Matomo by Stackhero vs Pulse by Ciphera

Compare Matomo by Stackhero and Pulse by Ciphera on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.

Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics

Matomo by Stackhero

France· Web Analytics

Needs review

Shortlist when you want full Matomo on a dedicated French-operated bare-metal instance with one-click updates and hourly billing—especially if you prefer unlimited site/seat product framing over hit-metered multi-tenant SaaS. Skip when you need EU-only with no US region option, root/SSH access, or a minimal cookieless counter—consider self-hosted Matomo, Friendly Analytics, or Plausible instead.

Managed MatomoDedicated instanceFrench PaaS operatorISO 27001 (claimed)Automatic DPAEU or US region

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Pulse by Ciphera

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.

EU-operatedCookielessOpen-source clientSwiss-hosted dataNo analytics cookies

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Highlighted rows differ between the two products.

Matomo by Stackhero vs Pulse by Ciphera: Snapshot
Feature	Matomo by Stackhero	Pulse by Ciphera
Country of origin	France	Belgium
Category	Web Analytics	Web Analytics
Open source	Yes	Yes
Self-hosted	No	No
Headquarters	France	Belgium
Legal entity	Stackhero (RCS Paris 512 366 378, VAT FR92512366378), 1 rue de Stockholm, 75008 Paris, France	Ciphera BV
Governing law	French law; courts at registered head office (per Terms of service)	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	Primary compute: Stackhero bare-metal cloud, customer-chosen region EU (France) or USA. Backups: stored in the EU per Matomo FAQ; encrypted atomic images retained up to ~3 months. Not built on AWS/GCP/Azure as the stated compute substrate. Payment processor (unnamed) handles card data; privacy policy mentions third-party messaging/stats tools without a full named subprocessor table.	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	French PaaS-managed Matomo on dedicated bare-metal instances: unlimited sites until capacity, one-click updates, EU or US region choice, with hourly billing and an automatic DPA.	Cookie-free web analytics with traffic, funnels, uptime and Lighthouse checks in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted dashboard.
Tags	privacy open-source gdpr analytics matomo saas france managed-hosting iso-27001	privacy open-source gdpr cookie-free web-analytics cookieless

At a glance: Matomo by Stackhero vs Pulse by Ciphera
At a glance	Matomo by Stackhero	Pulse by Ciphera
HQ	Paris, France (1 rue de Stockholm, 75008)	Diegem, Belgium (Ciphera BV)
Legal entity	Stackhero — RCS Paris 512 366 378	Ciphera BV (KBO/BCE 1013.721.660)
Stack	Open-source Matomo on dedicated Stackhero VM	Not listed
Hosting regions	EU (France) or USA; backups in EU (vendor FAQ)	Not listed
Commercial model	Hourly instance billing; free trial; no standard commitment	Free Hobby tier; paid plans by traffic scale
Certifications	ISO 27001:2022 claimed (BAB #254338)	Not listed
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: Matomo by Stackhero vs Pulse by Ciphera
Key capabilities	Matomo by Stackhero	Pulse by Ciphera
Managed Matomo	Yes	Not listed
Dedicated instance	Yes	Not listed
French PaaS operator	Yes	Not listed
ISO 27001 (claimed)	Yes	Not listed
Automatic DPA	Yes	Not listed
EU or US region	Yes	Not listed
EU-operated	Not listed	Yes
Cookieless	Not listed	Yes
Open-source client	Not listed	Yes
Swiss-hosted data	Not listed	Yes
No analytics cookies	Not listed	Yes

Matomo by Stackhero

Dedicated bare-metal Matomo instance
Each customer gets an isolated VM on Stackhero’s own bare-metal cloud (Stackhero DC OS), not shared multi-tenant Matomo. Local disks and included Redis are positioned for high IOPS and heavy traffic—fit teams that outgrow noisy-neighbor shared analytics clouds.
Unlimited sites, members, segments, and goals until capacity
Stackhero does not meter websites, team seats, segments, or goals as product SKUs; you scale by instance size (published up to 16 vCPUs / 64 GB RAM). Retention is limited by disk, not a fixed product TTL—plan storage for long history.
One-click Matomo updates and managed ops (no SSH)
Stackhero delivers Matomo updates for dashboard application; firewall IP rules are customer-configurable. SSH is intentionally unavailable on the managed service—good for reduced surface area, poor fit if you need custom OS packages.
Custom domain, GeoIP2, and dedicated notification email
Point matomo.yourdomain.com with TLS 1.3/ECDSA, ship visitor location via bundled GeoIP2, and send unlimited Matomo reports/alerts through a per-instance email path—reduces glue work after first deploy.
Atomic encrypted daily backups (EU vault)
24-hour atomic image backups (plus event-driven backups on upgrades) are validated, then encrypted (OpenPGP ECDH/Curve25519) and retained up to three months. Vendor FAQ states backups are stored in the EU even when regions differ—confirm dual-region implications for US instances.
Hourly billing with EU or US region choice
Spin services up/down with hourly charging and a single monthly invoice; free trial without payment method. Choose European (France) or USA placement at create time—region is a first-class control for residency, not a hidden default.

