Compare digistats Analytics and Offen Fair Web Analytics on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics, Matomo
Switzerland· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist digistats when you want managed Swiss cookieless analytics with multi-site, events, API, and CSV on every listed tier and you accept SaaS-only operations. Skip when you need self-host/OSS, GA4-depth product analytics, or published ISO 27001/SOC 2—consider Plausible, Simple Analytics, Pirsch, or Matomo instead.
Germany· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist when you want self-hosted, Apache-2.0 analytics that only measures after opt-in, encrypts events in the browser, and lets visitors open their own data in the Auditorium. Skip when you need cookieless full-coverage metrics, session replay/heatmaps, or zero-ops managed EU hosting—consider Plausible, Pirsch, or Friendly Analytics instead.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | digistats Analytics | Offen Fair Web Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Switzerland | Germany |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hosted | No | Yes |
| Headquarters | Switzerland | Germany |
| Legal entity | digistats Analytics Ltd., Täfernstrasse 2A, CH-5405 Dättwil AG (UID CHE-296.235.462) | Public legal notice lists Frederik Ring, Berlin (offen.software); product authors Frederik Ring and Hendrik Niefeld—no separate GmbH name verified on imprint |
| Governing law | Swiss law; venue Bremgarten AG (per AGB) | Germany (indicative from Berlin imprint) |
| US parent / control | No known US parent | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Medium | Low |
| Hosting / residency | Privacy policy: customer data processed/stored in Switzerland, not in the USA or outside the EU; pricing lists Switzerland Data Center. Hosting provider legal name not in a public subprocessor list. Payment subprocessors: Stripe, Inc. (USA) and Coinbase (crypto; German entity listed in AGB). | Product is operator self-hosted (your VPS/cloud/on-prem). No Offen multi-tenant analytics SaaS or vendor subprocessor list for visitor events. Related marketing site (offen.software) names Hetzner Online GmbH (Germany) as host—not the analytics data path. Optional community deploys include Heroku (operator choice). |
| Summary | Swiss cookieless web analytics SaaS from digistats Analytics Ltd.: realtime traffic, city-level geo, events, and multi-site dashboards without storing cookies, IPs, or fingerprints. | Open-source, self-hosted web analytics with opt-in consent, browser-side end-to-end encryption, and a shared Auditorium so visitors can see and control their own usage data. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | digistats Analytics | Offen Fair Web Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| HQ | Dättwil AG, Switzerland | Not listed |
| Legal entity | digistats Analytics Ltd. (CHE-296.235.462) | Not listed |
| Hosting | Switzerland data center (host brand not named publicly) | Not listed |
| Deployment | Managed SaaS only | Not listed |
| Open source | No | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Free low-traffic tier + pageview-based subscription | Not listed |
| HQ / authors | Not listed | Berlin, Germany (Frederik Ring & Hendrik Niefeld) |
| License | Not listed | Apache-2.0 (code/docs); logo CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0 |
| Delivery | Not listed | Self-host only (binary, Docker, community deploys) |
| Consent model | Not listed | Opt-in only; first-party cookies |
| Default retention | Not listed | 6 months (configurable shorter) |
| Funding note | Not listed | NLnet NGI support (project-stated) |
| Key capabilities | digistats Analytics | Offen Fair Web Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Cookieless tracking | Yes | Not listed |
| No stored visitor IPs | Yes | Not listed |
| Swiss data center | Yes | Not listed |
| Unlimited websites | Yes | Not listed |
| API + CSV export | Yes | Not listed |
| Managed SaaS | Yes | Not listed |
| Opt-in only | Not listed | Yes |
| Browser E2E encryption | Not listed | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Not listed | Yes |
| Apache-2.0 | Not listed | Yes |
| Visitor data access | Not listed | Yes |
| Berlin-based project | Not listed | Yes |
Cookieless script without stored IPs or fingerprints
Vendor docs describe a sub-1 kB tag that measures traffic without cookies, without retaining visitor IPs (IP used only for live geo lookup), and without fingerprinting—aimed at sites that want analytics without a consent banner for non-essential cookies.
