Plausible Analytics vs Tinylytics

Compare Plausible Analytics and Tinylytics on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.

Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics

Plausible Analytics

Estonia· Web Analytics

Needs review

Shortlist when you need cookieless website analytics with EU-owned visitor hosting, a lightweight script, AGPL transparency, and either managed Cloud or self-hosted CE. Skip when you need heatmaps/session replay, multi-day user-level product analytics, HIPAA/BAA, free forever hosted analytics, or zero non-EU SaaS anywhere in vendor ops—consider Matomo-class (e.g. Friendly Analytics / Piwik PRO), Pirsch, or Simple Analytics depending on depth vs simplicity.

Cookieless by designEU-owned visitor hostsAGPLv3 open sourceSelf-host CEDPA automaticLightweight script

View listing Visit Website

Tinylytics

United Kingdom· Web Analytics

Needs review

Shortlist Tinylytics when you want cookieless page analytics plus bundled uptime/SSL/content checks for a handful of small sites, with primary data on Hetzner in Germany and founder support. Skip when you need self-host/open source, formal ISO/SOC packs, or enterprise multi-tenant governance—consider Plausible Analytics or Simple Analytics instead.

Cookieless analyticsPrimary host: Hetzner DEUptime + SSL monitoringBroken-link crawlsSaaS only (no self-host)Solo-founder UK

View listing Visit Website

Highlighted rows differ between the two products.

Plausible Analytics vs Tinylytics: Snapshot
Feature	Plausible Analytics	Tinylytics
Country of origin	Estonia	United Kingdom
Category	Web Analytics	Web Analytics
Open source	Yes	No
Self-hosted	Yes	No
Headquarters	Estonia	United Kingdom
Legal entity	Plausible Insights OÜ, Västriku tn 2, 50403 Tartu, Estonia	Vincent Ritter Consulting (service brand; terms state not separately incorporated yet)
Governing law	Estonian / EU law context for the OÜ; confirm contract terms for governing law clauses	Not clearly stated as a single governing-law clause on the public terms page; confirm contractually
US parent / control	No known US parent	No known US parent
CLOUD Act exposure (indicative)	Medium	Medium
Hosting / residency	Visitor analytics: Hetzner (Falkenstein, Germany), UpCloud (Finland, DB/exports), Bunny (Slovenia, CDN/DNS/DDoS)—European-owned; vendor states visitor data never leaves the EU. Customer-account subprocessors include Paddle (payments), Postmark (email), Gravatar, optional Google (GA import), Help Scout, Nolt; site tools may include hCaptcha, Algolia, Mailchimp. SCCs claimed for non-EU processors.	Primary analytics storage: Hetzner Falkenstein (Germany). CDN/security: Cloudflare. Error monitoring: Sentry.io. Payments: Paddle and Lemon Squeezy (Stripe company). Optional: IPinfo geo fallback for API hits; opt-in AI Insights via xAI and Google Gemini. No public backup-provider detail beyond that stack.
Summary	Estonian open-source, cookieless web analytics (AGPLv3): lightweight script, EU-owned hosting on Hetzner/UpCloud/Bunny, managed Cloud plus self-hosted Community Edition.	Privacy-first cookieless web analytics for small sites, with bundled uptime/SSL checks, content monitoring, events, and founder support—hosted primarily on Hetzner in Germany.
Tags	analytics privacy gdpr web-analytics open-source cookieless saas self-hosted estonia google-analytics-alternative	analytics privacy gdpr cookie-free uptime-monitoring indie api

At a glance: Plausible Analytics vs Tinylytics
At a glance	Plausible Analytics	Tinylytics
HQ	Tartu, Estonia	Not listed
Legal entity	Plausible Insights OÜ (reg. 14709274)	Not listed
Visitor hosts	Hetzner DE; UpCloud FI; Bunny SI	Not listed
License	AGPLv3; Cloud + Community Edition	Not listed
Commercial model	Pageview-based Cloud SaaS; free CE self-host	Paid site-count plans; short trial; no permanent free tier
Tracking model	Cookieless; daily rotating hash; no PII stored	Not listed
HQ / operator	Not listed	Vincent Ritter Consulting, United Kingdom
Launched	Not listed	12 June 2023 (live counters on homepage)
Primary hosting	Not listed	Hetzner, Falkenstein, Germany
Deployment	Not listed	Managed SaaS only (not open source, not self-hosted)
Differentiators	Not listed	Analytics + uptime/SSL/content monitoring + widgets

