and UX teams can find drop-off without reconstructing funnels in a separate BI tool. Limit: Free and Growth include heatmaps but not the full journey module.

  • Session replay with Smart Capture

    The Main Tag and mobile SDKs auto-capture clicks, scrolls, taps, and swipes without a full custom event taxonomy. Replays can be summarized by Sense. Docs expose CSS-selector and page-level PII masking. Customer-submitted identifiers (email, username) are off by default. Limit: Shopify checkout replay and zoning require Shopify Plus, and checkout pages must use page masking. The product is multi-tenant SaaS, not a self-hosted recorder.

  • Error, speed, and frustration monitoring

    Experience Monitoring ties JavaScript errors, crashes, custom business errors, and page-speed metrics to the same sessions as replay. Frustration Score ranks journeys with rage clicks and similar signals. Impact Quantification estimates conversion and revenue effects so engineering can triage by business cost. Alerts and several of these modules are Pro and Enterprise only.

  • Voice of Customer and conversation intelligence

    Surveys and feedback (Ask), Observe, and Engage interviews or user tests sit on the same group platform as Hotjar-branded VoC. Conversation Intelligence (Loris) scores agent and requester chats, including optional audio via Deepgram. Interview and user-test recordings are retained for 2 years per the DPA. These modules pull extra subprocessors (Twilio, Daily.co, Postmark, Tremendous).

  • Sense AI on regional LLM endpoints

    Sense generates dashboards, error summaries, mapping help, and replay summaries from captured behavior. The DPA lists AWS Bedrock and Azure models for Growth, Pro, and Enterprise, served from EU or US regions based on customer location. Product Analytics Sense Chat can also call OpenAI. The vendor says customers should avoid putting personal data in prompts. This is in-product AI, not a self-hosted model.

  • Selectable AWS or Azure residency plus enterprise access

    EU-based customers default to Ireland (AWS eu-west-1 or Azure North Europe). US hosting (Virginia) is an explicit option. SAML 2.0 SSO and MFA are documented. Data Connect can export visitor data to a warehouse (Frankfurt or Virginia for Experience Analytics). There is no EU-sovereign cloud option that avoids US-group providers.

Publytics

  • Unsampled real-time and daily publisher metrics

    Dashboard and Real-time views show active users (including last-minute and 30-minute windows), top pages, sources, social referrals, and day trends—with minute-level trend comparison documented for real-time. Vendor states no default data sampling, so reports reflect full counted client-side traffic rather than GA-style estimates on large properties.

  • Multi-site Network mode for content portfolios

    Business and Enterprise plans can group properties into Networks (plan caps apply: e.g. up to three Networks on Business, unlimited on Enterprise). Network views mirror site dashboards with split-by-site filters, combined real-time tables, and PDF/CSV export across the portfolio—built for multi-brand publishers rather than single blogs.

  • Cookieless measurement with daily-rotating visitor hash

    Tracking avoids cookies and permanent device IDs. Per the DPA, IP and User-Agent are used only to derive a daily salted hash for unique visitors, then discarded; metrics stay aggregated (URL, referrer, browser/OS, device, country). Designed so many sites can skip consent banners for analytics alone—confirm with counsel for your jurisdictions and any custom IDs you add.

  • Historical import, custom events/dimensions, and API

    Import paths cover GA4 and other tools (Plausible/Fathom mentioned) with support-assisted finalization. Custom events, dimensions, and metrics scale by plan; REST API uses Sanctum Bearer tokens scoped to subscribed sites. Fits teams rebuilding GA-era reporting without rebuilding infrastructure.

  • AI referral traffic reporting

    Dedicated documentation for traffic referred from AI systems (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Mistral, Google AI Overviews, Deepseek, and others). Useful for publishers optimizing for answer-engine and AI-overview discovery alongside classic SEO sources.

Assurance & compliance: Contentsquare vs Publytics
Assurance & complianceLogo: ContentsquareContentsquareLogo: PublyticsPublytics
Independent security / no-logs audit
On request / NDA

Trust portal lists a pentest report and security whitepaper behind access. Security page claims annual external pentests, monthly scans, and a public bug bounty. No public no-logs audit (wrong category for a behavior recorder).

Not found

Searched official site; no public third-party security or no-logs audit PDF found. DPA describes hashing and non-retention of raw IP/UA.

ISO 27001
Vendor claimed

Trust portal and security page state ISO/IEC 27001 certification (also 27017, 27018). Certificate files require portal access. Not independently verified in a public registry during this draft.

Not found

No Publytics product certificate found. Host EuroVPS markets ISO certifications; that is infrastructure provider scope, not Publytics certification.

ISO 27701
Vendor claimed

Vendor claims ISO/IEC 27701 on the trust portal and company page. Same access-gated evidence.