Realtime dashboard with geo, tech, events, and channels
Live visitor and pageview views plus city-level geography, browser/OS/device signals, custom conversion events, referrer/search/social acquisition, landing pages, and continuous site reachability (online status)—enough for content and marketing ops, not a full product-analytics suite.
Ad-blocker-resistant capture (vendor claim)
Marketing materials contrast digistats with Google Analytics being stripped by major blockers and state digistats is not blocked by common ad-block extensions. Useful for traffic completeness debates; treat as first-party claim until you validate on your stack.
Multi-site SaaS with API, email reports, and CSV on every tier
Published plans include unlimited websites and events, API access, email reports, Swiss data-center storage, and CSV export—even on the free low-traffic tier—so agencies can run multiple client properties without plan-gated feature cliffs.
Swiss entity and Swiss analytics data center
Operated by digistats Analytics Ltd. (Dättwil AG); privacy policy commits to storing customer data in Switzerland. Managed hosting only—no self-hosted edition in public materials.
Opt-in only collection with first-party cookies
No analytics events are recorded until the visitor actively consents. Cookies are first-party and the tracker is meant to run on a same-site subdomain so third-party cookie restrictions and cross-site tracking models do not apply. Visitors who never opt in leave no usage trail—expect lower absolute volumes than cookieless tools that measure by default.
Browser-side end-to-end encryption of usage events
Clients encrypt usage data before it leaves the browser; the server stores ciphertext and cannot decrypt events alone. Only the visitor (via their cookie) and the matching operator account can open that visitor's data in the Auditorium. Practical impact: a compromised database or overly broad ops access does not yield plaintext browsing histories the way a typical self-hosted analytics DB would.
Auditorium for both operators and visitors
Operators see aggregates across pages where the installation is active (unique users/sessions, top pages, filters). Each opted-in visitor can open the same style of UI for their own data only, with plain-language metric explanations, and can delete data or fully opt out later. This is the fair design point: measurement is not a one-way glass.
Essential metrics without IP or User-Agent capture
Dashboards cover real-time activity, page views, unique users and sessions, bounce rate, returning users, top pages, referrers, UTM campaign/source, landing and exit pages, weekly retention, and load time. Location is country-level from timezone mapping; mobile share uses orientation capability—not IP geolocation or UA parsing. No heatmaps, session replay, or warehouse-grade product analytics.
Lightweight self-host: binary, Docker, SQLite or SQL
Production installs use a single binary (Linux/Windows/macOS) or the offen/offen image; docs also cover Heroku, Uberspace, and YunoHost. Default store is SQLite; MySQL and Postgres are supported. AutoTLS can request Let's Encrypt certificates. Config is environment variables or offen.env. You own uptime, backups, SMTP for password reset, and the subdomain layout.
Multi-site accounts, teams, and short retention
One installation can cover multiple websites with shared team access. Default retention is six months with automatic deletion; operators can shorten retention (e.g. 12 weeks, 30 days, 7 days) knowing shorter values purge older events on startup. Consent banner appearance is customizable; UI locales include EN, DE, FR, ES, PT, and VI.
