Plausible vs Fathom
Plausible and Fathom are the two poster children of privacy-first analytics — so alike that most teams could happily use either. The real decision comes down to open source, pricing shape, and one detail that quietly separates them: unlimited sites.
The short version
Both are simple, fast, cookieless and GDPR-friendly with no consent banner. Pick Plausible if open source and self-hosting matter to you. Pick Fathom if you run many sites — every Fathom plan includes unlimited websites and team members, so a portfolio of small sites can be dramatically cheaper.
How they compare
| Plausible | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | From $9/mo (10k pv) | $15/mo (100k pv) |
| Sites included | Multiple (plan-dependent) | Unlimited on every plan |
| Cookieless | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | Yes (AGPL, self-hostable) | No |
| Self-host | Yes (CE, free) | No |
| Data location | EU (Germany) | EU isolation option |
| Free tier | 30-day trial | 30-day trial |
| Script weight | < 1 KB | Tiny |
When Plausible wins
- You care about open source — AGPL code you can inspect, contribute to, and self-host for free (Plausible CE).
- You want the option to leave the cloud without changing tools — self-host the same product.
- You're a single high-traffic site — the $9 Growth entry can be cheaper than Fathom's $15 floor at low volume.
When Fathom wins
- You run lots of sites — unlimited websites and team members on every plan is a genuine cost advantage for agencies and portfolios.
- You want a purely hosted, zero-maintenance product and never intend to self-host.
- You want explicit EU data isolation as a first-class, marketed feature.
Migration effort
Trivial in either direction — both are a single lightweight script, so switching is a tag swap. Neither imports the other's history, so run both for a short window to confirm the numbers line up, then drop the old one. If you outgrow the simple model entirely and need heatmaps or session recording, look at Matomo instead.