Not listed
SOC 2 / SOC 3
Vendor claimed

Vendor states it holds a SOC 2 Type II report. Report is on the trust portal, not a public PDF in this research pass.

Not found

No public SOC 2/3 report found on official Publytics pages.

GDPR / EU data protection
Vendor claimed

French SAS, public DPA with GDPR, UK GDPR, ePrivacy Directive, EU SCCs (French law, French courts), customer-as-controller. Customer still owns consent, masking, and lawful basis for visitor capture.

Vendor claimed

Italian controller/processor entity; cookieless design; public Art. 28 DPA; EU hosting named. Not legal advice.

US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative)
Partial

EuropeanStack assessment, not a vendor slogan. French entity and no known US parent, but visitor data sits on AWS and Azure (US-group clouds), a US affiliate provides support, and US SaaS subprocessors include Zendesk, Postmark, OpenAI, Deepgram, Snowflake, and Salesforce. US region is an explicit option. DPF covers the US entity. Not legal advice.

Partial

EU entity, no known US parent; analytics hosts EuroVPS + Hetzner in EU with DPA no third-country transfer for service data. Account billing via Stripe (US company). Not a vendor 'safe' claim—EuropeanStack assessment only.

Data processing agreement (B2B)
Vendor claimed

Public DPA last updated June 2026 (v.2026.2). Subprocessor objection window 30 days. SCCs Module Two and Three.

Vendor claimed

Full public DPA at https://publytics.net/dpa with Annex B subprocessors and Annex C security/transfer instructions.

EU AI Act
Partial

Sense is in-product generative AI over customer and visitor data (Bedrock, Azure, OpenAI). No public AI Act conformity statement found. Customer is told to avoid personal data in prompts. Not treated as not_applicable.

Not applicable

Web analytics product; AI-referral reporting is measurement of referrers, not an AI system product.

EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework
Vendor claimed

DPA and services privacy policy state Content Square, Inc. is DPF certified (EU-U.S., UK Extension, Swiss-U.S.). Listing not re-opened during this draft.

Not listed
HIPAA
Vendor claimed

Security page displays a HIPAA mark. No public BAA text reviewed. Confirm with vendor if health data is in scope (DPA says the service is not designed for sensitive data).

Not listed
CSA STAR
Vendor claimed

Security page shows a STAR mark. Trust portal lists CAIQ. Registry entry not independently opened.

Not listed
Considerations & known limitations: Contentsquare vs Publytics
Considerations & known limitationsLogo: ContentsquareContentsquareLogo: PublyticsPublytics
AWS and Azure plus US SaaS subprocessors
Medium

Even with Ireland as the default EU region, the infrastructure providers are Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Support and AI paths include Zendesk, a US affiliate, Bedrock or Azure OpenAI, and in some modules OpenAI, Deepgram, Snowflake, and Salesforce. Practical impact: a residency policy that bans US-group processors will fail this vendor regardless of the France HQ story.

Not listed
High-sensitivity visitor capture
Medium

Session replay and zoning record on-page behavior and can include on-screen text. Masking is configurable, not a guarantee that every form is clean. The customer is controller for consent and special-category data. Practical impact: legal and privacy must review checkout, account, and health or finance pages before go-live.

Not listed
Full DX stack is sales-led
Low

Journeys, error and speed analysis, alerts, and Data Connect are documented as Pro and Enterprise. Free and Growth cover heatmaps and replay only. Practical impact: do not shortlist on the free signup if those enterprise modules are the actual requirement.

Not listed
Hotjar, Heap, and Loris live in one group
Low

Subprocessors and retention differ by module (13 months DXA, 37 months product analytics, 2 years for interview recordings). Practical impact: a Hotjar-only DPIA does not cover Conversation Intelligence or Sense Chat.

Not listed
ISO and SOC evidence behind the trust portal
Low

ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II are vendor-claimed. Independent certificate files were not downloaded in this draft. Practical impact: security review should request current reports before treating badges as verified.

Not listed
SaaS-only (no self-host)Not listed
Medium

All measurement depends on Publytics cloud availability and vendor roadmap. Teams with residency or air-gap requirements need Matomo/Plausible CE-style self-host alternatives.

No public independent security auditNot listed
Medium

Hashing and non-retention claims are first-party (DPA/docs). No public third-party audit was found—enterprise security reviews will need questionnaires, DPA audit rights, and possibly NDA materials.

Feature depth tied to pageview tiersNot listed
Low

Networks, API rate limits, custom dimensions/metrics, retention years, and time granularity differ by Lite/Business/Enterprise. Validate limits against portfolio size before migration.

