Counter

Free, open-source and very simple privacy-friendly web analytics, paid by donation.

Verified facts: 4 of 4
Alternatives ranked: 5
Approved reviews: 0
Visits sent from here: 0

About Counter

Counter, at counter.dev, is a minimal web analytics service run by a small independent team. It focuses on just a few things: unique visitors per day, referrers, pages, countries, devices and browsers, shown in a single simple dashboard. It uses no cookies, does no logging and avoids IP address fingerprinting, so it is privacy-friendly by design. The service is free to use, with a pay-what-you-want model where users can start paying whenever they choose, and the source code is published on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0 licence. It suits personal sites, side projects and small businesses that want to know roughly how many people visit and where they come from, without setup or privacy worries. The trade-offs are a deliberately limited feature set, with no goals, funnels or events, metrics based on daily unique visitors only, and the uncertainty that comes with a donation-funded service. It runs in the browser.

Best for: Side projects and personal sites that want free, minimal visitor stats.

What works

Free, with optional pay-what-you-want
No cookies, logging or IP fingerprinting
AGPL open-source code

Why people leave

Very limited features: no goals, funnels or events
Metrics based on daily unique visitors only
Donation-funded service

Top Counter alternatives

See all 5

1
GoatCounter
Similar free, donation-supported model with more detail and self-hosting.
66.5
2
Cloudflare Web Analytics
Free basic stats from a large provider.
62.6
3
Umami
Open-source with more reports and a free cloud tier.
59.6
4
Plausible Analytics
Paid, polished privacy analytics with goals and funnels.
57.2
5
Tinylytics
Small paid analytics with uptime and content checks.
55.3

Why people left Counter

In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.

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Reviews

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Counter: common questions

Is Counter free?

Yes. Counter is free, open-source software.

Is Counter open source?

Yes.

What platforms does Counter run on?

Counter is available for Web.

What are the best alternatives to Counter?

The highest-ranked Counter alternatives right now are GoatCounter, Cloudflare Web Analytics and Umami. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 5 Counter alternatives

Counter facts

4 of 4 verified

License: AGPL-3.0; Checked Oct 25, 2026counter.dev(opens source in a new tab); “Open Source The source code is published under the AGPL-v3 license.”
Privacy: No cookies, logging or IP fingerprinting; Checked Oct 25, 2026counter.dev(opens source in a new tab); “Privacy-friendly No Cookies. No logging. No IP address fingerprinting.”
Payment: Pay when ready; Checked Oct 25, 2026counter.dev(opens source in a new tab); “Pay when ready Start paying whenever you want.”
Metrics basis: Unique visitors per day; Checked Oct 25, 2026counter.dev(opens source in a new tab); “Unique Visitors Metrics are based on the number of unique visitors per day.”