Key capabilities: Plausible Analytics vs Tinylytics
Key capabilities	Plausible Analytics	Tinylytics
Cookieless by design	Yes	Yes
EU-owned visitor hosts	Yes	Not listed
AGPLv3 open source	Yes	Not listed
Self-host CE	Yes	Not listed
DPA automatic	Yes	Not listed
Lightweight script	Yes	Not listed
Primary host: Hetzner DE	Not listed	Yes
Uptime + SSL monitoring	Not listed	Yes
Broken-link crawls	Not listed	Yes
SaaS only (no self-host)	Not listed	Yes
Solo-founder UK	Not listed	Yes

Plausible Analytics

Cookieless measurement with daily rotating visitor hash
No cookies, localStorage, or persistent IDs. Uniques use hash(daily_salt + domain + IP + UA); salt rotates every 24 hours and raw IP/UA are never stored—so analytics can often run without a consent banner, at the cost of no multi-day user stitching.
Lightweight script and single-page traffic dashboard
Vendor claims a script ~54× smaller than Google Analytics with real-time updates (~30s), sources, pages, devices, UTM channels, scroll-depth goals, and optional Google Search Console import—built for marketers who refuse GA4 report complexity.
Goals, custom events, funnels, and revenue on Cloud
Codeless page goals, file downloads, outbound clicks, custom events/properties, AI-referral traffic views, and (on higher Cloud plans) funnels, user journeys, and ecommerce revenue attribution—not session replay or in-app product analytics.
EU-owned visitor hosting (Hetzner, UpCloud, Bunny)
Cloud visitor data is processed on European-owned infrastructure: Hetzner (Germany), UpCloud (Finland), Bunny CDN (Slovenia). Plausible states visitor data never leaves the EU and is not stored on US hyperscalers.
AGPLv3 open source with Community Edition self-host
Full codebase on GitHub; free CE for self-host (long-term releases ~twice yearly). Cloud-only features include advanced bot filtering, funnels/journeys, ecommerce revenue, SSO, and Sites API—self-host ops, backups, and upgrades are yours.
Automatic DPA, Stats API, exports, and enterprise SSO
Public DPA applies to Cloud customers by use; CSV export and Stats API for BI; Business/Enterprise add higher API limits, raw event exports, managed proxy, and SAML SSO (Google Workspace, Okta, Microsoft Entra ID per docs).

Tinylytics

Cookie-free unique hits with rotating salts
Page views and unique hits without tracking cookies or fingerprinting. Uniques combine truncated request signals with a 12-hour rotating salt and one-way hash, reset daily at midnight UTC; visitor IPs are not stored in hits. Suited to indie sites that want trendable uniques without consent banners for analytics cookies.
Thunder Clap uptime, SSL, and domain alerts
In-house multi-region health checks (default every 10 minutes) confirm downtime before emailing, plus SSL expiry notices and domain monitoring. Ultra can shorten intervals. Replaces a separate uptime tool for small fleets—but false downs can occur if WAFs block the Tinylytics monitor user-agent.
Daily content crawl for broken links and mixed content
Subscribed sites can crawl up to 50 pages (two levels deep) on a daily cadence, flagging broken links and mixed HTTP assets on HTTPS pages, with ignore lists and re-check. Ultra adds optional AI spell-check on visible copy—keep it off if AI subprocessors are out of policy.
Attribute-based event tracking (beta)
Enable events on the embed script and mark elements with data-tinylytics-event using category.action names (optional values for downloads). No GTM required; beacon mode helps navigations. Still beta—expect API/schema changes and incomplete capture under aggressive blockers.
Public stats, kudos, hit counters, API, and webhooks
Share passcode-protected public stats, embed hit counters and kudos buttons, export CSV, call the documented API, and push signed webhooks for visits, events, and monitoring. Built for transparent blogs and light automation rather than enterprise BI warehouses.