| Assurance & compliance | digistats Analytics | Offen Fair Web Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found Vendor claims no IP storage and no fingerprints; no public third-party audit PDF found. | Not found No public third-party audit PDF found; coordinated disclosure via SECURITY.md email only. |
| ISO 27001 | Not found Not claimed on reviewed pages. Host partner ISO 14001 (environmental) is not an ISMS cert. | Not found No public ISO 27001 certification claim found on official site or docs. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Not found | Not found No public SOC 2/3 report found. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed Swiss entity; privacy policy cites DSG and GDPR/DSGVO, cookieless design, Swiss storage. Not legal advice. | Vendor claimed EU authors; opt-in, data minimization (no IP/UA), visitor access/erasure, short default retention, Datensparsamkeit framing. Self-host means operator remains controller—confirm your legal basis and notice. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Partial Swiss Ltd, no known US parent, analytics residency claimed in Switzerland; billing via Stripe, Inc. (US) and Coinbase. EuropeanStack assessment — not a vendor certification. Not legal advice. | Partial EuropeanStack assessment: no known US parent; product not delivered as US-hosted vendor SaaS. Operator-chosen infrastructure (including optional Heroku/US cloud) can still create CLOUD Act paths for stored ciphertext/metadata. Not legal advice. |
| Data processing agreement (B2B) | Partial Privacy policy describes Art. 28-style processing on behalf of customers; dedicated public DPA download not found — request signed DPA. | Not applicable No multi-tenant vendor analytics processing relationship documented; operator self-hosts and is typically controller. Custom development/support via offen.software is separate from a standard SaaS DPA. |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Web analytics product; not positioned as an AI system product. | Not applicable Web analytics metrics product; not an AI system product. |
| Considerations & known limitations | digistats Analytics | Offen Fair Web Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| No public independent security audit | Medium Cookieless and no-IP claims are first-party only. Security questionnaires that require audit reports will need vendor outreach or a different product. | Not listed |
| US-linked payment subprocessors | Medium AGB names Stripe, Inc. (San Francisco) for cards and Coinbase for crypto. Billing and account data may leave the pure Swiss analytics path even if telemetry stays in Switzerland. | Not listed |
| Hosting provider not named publicly | Low Switzerland data-center claim without a published host legal name or full subprocessor list complicates transfer and residual-risk assessments. | Not listed |
| No self-host or open-source path | Medium Cannot pin collector versions, run fully air-gapped, or satisfy hard self-host mandates. Operational dependency on digistats uptime and roadmap. | Not listed |
| Registration path may be restricted | Low At research time the login UI stated registrations were disabled and /developers redirected to login. Confirm trial and API access before scheduling migration. | Not listed |
| Opt-in undercounts absolute traffic | Not listed | High Visitors who never consent generate no events. Growth and content KPIs will not match cookieless tools or GA-style default measurement—treat as design, not a misconfiguration. |
| You own uptime, backups, and secrets | Not listed | Medium No managed Offen cloud. Operators must run HTTPS/subdomain layout, set OFFEN_SECRET for stable sessions, configure SMTP for resets, and back up SQLite/SQL—plus avoid reverse proxies that log IPs if minimization is a goal. |
| E2E crypto is vendor-claimed architecture | Not listed | Medium Browser-side encryption and server inability to decrypt are core claims from project docs/README, not independently audited in public materials found. Security-sensitive orgs should review source or commission assessment. |
| Hosting choice reintroduces cloud jurisdiction | Not listed | Medium Self-host on US-group cloud or Heroku means CLOUD Act/subprocessor analysis shifts to your host even though Offen itself is Berlin-based OSS without a vendor SaaS region map. |
| No public ISO/SOC or audit pack | Not listed | Low Procurement checklists that require vendor ISO 27001/SOC 2 will stall; evidence is open source and design docs, not cert registry entries. |
| Essential metrics only | Not listed | Medium No heatmaps, session replay, advanced funnels, or product-analytics warehouse features. Wrong tool if the shortlist criterion is UX research depth rather than fair traffic statistics. |
When: You need open-source and optional self-hosting with a large community
Consider: Plausible Analytics or Matomo
Plausible is cookieless SaaS + self-host; Matomo is the full self-host suite.
When: You want another lightweight EU cookieless SaaS without Swiss seat as a requirement
Consider: Simple Analytics or Pirsch Analytics
NL and DE peers in the same category band.
When: You need enterprise analytics, tag manager, and formal compliance packaging
Consider: Piwik PRO or Matomo Cloud
Heavier stacks with more modules and B2B assurance artifacts.
When: You are comparing global privacy-analytics brands rather than Swiss residency
Consider: Fathom Analytics
Different ownership and data-path story—verify residency independently.
When: You want privacy-oriented analytics with managed EU hosting and lower consent friction
Consider: Plausible Analytics or Pirsch Analytics
Typically optimised for simpler cookieless or low-friction models and hosted plans; less radical visitor Auditorium design than Offen.
When: You need EU hosted privacy analytics with operator support and less self-host burden
Consider: Friendly Analytics
European catalog peer oriented to hosted privacy analytics; compare consent model and feature depth to Offen’s opt-in + E2E approach.
When: You need deep product analytics, funnels, or session UX tooling rather than fair traffic metrics
Consider: Hotjar, Mixpanel, or a full GA4 stack (with legal review)
Different category: richer product/UX analytics, different jurisdiction and subprocessor profile.