Compare nilly 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 nilly when you want Swiss-entity, cookieless, ultra-light site analytics with realtime dashboards, city geo, custom events, unlimited sites, and an API—without GA4 consent weight. Skip when you need self-host/open source, enterprise audit packs, or deep marketing-suite analytics; consider Plausible Analytics, Simple Analytics, or etracker 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 | nilly | 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 | Lyo GmbH, Europaallee 41, 8004 Zürich (CHE-417.675.763) | Ciphera BV |
| Governing law | Switzerland (terms) | 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 | Vendor FAQ: analytics servers in Switzerland (multiple locations). Public site reverse-DNS: KreativMedia/METANET Zürich. Customer-account subprocessors named in privacy policy: Stripe (US payments), Mailerlite (email). Avatars via Gravatar. No full public subprocessor list for backups/monitoring/CDN. | 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 privacy-first web analytics (Lyo GmbH): cookieless, sub-1kB tracking with realtime dashboards, city-level geo, custom events, unlimited sites, and a REST API as a lightweight Google Analytics alternative. | Cookie-free web analytics with traffic, funnels, uptime and Lighthouse checks in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted dashboard. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | nilly | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| HQ | Zürich, Switzerland (Lyo GmbH) | Diegem, Belgium (Ciphera BV) |
| Legal entity | Lyo GmbH (CHE-417.675.763) | Ciphera BV (KBO/BCE 1013.721.660) |
| Product model | SaaS web analytics (not self-hosted) | Not listed |
| Tracking | Cookieless; no IP/fingerprint claims | Not listed |
| Hosting (claimed) | Switzerland (multi-site) | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Traffic-based plans; trial; no permanent free tier | Free Hobby tier; paid plans by traffic scale |
| Live site note | kandur.one (nilly branding; nilly.io DNS failed at research) | 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 | nilly | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| Cookieless tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Swiss-hosted (claimed) | Yes | Yes |
| Swiss entity | Yes | Not listed |
| Sub-1 kB script | Yes | Not listed |
| REST API | Yes | Not listed |
| SaaS only | Yes | Not listed |
| EU-operated | Not listed | Yes |
| Open-source client | Not listed | Yes |
| No analytics cookies | Not listed | Yes |
Sub-1 kB cookieless tracking script
Vendor documents a client script under 1 kB with no cookies, no IP tracking, and no fingerprinting for site visitors. Suited to teams that want aggregate traffic metrics without analytics cookie banners; still get counsel for your jurisdiction and CMP setup.
Realtime dashboard with geo, tech, and campaigns
Dashboards cover live visitors, overview metrics, top pages, referrers, UTM campaigns, geography from continent to city, and device/browser/OS breakdowns—enough for content and acquisition decisions without a full product-analytics suite.
Custom events, CSV export, and email reports
Define custom events for conversion-style actions, export statistics as CSV, and receive email reports. Fits operators who need lightweight conversion signals and offline analysis rather than session replay or multi-step funnels.
REST API for stats, websites, and account
Documented API endpoints (Bearer API key) manage stats queries (pageviews, visitors, referrers, events, geo, devices, and more), websites, and account objects—useful for internal dashboards or automations on traffic-based plans that include API access.
Unlimited websites on traffic-based plans
Public pricing model is pageview-tier SaaS with unlimited websites per account and a short free trial—not a permanent free tier. Good for agencies or multi-brand operators who outgrow per-site free plans elsewhere; confirm current tiers on the vendor site.
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 | nilly | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found No public third-party audit report found for tracking claims. | Not found Trust page states no independent audit yet; Tessera self-audit published; independent audit planned. |
| ISO 27001 | Not found No vendor ISO 27001 certificate published on product site (underlying Swiss host DCs may be certified separately). | 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 includes GDPR rights language; cookieless visitor tracking claimed. Confirm DPA for B2B. | Vendor claimed Belgian controller; privacy policy describes GDPR/FADP bases and Pulse processor role. Not legal advice. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Partial Swiss operator, no known US parent, Swiss-claimed analytics hosting; US SaaS subprocessors Stripe (payments) and Gravatar (avatars) on customer path. 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) | Not found No public DPA download found; request from vendor. | 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 marketed as an AI system. | Not applicable Web analytics product; not an AI system product page. |
| Swiss Made Software / Swiss Web labels | Vendor claimed Cited on About and Swiss Union member page as recognition/labels—not a security audit. | Not listed |
| Considerations & known limitations | nilly | Pulse by Ciphera |
|---|---|---|
| Brand/domain transition (nilly.io vs kandur.one) | Medium Product still branded nilly, but the live marketing/API host is kandur.one; nilly.io did not resolve in DNS during research. Verify tracking domains, docs, and status before production cutover. | Not listed |
| US SaaS on customer account path | Medium Stripe (payments) and Gravatar (avatars) are US-group services. Visitor metrics are claimed Swiss-hosted and non-personal, but account/billing data is not Switzerland-only end-to-end. | Not listed |
| Thin public assurance pack | Medium No public ISO 27001/SOC 2, independent security audit, or DPA page found. Fine for many SMB shortlists; friction for regulated enterprise questionnaires. | Not listed |
| No self-host or open-source edition | Low Cannot run on your own infra or audit server code from a public repo. Hard limit for sovereignty programs that require self-host. | Not listed |
| Small independent operator | Low Founder-owned Swiss GmbH without VC narrative—positive for independence, but buyers should assess support SLAs, roadmap continuity, and single-vendor concentration. | 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 want open-source and/or self-host privacy analytics with a larger community
Consider: Plausible Analytics or Pirsch Analytics
nilly is proprietary SaaS only.
When: You want another European cookieless SaaS with a simple product story
Consider: Simple Analytics
Dutch peer; compare geo depth, API, and residency claims side by side.
When: You need deeper marketing, shop, and tag/consent analytics for EU enterprises
Consider: etracker
German suite-oriented alternative; heavier than nilly's lightweight dashboard.
When: You depend on free unlimited scale and Google ads/ecosystem integration
Consider: Google Analytics (GA4)
Different privacy and residency tradeoffs; not a sovereignty shortlist.
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.