vs Simple Analytics
Same badge-for-hobby idea. A lower paid curve.
Simple Analytics proved you can sell privacy without a 40-column grid. We kept the hobby badge, started paid at €4, and put 100k views at €9 instead of €19–29.
| Cookie Free Analytics | Simple Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| 100k views / mo | €9 | €20 |
| 1M views / mo | €26 | €59 |
| Extra seats | €0 | Typically +€20 / user |
| Hobby / free | Full dashboard + badge | Limited history + badge |
| Script | Under 1 KB gzipped | ~3 KB |
| Visitor count | HMAC, salt deleted daily | No identifier |
| Hosted | Frankfurt + Ireland | EU |
What they actually are
Simple Analytics is a cookieless SaaS with a strong brand, a public ethics page, and a hard line: they will not try to count unique visitors at all. That is a philosophy, not a missing feature.
When to pick them
You already like their dashboard, you need their extras, or “never touch an IP, even in memory” is the bar. They are stricter than we are. Say that out loud.
When to pick us
You want a cheaper usage curve, no seat fee, a free plan that is not one month of history, and a same-day unique that dies at midnight.
The honest bit
Their visitor stance is cleaner if your counsel wants zero identifier. Ours is HMAC with a pepper and a daily salt we delete. Read the method page before you pick us on privacy grounds alone.
Questions
- Is Cookie Free Analytics a Simple Analytics alternative?
- Yes, if you want cookieless analytics with a cheaper usage curve and a free plan that is the full dashboard. Simple Analytics does not hash visitors at all — that is a genuine difference.
- Do you identify visitors?
- For one UTC day only. HMAC-SHA256 with a server pepper and a random salt that we delete when the day rolls. IP discarded. The beacon is POST JSON; only five UTM tags leave the tab. Recipe: /methodology.
Also compared: Google Analytics · Plausible · Fathom · Matomo · Cloudflare Web Analytics · Umami · All 15