Compare Pulse by Ciphera and Vantevo Analytics on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: Fathom Analytics, Google Analytics
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.
Italy· Web Analytics
Needs review
Shortlist Vantevo when you want Italian-operated, cookie-less site analytics with a flat dashboard, goals/events, optional GA historical import, and beta ecommerce funnel events under a public DPA. Skip when you need multi-day returning-visitor identity, self-hosting/open source, or enterprise-grade public certifications—consider Plausible/Simple Analytics/Pirsch for lighter peers, or Piwik PRO for self-host/compliance-heavy programs.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | Pulse by Ciphera | Vantevo Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Belgium | Italy |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | Belgium | Italy |
| Legal entity | Ciphera BV | Netforce Srl, Via Po' 136/A, 43124 Parma PR, Italy |
| Governing law | Belgian law (GDPR); Swiss FADP for infrastructure location | Italian law (controller established in Italy; Terms governed by place of establishment) |
| US parent / control | No known US parent | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Low | Medium |
| EU-hosted status | Partial | Not listed |
| Hosting / residency | 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. | Vendor claims EU servers and EU backups. Public DPA names OVH Datacenter Roubaix and an AWS datacenter for storage/processing. Additional third parties: Stripe (payments), Crisp (support chat), optional Google Analytics and Search Console APIs when customers connect them. |
| Summary | Cookie-free web analytics with traffic, funnels, uptime and Lighthouse checks in one Belgian-operated, Swiss-hosted dashboard. | Italian cookie-less web analytics from Netforce Srl (Parma): single-dashboard traffic, events, goals, and ecommerce funnels with EU processing claims and a public DPA. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | Pulse by Ciphera | Vantevo Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| HQ | Diegem, Belgium (Ciphera BV) | Parma, Italy (Netforce Srl) |
| Legal entity | Ciphera BV (KBO/BCE 1013.721.660) | Not listed |
| Founded | 18 September 2024 (CBE) | Not listed |
| Primary data region | Switzerland (Exoscale Zurich) | Not listed |
| License | AGPL-3.0 client; managed backend closed | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Free Hobby tier; paid plans by traffic scale | View-based subscription after free trial |
| Product type | Not listed | Cookie-less web analytics SaaS |
| Self-host / OSS | Not listed | No (SaaS only; not open source) |
| Hosting (public DPA) | Not listed | OVH Roubaix + AWS datacenter; EU processing claims |
| Notable limit | Not listed | No multi-day returning visitors; max 50 sites/account (Terms) |
| Cookieless | Yes (vendor claim: no cookies, no fingerprinting) | Not listed |
| Data residency regions | Switzerland (Exoscale primary; Infomaniak backups) | Not listed |
| Key capabilities | Pulse by Ciphera | Vantevo Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| EU-operated | Yes | Not listed |
| Cookieless | Yes | Not listed |
| Open-source client | Yes | Not listed |
| Swiss-hosted data | Yes | Not listed |
| No analytics cookies | Yes | Not listed |
| Cookie-less tracking | Not listed | Yes |
| Single-dashboard metrics | Not listed | Yes |
| Ecommerce events (beta) | Not listed | Yes |
| GA history import | Not listed | Yes |
| Public DPA | Not listed | Yes |
| Italian operator | Not listed | Yes |
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.
Daily-rotating hash visitor counting (no analytics cookies)
Visitor uniqueness for a day is derived from HASH(salt + domain + IP + User-Agent) with a salt that rotates every 24 hours; IP and User-Agent are not retained after hashing, per the DPA and docs. No cookies, localStorage, or browser cache for the analytics session—and therefore no multi-day new/returning visitor split. Fits privacy-led sites that prioritize aggregate trends over identity graphs.
Single-page traffic dashboard
Unique visitors, sessions, page views, bounce rate, duration, entry/exit pages, geography, devices, languages, referrals, and UTM campaigns appear on one overview without multi-level custom report builders. Aimed at agencies and SMEs that want operational metrics without a full-time analytics specialist.
Custom events, goals, and automatic link/download tracking
Track button clicks, scrolls, form submits, custom event names with metadata, and conversion goals; outbound links and file downloads can be auto-captured with HTML attributes to exclude specific URLs. Useful for content and lead-gen sites measuring meaningful actions without cookie tags.