Assurance & compliance: Plausible Analytics vs Tinylytics
Assurance & compliance	Plausible Analytics	Tinylytics
Independent security / no-logs audit	Not found Open-source code and security overview published; no public independent pen-test or no-logs audit PDF found on compliance/security pages.	Not found No public third-party security or no-logs audit report found on official docs.
ISO 27001	Not found No ISO 27001 claim located on security or compliance hub pages reviewed.	Not found No ISO 27001 claim found on privacy, compliance, or hosting pages.
SOC 2 / SOC 3	Not found No SOC 2/3 claim located on security or compliance hub pages reviewed.	Not found No SOC 2/3 report or claim found on public site.
GDPR / EU data protection	Vendor claimed EU entity; cookieless non-PII design; public data policy, DPA, and vendor-published legal assessment on GDPR/ePrivacy positioning.	Vendor claimed Vendor documents GDPR-oriented design (cookieless, data minimisation, EU primary host, deletion). Not independent certification.
US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative)	Partial Estonian OÜ, no known US parent; visitor data on EU-owned Hetzner/UpCloud/Bunny. Partial/medium because customer-account subprocessors include US-oriented SaaS (e.g. Postmark, Help Scout, Gravatar, optional Google). Indicative only—not legal advice.	Partial UK operator, no known US parent, primary host Hetzner DE; partial exposure via Cloudflare, Sentry, Lemon Squeezy/Paddle, optional IPinfo and opt-in US AI APIs. Not legal advice.
Data processing agreement (B2B)	Vendor claimed Public DPA applies automatically to Cloud customers by use of the service; lists processor duties and 48-hour breach notification target.	Not found No public DPA/downloadable processor agreement found; ask the vendor before B2B rollout.
EU AI Act	Not applicable Website analytics product; not marketed as an AI system under the AI Act.	Not applicable Core product is analytics/monitoring; optional AI insights are secondary and opt-in.

Considerations & known limitations: Plausible Analytics vs Tinylytics
Considerations & known limitations	Plausible Analytics	Tinylytics
US-linked customer-account subprocessors	Medium Visitor metrics stay on EU-owned hosts, but billing, email, support, and optional integrations use providers such as Postmark, Paddle, Help Scout, Gravatar, and Google—material for zero-US-processor policies.	Not listed
No public ISO 27001 / SOC 2	Medium Compliance hub emphasizes product design and EU hosting rather than ISO/SOC certificates; orgs with mandatory cert checklists must request evidence or accept open-source + DPA packaging.	Not listed
Self-host CE feature and release lag	Low CE is free but long-term releases (~twice yearly) and omits Cloud-only funnels, journeys, ecommerce revenue, SSO, and advanced bot filtering—ops burden sits with you.	Not listed
No multi-day user identity or replay	Low Daily hash resets prevent cross-day visitor stitching by design; heatmaps/session replay are out of scope—teams needing those must add other tools.	Not listed
Misconfiguration can reintroduce personal data	Medium Passing emails, patient IDs, or other identifiers in URLs or custom properties undermines the non-PII model; vendor also states no HIPAA/BAA.	Not listed
US-group subprocessors on the data path	Not listed	Medium Cloudflare, Sentry, payment processors (incl. Lemon Squeezy/Stripe group), optional IPinfo and opt-in xAI/Gemini mean the stack is not EU-only end-to-end despite Hetzner primary storage.
Solo-founder operational concentration	Not listed	Medium Service is provided by Vincent Ritter Consulting / a solo developer. Support is personal and fast for indies, but bus-factor and formal SLA expectations differ from larger vendors.
No public ISO/SOC/audit or DPA pack	Not listed	Medium Enterprise security questionnaires will hit gaps until the vendor supplies audits and a B2B DPA under NDA or email.
Scale and feature boundaries	Not listed	Low Content crawls are depth/page limited; event tracking is beta; fair-usage applies to extreme hit volumes; no self-host escape hatch.
Optional AI shares aggregated analytics	Not listed	Low AI Insights and related AI spell-check are opt-in and send aggregated (not visitor PII per vendor) data to third-party AI providers—leave disabled under strict AI policies.