Pulse by Ciphera

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: Matomo by Stackhero vs Pulse by Ciphera
Assurance & compliance	Matomo by Stackhero	Pulse by Ciphera
Independent security / no-logs audit	Not found ISO 27001 and bug-bounty openness claimed; no public independent no-logs audit report specific to analytics found.	Not found Trust page states no independent audit yet; Tessera self-audit published; independent audit planned.
ISO 27001	Vendor claimed Vendor publishes ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certificate #254338 from the British Assessment Bureau (PDF). Not re-verified against the issuer’s public register in this draft.	Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no ISO 27001 certification.
SOC 2 / SOC 3	Not found No SOC 2/3 claim found on certifications/privacy/GDPR pages reviewed.	Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no SOC 2 certification.
GDPR / EU data protection	Vendor claimed French entity; public GDPR & DPA page; customer controller / Stackhero processor model; EU region option for service data.	Vendor claimed Belgian controller; privacy policy describes GDPR/FADP bases and Pulse processor role. Not legal advice.
US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative)	Partial French entity, no known US parent, non-hyperscaler bare-metal hosting claimed. Medium/partial because USA is a first-class hosting region; EU-only only when the customer creates the service in Europe. Backups stated as EU-stored. 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)	Vendor claimed DPA applies automatically with Terms of service; PDF downloadable from the GDPR & DPA page.	On request / NDA Privacy policy: DPA available on request at privacy@ciphera.net for Pulse processor relationships.
EU AI Act	Not applicable Web analytics hosting; not positioned as an AI system product.	Not applicable Web analytics product; not an AI system product page.

Considerations & known limitations: Matomo by Stackhero vs Pulse by Ciphera
Considerations & known limitations	Matomo by Stackhero	Pulse by Ciphera
Optional US hosting region	Medium Platform offers USA placement alongside France/EU. Mis-selected region or unclear contract language can put visitor analytics outside the EU. Procurements that require EU-only must pin region at create time and in the order form.	Not listed
EU backups when primary is US	Medium FAQ states backups are stored in the EU. If an instance runs in the USA, confirm whether visitor data is dual-homed (US primary + EU backup) and how that affects DPIA and transfer tools.	Not listed
No SSH / managed-only host	Low Cannot install arbitrary system software or agents; support hours stated as CET office hours for basic platform support—not full Matomo application consulting.	Not listed
Limited named subprocessor list	Medium Privacy policy mentions third-party tools and a payment processor without a detailed public subprocessor register. Request the annex in diligence if procurement requires named processors.	Not listed
ISO certificate vendor-published	Low ISO 27001:2022 is claimed with a public PDF and BAB certificate number; validate scope, sites, and validity dates with the certification body before treating it as verified.	Not listed
Matomo privacy configuration is yours	Low Hosting in the EU does not auto-configure consent, IP anonymization, or cookieless modes. Controllers remain responsible for Matomo GDPR tooling and site policy.	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.

Fit

Matomo by Stackhero

Best fit when

Teams that want Matomo’s full analytics/admin surface without running OS or Matomo upgrades themselves
Buyers who prefer a dedicated VM and capacity-based limits over multi-tenant hit metering
Orgs consolidating Matomo with other Stackhero-managed open-source services under one French operator
Projects that need hourly elasticity and the ability to stop billing with one click
Controllers who will configure Matomo privacy features themselves and want a signed/automatic DPA plus ISO 27001 claims

Poor fit when

Requirements that forbid any US hosting option or dual-region backup stories—platform publicly offers USA regions
Teams that need SSH, custom kernels, or non-Matomo system agents on the host
Buyers seeking only a lightweight cookieless pageview product (Plausible-class tools are simpler)
Organizations that must self-host inside their own cloud account with no third-party PaaS operator
Use cases needing a named public subprocessor register beyond Stackhero’s high-level privacy/GDPR pages

Consider instead when

When: You want Swiss Matomo-as-a-Service with cookieless defaults and CH product hosts
Consider: Friendly Analytics
Different operator, residency story, and privacy defaults; still Matomo-based.
When: You need enterprise analytics packaging beyond plain managed Matomo
Consider: Piwik PRO
Compare modules, contracts, and hosting regions independently.
When: You only need a minimal open-source-friendly counter with simple SaaS UX
Consider: Plausible Analytics
Far less Matomo depth; different product surface.
When: You require full root control and in-house residency guarantees
Consider: Self-hosted Matomo on your own EU IaaS
Maximum control; you own updates, backups, and hardening.

Pulse by Ciphera

Best fit when

EU or Swiss organisations replacing GA4 primarily to remove analytics cookies and consent-banner friction
Teams that want traffic, funnels, uptime, and Lighthouse scores in one vendor console
Buyers who need a Belgian legal entity and named European subprocessors rather than a US cookieless SaaS
Sites that can work with aggregate and month-scoped visitor estimates instead of persistent user IDs
Engineering leads who want the browser script and dashboard code on GitHub under AGPL-3.0 for inspection

Poor fit when

Organisations that must self-host the full analytics backend (Pulse's managed core is closed)
Product analytics use cases that need durable cross-visit identity, cohorting, or GA4 BigQuery-style user exports
Buyers requiring completed ISO 27001, SOC 2, or a published independent security audit today
Teams that need EU/EEA soil specifically rather than Swiss residency (primary data is in Switzerland)

Consider instead when

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.

Open questions for due diligence

Matomo by Stackhero

Will the order form and DPA annex permanently pin the Matomo instance to the EU (France) region with no US failover?
For US-region instances, what exact data is copied to EU backup vaults and under which transfer mechanism?
Who is the unnamed parent company referenced on the About page, and is there any US ownership or PE?
Can ISO 27001 certificate 254338 be validated on the British Assessment Bureau (or successor) public register for current scope/dates?
Which payment, support, and website analytics providers process Stackhero account data (named subprocessor list)?

Pulse by Ciphera

Will Ciphera sign your standard DPA and return the full registered-address subprocessor appendix on request?
What is the retention and deletion SLA for a single customer's Pulse project data after contract end?
When is the planned independent security audit scheduled, and will the report be public?
Are Google Search Console, Bing, or CDN analytics panels generally available, or only mentioned in some marketing copy?