Compare Insights and Publytics on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics, Matomo
Austria· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist when you need cookie-free hosted analytics with first-class custom events for SPAs from an Austrian operator. Skip when you need self-host, public ISO/SOC packs, or infrastructure without Google Firebase—consider Plausible Analytics, Simple Analytics, or Pirsch Analytics instead (or self-hosted Matomo).
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.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | Insights | Publytics |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Austria | Italy |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | Austria | Italy |
| Legal entity | Unsourced Digital OG | Publytics S.r.l. / Publytics SRL, Via Val Leventina 3 INT 1, 20148 Milan (MI), Italy (VAT IT13079420967) |
| Governing law | Not listed | Italy / EU GDPR (processor under published DPA) |
| US parent / control | No known US parent | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Medium | Low |
| Hosting / residency | Operator: Unsourced Digital OG (Austria). Vendor-documented infrastructure includes Google Firebase—Cloud Functions, Firebase Authentication (customer accounts), and Firebase Hosting—with temporary IP handling described for those Google services. Visitor analytics designed without cookies and without IP storage in DB/logs; still a US-group cloud path for processing/hosting/auth. | 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 | Austrian privacy-first hosted web analytics: page views and custom events without cookies or stored visitor IPs, with an MIT open-source JS client (backend uses Google Firebase). | 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 |
| At a glance | Insights | Publytics |
|---|---|---|
| HQ / law | Austria (Unsourced Digital OG; Austrian governing law) | Not listed |
| Product type | Hosted privacy web analytics + custom events | Not listed |
| Client license | MIT (insights-js); backend proprietary | Not listed |
| Self-host | No public self-host option | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Free low-volume tier; paid by monthly event/pageview volume | Pageview tiers; free trial |
| Known infra | Google Firebase (Functions, Auth, Hosting) per vendor docs | Not listed |
| HQ | Not listed | Milan, Italy |
| Legal entity | Not listed | Publytics S.r.l. (VAT IT13079420967) |
| Hosting | Not listed | EuroVPS + Hetzner (EU regions) |
| Deployment | Not listed | Managed SaaS (not self-hosted) |
| Open source | Not listed | No (tracker uses MIT library code) |
| Key capabilities | Insights | Publytics |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie-free tracking | Yes | Not listed |
| Custom events | Yes | Not listed |
| MIT client (insights-js) | Yes | Not listed |
| Austrian entity | Yes | Not listed |
| Hosted SaaS | Yes | Not listed |
| Firebase data path | Yes | Not listed |
| Cookieless tracking | Not listed | Yes |
| No default sampling | Not listed | Yes |
| Multi-site Network | Not listed | Yes |
| EU-hosted (EuroVPS/Hetzner) | Not listed | Yes |
| Public B2B DPA | Not listed | Yes |
| Publisher-focused UX | Not listed | Yes |
Cookie-free page views and user flows
Tracks bounce rate, referrers, visits, and user-flow style page statistics without setting analytics cookies, so sites can avoid cookie banners driven solely by analytics. Script init plus trackPages() is the usual path for SPAs.
Custom and cancelable event tracking
insights-js supports named events with string parameters, unique-per-session flags, parameter-only updates, and remove/cancel for long-lived events (e.g. subscribe then unsubscribe). Built for product and funnel metrics, not pageviews only.
MIT open-source TypeScript client
The browser/npm client (insights-js) is MIT-licensed on GitHub with TypeScript types and helpers for locale, screen type, path, referrer, and duration buckets. Supports React, Angular, Vue, UMD script, and multi-project App instances. Backend remains proprietary SaaS.
Visitor anonymization pipeline (vendor-described)
Vendor docs: IPs hashed only in RAM for fraud checks (not stored in DB or logs); user agents reduced to browser/OS; optional screen sizes rounded to 50px; Do Not Track honoured. Confirm fit with your DPO—anonymous design is not a legal certification.
Developer-oriented integration
One-minute script install or npm package; docs cover multi-project tracking, ignoreErrors/disabled flags for production environments, and hash/search options on page paths. Lightweight client positioned against heavier GA-style tags.
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 | Insights | Publytics |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found Vendor describes no IP storage in DB/logs and RAM-only hashing; no public third-party audit PDF found. | 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 | Not found No public certificate on getinsights.io at research time. | Not found No Publytics product certificate found. Host EuroVPS markets ISO certifications; that is infrastructure provider scope, not Publytics certification. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Not found No public SOC report found. | Not found No public SOC 2/3 report found on official Publytics pages. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed Austrian entity; privacy policy and data-collection docs; cookie-free/no-stored-IP design for visitors. Firebase/Google processing still requires transfer/DPA diligence. | Vendor claimed Italian controller/processor entity; cookieless design; public Art. 28 DPA; EU hosting named. Not legal advice. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Partial EU entity / no known US parent, but Google Firebase (US-group) used for Cloud Functions, Auth, and Hosting per vendor data page. Indicative medium exposure. 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) | Not found No standalone public DPA page found; request from contact@getinsights.io for B2B use. | Vendor claimed Full public DPA at https://publytics.net/dpa with Annex B subprocessors and Annex C security/transfer instructions. |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Web analytics product, not an AI system product page. | Not applicable Web analytics product; AI-referral reporting is measurement of referrers, not an AI system product. |
| Considerations & known limitations | Insights | Publytics |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase on critical path | High Vendor documents Firebase Cloud Functions, Auth, and Hosting. Anonymous visitor design does not remove US-group cloud dependency for hosting/auth/processing—material for sovereignty-sensitive buyers. | Not listed |
| No public independent audit or certs | Medium No ISO 27001, SOC 2, or third-party no-logs audit found on the public site. Rely on vendor claims plus your own review of the open client. | 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. |
| Client open source only; no self-host | Medium insights-js is MIT; dashboard/backend are closed SaaS. You cannot run the full product on your infrastructure. | Not listed |
| Small team / continuity | Medium Product presented as built by two freelance developers under Unsourced Digital OG. Assess vendor longevity and support SLAs for business-critical analytics. | Not listed |
| Bounce/unique metrics need SPA routing | Low Client docs: trackPages bounce and unique views expect a client-side router and do not use cookies/localStorage; multi-page full reloads can skew metrics. | 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. |
| Feature depth tied to pageview tiers | Not 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 path | Not 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-identify | Not 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. |
When: You want simple hosted EU privacy page analytics with a strong Plausible-style product footprint
Consider: Plausible Analytics
Compare event depth: Insights markets custom events as a core differentiator vs simpler page-focused tools.
When: You want cookie-free analytics with an explicit privacy brand and different commercial packaging
Consider: Simple Analytics
Verify each vendor's hosting and subprocessor pages side by side.
When: You prefer a German peer privacy analytics product
Consider: Pirsch Analytics
Compare event features, regions, and legal docs for your DPA process.
When: You need full control of the stack or on-prem processing
Consider: Self-hosted Matomo (or similar open analytics)
Higher ops cost; no dependency on Insights SaaS or Firebase.
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