Compare digistats Analytics and Pulse by Ciphera on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics
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.
Belgium· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist Pulse when you want cookieless traffic analytics plus uptime and Lighthouse in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted SaaS and can accept a closed managed backend. Skip when you need full self-hosting or GA-style user-level history; consider Plausible Analytics or Simple Analytics instead.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | digistats Analytics | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Switzerland | Belgium |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | Switzerland | Belgium |
| Legal entity | digistats Analytics Ltd., Täfernstrasse 2A, CH-5405 Dättwil AG (UID CHE-296.235.462) | Ciphera BV |
| Governing law | Swiss law; venue Bremgarten AG (per AGB) | Belgian law (GDPR); Swiss FADP for infrastructure location |
| US parent / control | No known US parent | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Medium | Low |
| EU-hosted status | Not listed | Partial |
| 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). | Primary compute and object storage on Exoscale in Switzerland (Zurich). Encrypted backups and domain registration via Infomaniak (Switzerland). CDN/DNS/DDoS via Bunny (Slovenia HQ, global edge for transient IPs). Payments via Mollie (Netherlands). GitHub (US) for public source code only, per Trust page. |
| 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. | Cookie-free web analytics with traffic, funnels, uptime and Lighthouse checks in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted dashboard. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | digistats Analytics | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| HQ | Dättwil AG, Switzerland | Diegem, Belgium (Ciphera BV) |
| Legal entity | digistats Analytics Ltd. (CHE-296.235.462) | Ciphera BV (KBO/BCE 1013.721.660) |
| 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 | Free Hobby tier; paid plans by traffic scale |
| Founded | Not listed | 18 September 2024 (CBE) |
| Primary data region | Not listed | Switzerland (Exoscale Zurich) |
| License | Not listed | AGPL-3.0 client; managed backend closed |
| Cookieless | Not listed | Yes (vendor claim: no cookies, no fingerprinting) |
| Data residency regions | Not listed | Switzerland (Exoscale primary; Infomaniak backups) |
| Key capabilities | digistats Analytics | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| Cookieless tracking | Yes | Yes |
| No stored visitor IPs | Yes | Not listed |
| Swiss data center | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited websites | Yes | Not listed |
| API + CSV export | Yes | Not listed |
| Managed SaaS | Yes | Not listed |
| EU-operated | Not listed | Yes |
| Open-source client | Not listed | Yes |
| No analytics cookies | 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.
Cookieless traffic dashboard
Pageviews, unique-visitor estimates, referrers, UTM campaigns, device or browser splits, and country-level geo from a single script tag, without cookies or fingerprinting according to Ciphera's privacy docs.
Journeys and conversion funnels
Step-by-step path columns and multi-step funnels with drop-off analysis, filterable by page, country, device, or referrer for privacy-preserving conversion debugging.
Uptime monitors with alert routes
Built-in uptime checks with downtime and recovery alerts to email, Slack, Discord, or a webhook, so availability sits beside traffic in one console.
Daily Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals
Scheduled mobile and desktop Lighthouse runs with performance, accessibility, best-practices, SEO scores, and Core Web Vitals trends without a separate RUM product.
Inspectable AGPL client and read API
Dashboard and tracking script are AGPL-3.0 on GitHub; Ciphera also documents a public read API, CLI, and export paths while keeping the managed backend closed.
| Assurance & compliance | digistats Analytics | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found Vendor claims no IP storage and no fingerprints; no public third-party audit PDF found. | Not found Trust page states no independent audit yet; Tessera self-audit published; independent audit planned. |
| ISO 27001 | Not found Not claimed on reviewed pages. Host partner ISO 14001 (environmental) is not an ISMS cert. | Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no ISO 27001 certification. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Not found | Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no SOC 2 certification. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed Swiss entity; privacy policy cites DSG and GDPR/DSGVO, cookieless design, Swiss storage. Not legal advice. | Vendor claimed Belgian controller; privacy policy describes GDPR/FADP bases and Pulse processor role. Not legal advice. |
| 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 EU (Belgian) entity with no known US parent; primary hosts are European (Exoscale, Infomaniak, Bunny, Mollie). Residual paths: GitHub (US) for source code only; Bunny global edge for transient IPs. Indicative only, 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. | On request / NDA Privacy policy: DPA available on request at privacy@ciphera.net for Pulse processor relationships. |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Web analytics product; not positioned as an AI system product. | Not applicable Web analytics product; not an AI system product page. |
| Considerations & known limitations | digistats Analytics | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Managed backend is not open source | Not listed | Medium You can audit the browser script and dashboard code, but not the operated ingestion and storage service. Procurement that requires full-stack self-host or full server auditability should look elsewhere. |
| No ISO/SOC or independent audit yet | Not listed | Medium Ciphera publishes threat models, a warrant canary, and a subprocessor list, but explicitly has no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 and no completed independent audit. Enterprise security reviews will need questionnaires and a signed DPA. |
| Primary data residency is Switzerland, not EU/EEA | Not listed | Low Swiss adequacy covers many GDPR transfer questions, but policies that hard-require EU/EEA datacenter soil will classify this as partial rather than EU-hosted. |
| Marketing vs privacy wording conflicts | Not listed | Low Product FAQ pages disagree on whether custom events ship today and whether a DPA is needed. Prefer privacy@ and the privacy policy for legal commitments until Ciphera aligns the FAQs. |
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 need a mature EU cookieless analytics product with an official full-stack self-host option
Consider: Plausible Analytics
Plausible (Estonia) is the common self-host plus SaaS peer; Pulse keeps the backend managed-only.
When: You want a minimal Dutch cookieless counter without uptime or Lighthouse bundles
Consider: Simple Analytics
Closer peer for strictly analytics SaaS; Pulse differentiates with ops-style panels.
When: You need enterprise analytics with strong EU residency controls and heavier compliance packaging
Consider: Piwik PRO or Friendly Analytics
Heavier Matomo-class or Swiss-hosted peers when Pulse's startup assurance set is too thin.