Fit

Plausible Analytics

Best fit when

Teams replacing GA4 who want aggregate marketing metrics without cookies or user profiles
EU orgs that require visitor analytics on European-owned infrastructure (Hetzner/UpCloud/Bunny)
Sites that prioritize script weight, Core Web Vitals, and a one-page dashboard
Buyers who want AGPL auditability and optional Community Edition self-host exit
Agencies and multi-site operators needing shared links, team seats, and pageview-tiered Cloud plans
Procurement paths that value a public DPA, data policy, and subprocessor list over ISO/SOC certificates

Poor fit when

Product analytics needs: multi-day user identity, cohorts, retention, feature experiments
UX research that requires heatmaps, session replay, or rage-click recording
Healthcare or other programs that require HIPAA and a BAA (explicitly not offered)
Buyers who need free forever hosted analytics with no subscription
Orgs that forbid any US-linked SaaS in vendor account tooling (Postmark, Help Scout, etc. are listed)

Consider instead when

When: You need Matomo-depth features (heatmaps, session recording, heavy on-prem packaging)
Consider: Friendly Analytics, Piwik PRO, or self-hosted Matomo
Trade Plausible’s minimalism for plugin breadth and different operators.
When: You want a lean EU privacy analytics peer with a different stack or license posture
Consider: Pirsch Analytics or Simple Analytics
Compare hosting ownership, funnels/ecommerce gates, and self-host options side by side.
When: You only need edge-level basic counts and already run Cloudflare
Consider: Cloudflare Web Analytics
Simpler install path; US company and thinner marketing analytics surface.
When: You need free hosted analytics and accept Google’s data practices
Consider: Google Analytics
Different legal and commercial model—not an EU privacy substitute.

Tinylytics

Best fit when

Indie blogs, portfolios, and side projects that want simple cookieless stats without Google Analytics
Small sites that also want uptime, SSL expiry, and broken-link checks in the same tool
Operators who prefer founder-answered support and lightweight embeds over enterprise marketing stacks
Teams OK with managed EU primary hosting and willing to review named US-group subprocessors (CDN, payments, optional AI)
Agencies managing a modest number of client sites with public stats or kudos-style engagement widgets

Poor fit when

Orgs that require self-hosted collectors or open-source audit of the full analytics stack
Procurement needing published ISO 27001, SOC 2, independent audits, or a downloadable DPA out of the box
Very high-traffic properties needing contractual capacity/SLA commitments beyond fair-usage conversation
Policies that ban Cloudflare/Sentry/US payment or optional US AI APIs on any data path
Teams that need session replay, heatmaps, or deep advertising attribution (Clarity/GA territory)

Consider instead when

When: You need open-source and optional self-hosting of the analytics stack
Consider: Plausible Analytics
Estonian product with Cloud plus Community Edition self-host; less bundling of uptime/content monitors.
When: You want European cookieless analytics with a simpler analytics-only scope
Consider: Simple Analytics
Strong privacy positioning; compare feature depth and monitoring separately.
When: You need free-at-scale marketing analytics, ads integrations, or attribution depth
Consider: Google Analytics (incumbent) — or stay on a privacy tool if GA is disallowed
Different privacy and sovereignty profile entirely.
When: You need session replay or heatmaps and accept that privacy model
Consider: Microsoft Clarity or specialised replay tools
Tinylytics deliberately avoids fingerprinting-style session products.

Open questions for due diligence

Plausible Analytics

Which exact customer personal data categories does each account subprocessor (Postmark, Paddle, Help Scout, etc.) receive in production?
Can Enterprise contracts exclude optional integrations (Google, Help Scout) or pin subprocessor lists for regulated buyers?
Are independent pen-test reports or ISO/SOC roadmaps available under NDA?
What are contracted RPO/RTO and backup locations beyond the high-level Hetzner/UpCloud description?
For CE self-host: which Cloud-only features remain permanently out of CE versus merely delayed on the long-term release train?

Tinylytics

Will Vincent Ritter Consulting sign a GDPR Article 28 DPA and provide a current subprocessor list under contract?
Are backups/DR and email delivery fully covered by the named providers, or are there additional hosts?
Is there any roadmap for independent security review, SOC 2, or ISO 27001?
What contractual terms apply for accounts consistently above the fair-usage hit threshold?
For AI Insights: exact retention, regions, and processor terms at xAI and Google for the paid API plans used?