Ecommerce funnel events (beta script)
Optional vantevo-ecommerce.js records wishlist, view item, cart add/remove, checkout stages, payment type, coupons, variants/categories, and purchase—docs mark the ecommerce section as still in beta. Best for shops that need privacy-oriented funnel visibility and can accept beta maturity.
Universal Analytics import and multi-platform install paths
Connect Google Analytics to import page statistics from January 2018 onward into the same calendar view (with documented metric gaps and API limits). Ship via head script, WordPress plugin, React/Vue/npm packages, Shopify/Wix theme paste, hybrid apps, or server-side event APIs—plus optional Search Console connection for keyword/impression views.
| Assurance & compliance | Pulse by Ciphera | Vantevo Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found Trust page states no independent audit yet; Tessera self-audit published; independent audit planned. | Not found No public third-party audit PDF or no-logs attestation found on security/docs pages searched. |
| ISO 27001 | Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no ISO 27001 certification. | Not found No ISO 27001 certificate or registry evidence found on the public site. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Not found Ciphera explicitly states it holds no SOC 2 certification. | Not found No SOC 2/3 report referenced on public trust/legal pages. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed Belgian controller; privacy policy describes GDPR/FADP bases and Pulse processor role. Not legal advice. | Vendor claimed Italian controller (Netforce Srl); cookie-less visitor model and EU hosting asserted on docs/GDPR pages; public DPA available. Vendor “100% GDPR compliant” wording is a claim, not independent legal certification. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | 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. | Partial EU entity / no known US parent, but DPA lists AWS alongside OVH Roubaix; Stripe and optional Google APIs are US-group services. Not a clean EU-only infrastructure story. Not legal advice. |
| Data processing agreement (B2B) | On request / NDA Privacy policy: DPA available on request at privacy@ciphera.net for Pulse processor relationships. | Vendor claimed Public DPA at vantevo.io/dpa; Terms state DPA forms part of the main agreement (customer controller, Netforce processor). |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Web analytics product; not an AI system product page. | Not applicable Web analytics SaaS; not marketed as an AI system product. |
| Considerations & known limitations | Pulse by Ciphera | Vantevo Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Managed backend is not open source | 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. | Not listed |
| No ISO/SOC or independent audit yet | 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. | Not listed |
| Primary data residency is Switzerland, not EU/EEA | 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. | Not listed |
| Marketing vs privacy wording conflicts | 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. | Not listed |
| AWS (and other US-group services) in data path | Not listed | Medium Despite Italian HQ and EU hosting marketing, the DPA explicitly stores data at OVH Roubaix and an AWS datacenter. Stripe payments and optional Google integrations add further US-group processors. Organizations with strict “no US cloud” policies need written clarification of regions, SCCs, and residual access risk. |
| No public ISO/SOC or independent audit | Not listed | Medium Shortlisting relies on vendor security measures described in the DPA (encryption, backups, breach notification windows) without published certs or third-party audit reports. Security questionnaires and NDA evidence may be required for regulated buyers. |
| No multi-day visitor identity by design | Not listed | Low Daily salt rotation and cookie-less design prevent classic returning-visitor and cross-device analysis. This is a privacy feature for many buyers and a hard product limit for others. |
| Ecommerce module still beta | Not listed | Medium Official ecommerce docs mark the section as beta/incomplete for final publication. Do not assume GA ecommerce parity or long-term event stability without a pilot. |
| View overage and website caps in Terms | Not listed | Low Recording can pause after plan-specific overage tolerances; Terms also set a 50-website maximum per account. Align marketing “unlimited domains” language with contract terms before large agency rollouts. |
| SaaS-only dependency | Not listed | Low No public self-host option. Continuity depends on Netforce operations, OVH/AWS, and export/delete workflows (JSON/CSV return or delete timelines in DPA/Terms). |
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.
When: You want a well-known lightweight EU privacy analytics tool with strong community presence
Consider: Plausible Analytics or Simple Analytics
Compare ecommerce depth, GA import, and commercial packaging side by side.
When: You need self-host or enterprise compliance packaging
Consider: Piwik PRO (or Matomo self-host outside this catalog’s EU-SaaS peers)
Vantevo is SaaS-only with no public self-host edition found.
When: You need full product analytics and long-horizon cohorts
Consider: Mixpanel or similar product analytics suites
Different category: identity-rich product instrumentation vs privacy-first site metrics.
When: You specifically want German-market privacy analytics peers
Consider: Pirsch Analytics or etracker (catalog peers)
Validate feature parity on ecommerce and import paths.