We ran Plausible alongside Google Analytics 4 on 3 production websites for 30 days. Privacy, accuracy, speed — everything compared.
If you need page views, referrers, conversions, and UTM tracking without cookie banners — Plausible gives you everything that matters in a 1KB script.
We ran Plausible (self-hosted via Docker) alongside GA4 on three production sites: a SaaS landing page (5K monthly visitors), a content blog (15K monthly visitors), and an e-commerce store (8K monthly visitors). We compared traffic counts, referrer accuracy, conversion tracking, and page load impact.
No cookies required (no consent banners needed), GDPR/CCPA compliant by default, 1KB script vs GA4's 45KB, one-page dashboard that shows what matters, open-source and self-hostable, more accurate visitor counts (not blocked by adblockers when self-hosted), and page load is measurably faster.
Advanced segmentation, custom dimensions, cohort analysis, e-commerce funnel tracking, BigQuery integration, attribution modeling, Google Ads integration, and the sheer depth of data for enterprise teams. GA4 is also free for any scale, while Plausible Cloud has per-pageview pricing.
Scored 0–10 based on 30 days of parallel tracking on 3 production sites.
Feature-by-feature breakdown after 30 days of parallel tracking.
| Feature | Plausible (Self-Hosted) | Google Analytics 4 |
|---|---|---|
| 💰 Price | $0 (self-hosted) | $0 (Google-hosted) |
| 🍪 Cookies Required | None — cookieless | Yes (needs consent banner) |
| 📏 Script Size | <1KB | 45KB+ (with GTM) |
| 🔒 Data Ownership | Your server | Google's servers |
| 🚫 Adblocker Bypass | Yes (self-hosted proxy) | Blocked by most adblockers |
| 📊 Dashboard | One page, instant | Complex, requires training |
| 🎯 Custom Dimensions | Not supported | Full custom dimensions |
| 🛒 E-commerce Tracking | Basic (custom events) | Full e-commerce reports |
| 📈 Funnel Analysis | Not supported | Full funnel explorer |
| 🔗 Google Ads Integration | Not available | Native integration |
| 🌍 GDPR Compliance | By default | Requires configuration |
| 🐧 Open Source | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
Based on 30 days of parallel tracking on real production sites.
Honest answer based on what we saw in 30 days.
Get privacy-first analytics running in under 15 minutes.
Clone the official repo: git clone https://github.com/plausible/community-edition. Copy the example .env file, set your domain and secret key, then run docker compose up -d. Works on any VPS — a $5/mo DigitalOcean droplet (get $200 free credit) handles 100K+ pageviews/month easily.
Open your Plausible dashboard, click "Add a Website", enter your domain. You'll get a single <script> tag — paste it into your site's <head>. That's it. No GTM, no complex configuration, no consent mode setup.
For conversion tracking, go to Site Settings → Goals → Add Goal. Define events like "Signup" or "Purchase" using CSS class names or custom JavaScript events. Plausible tracks them without cookies, with the same simple script.
To avoid adblocker filtering, set up a reverse proxy: serve the Plausible script from your own domain (e.g., /js/data.js). This ensures 100% of visitors are tracked. Most Nginx/Caddy configs take 5 lines to set up. This is the #1 advantage over GA4.
Real questions from site owners considering the switch.
Other tools we've tested in 30-day audits.
If you're running GA4 with a cookie consent banner that 40% of visitors reject — you're getting incomplete data anyway. Plausible gives you cleaner, more accurate analytics in a 1KB script with zero privacy concerns. The 20% gap is advanced enterprise features most websites never use. Stop trading your visitors' privacy for analytics.
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