Plausible vs Fathom vs Simple Analytics vs Takt: which privacy analytics to choose?

If you are reading this, you have probably already made the decision that matters: leaving Google Analytics for privacy-respecting audience measurement. What remains is the choice. Four names come up again and again in this category: Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics and Takt. All four measure audience without tracking cookies, without a consent banner, and with a genuine concern for European compliance. They share a philosophy; they do not make exactly the same trade-offs.

This comparison aims to be honest. We build Takt, and we think it is the right choice for a certain kind of team — we will tell you which. But the other three are excellent products, and depending on your priorities, one of them may suit you better. A comparison earns credibility by its willingness to acknowledge competitors’ strengths. Pricing and feature information about the other tools is dated July 2026: check it on their websites, as it changes.

The common ground: leaving the Google Analytics model

Before comparing, let us recall what brings these four tools together. None sets a tracking cookie or reconstructs an advertising profile. None needs a consent banner for audience measurement in most cases, precisely because there is no tracker to get accepted. All host data in the European Union, or offer to, which directly addresses the non-EU transfer problem raised by the Schrems II ruling and France’s CNIL formal notices in 2022.

In practice, this means faster pages, compliance by default rather than after the fact, and statistics that cover all traffic rather than only the fraction of visitors who clicked “Accept”. So the choice between the four is not about privacy — they are all serious there — but about hosting, business model, integration ecosystem and advanced features.

The four, one sentence each

Plausible is the open-source veteran of the category. Built in Estonia, hosted in the EU, with one of the lightest scripts on the market and a large community. It is the reference choice for anyone who values open code and self-hosting.

Fathom is a polished, Canadian-owned product with an EU data isolation option (Frankfurt data centres). Clean interface, uptime monitoring included, premium positioning.

Simple Analytics is a Dutch product, based in Amsterdam, with servers in the Netherlands. It takes minimalism all the way, respects the Do Not Track signal by default, and offers a free plan for small projects.

Takt — our product — is a managed service hosted in the EU, designed for CNIL compliance, with a broad integration ecosystem: official wrappers for most frameworks, embeddable widgets, revenue tracking, a first-party proxy, GPC support and openness to AI assistants via an API, an llms.txt file and an MCP server.

Comparison table

Criterion	Plausible	Fathom	Simple Analytics	Takt
Data hosting	EU (Estonia)	EU optional (Frankfurt)	EU (Netherlands)	EU (managed service)
Cookieless / no banner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
GDPR / CNIL compliance	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, explicit CNIL positioning
GPC / Do Not Track signal	DNT respected	Privacy-respecting by design	DNT respected by default	GPC respected (server + tracker + SDK)
First-party proxy	Not standard	Not standard	Not standard	Yes, first-party proxy
Script weight	< 1 kB	Lightweight	Lightweight	≈ 2.5 kB, defer-loaded
Model	Open source (AGPL) + cloud	Proprietary	Proprietary	Proprietary (managed service)
Self-hosting	Yes (Community Edition)	No	No	No (managed backend; only the script is self-host)
Per-framework wrappers	Script + integrations	Script + integrations	Script + integrations	React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Angular, Astro + PHP (Laravel, Symfony, WordPress)
Revenue / e-commerce tracking	Yes (Business plan)	Not centralised	Limited	Yes (value events + WooCommerce S2S)
Funnels & goals	Yes (Business plan)	Goals	Goals	Yes
Embeddable widgets	Public dashboard	Public dashboard	Public dashboard	Embeddable badge + public boards
API & AI openness	API (Business plan)	API	API	API + llms.txt + MCP server
Indicative entry price	$9/mo (10k views)	$15/mo (100k views)	~$10/mo (100k views); free plan	See pricing page

Prices and features recorded in July 2026; verify on each vendor’s site.

How to read this table

On privacy and compliance, all four are solid. If your only requirement is “no cookie, no banner, EU data”, you will not go wrong with any of them. The nuance: Takt highlights an explicit CNIL positioning, a first-party proxy to serve measurement from your own domain, and GPC signal support propagated down into its SDKs — details that matter for teams who want to defend their compliance in writing.

On the business model, Plausible stands clearly apart: it is the only one that is open source and self-hostable through its Community Edition. If open code or hosting on your own servers is a non-negotiable criterion, Plausible is the obvious choice — and we say so plainly, Takt being a proprietary product. In return, self-hosting represents real infrastructure and maintenance cost that belongs in the comparison.

On price, reading carefully matters because the tiers do not compare at the same traffic level. Plausible starts low but on a small volume; Fathom and Simple Analytics show their entry at 100,000 monthly views. Always compare at equal traffic, and look at what is included: with Plausible, funnels, revenue and API are reserved for the higher Business plan.

On the integration ecosystem, this is where Takt pulls ahead, and it is the reason for this comparison. Where the others offer a script and a few integrations, Takt maintains official wrappers for React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Angular and Astro on the JavaScript side, plus Laravel, Symfony and WordPress on the PHP side. Add embeddable widgets, revenue tracking down to server-to-server for WooCommerce, and openness to AI assistants via a documented API, an llms.txt file and an MCP server that lets an assistant query your stats directly.

When to choose which

Choose Plausible if open source and self-hosting are top-tier criteria for you, or if you want the most established, minimalist tool, backed by a large community.

Choose Fathom if you value a very clean interface and premium positioning, and built-in uptime monitoring speaks to you.

Choose Simple Analytics if you want maximum minimalism, a European vendor based in the Netherlands, and possibly a free plan to start a small project.

Choose Takt if you want the same privacy and compliance bar, but with a markedly richer integration ecosystem: official wrappers for your framework, embeddable widgets, revenue tracking, a first-party proxy, and openness to AI assistants. It is the right choice for a product team that wants to wire measurement cleanly into its stack, not just paste a script.

Migrating takes a few minutes

Whatever you decide, the good news is that these tools share the same installation principle: a short script to drop into your page, with no cookie or consent configuration. Migrating from one to another — or from Google Analytics — essentially means replacing a snippet and reconfiguring your goals on the dashboard side. With Takt, that switch usually takes a few minutes, and our framework wrappers make integration even more direct if you work with React, Vue, Svelte, Laravel or WordPress.

The best way to decide is still to try. These products all made the choice of measurement without tracking; all that remains is to identify the one whose hosting, model and ecosystem fit your team best.