US payment processor on account pathNot listed
Low

Stripe processes payments (US company). Separate from DPA Annex B analytics hosts, but relevant if procurement treats all vendor SaaS touchpoints as in-scope for CLOUD Act diligence.

Customer-injected identifiers can re-identifyNot listed
Medium

DPA warns controllers not to inject unique user IDs that re-identify visitors via the script. Misconfiguration can undermine the cookieless privacy model.

Fit

Contentsquare

Best fit when

  • Enterprise or mid-market CRO, UX, ecommerce, and digital product teams that need zoning, journeys, and replay tied to conversion
  • European buyers who want a French SAS contracting entity and a public DPA with EU SCCs under French law
  • Teams already running GA4 or Adobe Analytics that need a visual DX layer rather than another pageview tool
  • Support and engineering groups that must reproduce errors from the visitor's screen and rank them by revenue impact
  • Organisations that can accept AWS or Azure Ireland as the primary region and will configure PII masking on checkout and forms

Poor fit when

  • Buyers who require no US-group cloud, no US affiliate support access, and no US SaaS subprocessors
  • Teams that only need cookieless traffic analytics without session replay or heatmaps
  • Procurement that mandates self-hosted or open-source DXA with data never leaving owned infrastructure
  • Sites that cannot deploy a third-party Main Tag or mobile SDK, or cannot mask PII in replays

Consider instead when

  • When: You want European heatmap, replay, and friction analysis at a smaller scale than enterprise DXA

    Consider: Mouseflow

    Danish SaaS in the catalog. Confirm its own hosting and DPA independently.

  • When: You only need privacy-first page analytics without session video

    Consider: Plausible Analytics or Friendly Analytics

    Different job: traffic and privacy, not zoning or replay.

  • When: You already use Hotjar for surveys and light replay and do not need enterprise quantification

    Consider: Stay on the Hotjar (Ask / Observe / Engage) SKU in the same group

    Same French SAS for non-Americas contracts. Not a separate catalog product at draft time.

  • When: You need US-parented enterprise DXA already standardized in the US stack

    Consider: FullStory, or Adobe Analytics plus a replay add-on

    Closer operationally to Contentsquare's full suite, but not European-operated.

Publytics

Best fit when

  • Content publishers and media sites that want GA3-style reporting without cookies or default sampling
  • Multi-brand portfolios that need Network dashboards, split-by-site filters, and shared exports
  • Teams migrating historical series from GA4 (or Plausible/Fathom) into a privacy-oriented SaaS
  • EU-oriented controllers who want Italian legal entity, published DPA, and EU infrastructure subprocessors named in annexes
  • Editorial/SEO leads who need real-time active users, sources, and AI-referral reporting without operating self-hosted analytics

Poor fit when

  • Organizations that require self-hosted or open-source analytics only
  • Product/growth teams that need GA4/Adobe-class event modeling, experiment stacks, and ads ecosystem integrations
  • Buyers that need verified product ISO 27001/SOC 2 certificates before shortlist (none found for Publytics itself)
  • Very simple single-site blogs that only need minimal privacy metrics—lighter tools may be enough

Consider instead when

  • When: You want open-core privacy analytics with optional self-host

    Consider: Plausible Analytics

    Simpler surface; stronger self-host/open-core path than Publytics SaaS-only model

  • When: You must run analytics on your own infrastructure

    Consider: Matomo (self-host) or Plausible Community Edition

    Publytics is managed cloud only—no official on-prem product

  • When: You need deep product analytics and marketing stack integration

    Consider: Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics

    Trade privacy/EU-hosting priorities for ecosystem breadth

Open questions for due diligence

Contentsquare

  • What is the geographic backup or DR region for the Ireland pipeline (security page says a backup region, not which one)?
  • Can a reviewer download current ISO 27001, ISO 27701, and SOC 2 Type II reports from the trust portal, including scope and expiry?
  • Is Content Square, Inc. support access to EU visitor data on by default, or only when a ticket requires it?
  • Who holds controlling ownership after SoftBank Vision Fund, Sixth Street, and other rounds (no US parent found, but cap table is private)?
  • For Sense, what exact visitor fields leave the selected region when Bedrock, Azure, or OpenAI is invoked?
  • Does the latest public-authorities transparency report show any US law-enforcement requests for EU visitor data?

Publytics

  • Will Publytics provide completed security questionnaire, pen-test summary, or ISO evidence under NDA for enterprise procurement?
  • Exact current pageview tier limits, Network caps, and retention for the sites you will migrate?
  • Is GA4 historical import complete for your property structure (events, custom dimensions) or only core traffic series?
  • How are subprocessors for account services (Stripe, Brevo) contractually covered relative to the analytics DPA annex?
  • Any planned US or non-EU hosting options that would change the current EU-only transfer instruction?