GoatCounter
Open-source, donation-supported web analytics for personal and small sites.
- Verified facts
- 4 of 4
- Alternatives ranked
- 5
- Approved reviews
- 0
- Visits sent from here
- 0
About GoatCounter
GoatCounter is a small, open-source web analytics tool created and maintained by an independent developer, Martin Tournoij. It aims to give meaningful traffic numbers without collecting personal data: pages, referrers, browsers, systems, screen sizes and locations, with unique visits identified without cookies or persistent storage. The tracking script is tiny, and you can also use a JavaScript-free tracking pixel, call it from your application's middleware or import data from web server logs. It is offered as a free hosted service for reasonable public use, supported by donations, or you can self-host it as a single Go binary with SQLite or PostgreSQL. It suits personal sites, blogs and small to medium projects that want honest, lightweight stats. The trade-offs are a deliberately basic interface, few marketing features such as funnels or ecommerce, and a one-person project, so support and development pace depend on its maintainer. It runs in the browser.
Best for: Personal sites and blogs that want free, honest stats without tracking people.
Pros and cons
What works
- Free hosted service for reasonable public use
- Very light script, plus pixel and log-import options
- Easy to self-host as a single binary
Why people leave
- Deliberately basic, with no funnels or ecommerce
- One-person project with limited support
- Interface is plain compared with commercial tools
Top GoatCounter alternatives
See all 5- 1
Cloudflare Web Analytics66.5Free hosted stats with Core Web Vitals, from a large provider.
- 2
Umami62.6More features and a modern dashboard, still open source.
- 3
Plausible Analytics59.6Polished paid service with goals, funnels and revenue tracking.
- 4CoCounter57.2
Another free, open-source and very simple privacy analytics service.
- 5
Liwan55.3Self-hosted single-binary analytics with a real-time dashboard.
Why people left GoatCounter
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GoatCounter: common questions
Is GoatCounter free?
Yes. GoatCounter is free, open-source software that you can host yourself.
Is GoatCounter open source?
Yes. The source code is on GitHub at arp242/goatcounter. You can also run it on your own server.
What platforms does GoatCounter run on?
GoatCounter is available for Web and Self-hosted.
What are the best alternatives to GoatCounter?
The highest-ranked GoatCounter alternatives right now are Cloudflare Web Analytics, Umami and Plausible Analytics. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.