GA4 vs Plausible vs PostHog: Which Analytics Tool Is Right for You?
GA4 is free and powerful but privacy-hostile and complex. Plausible is simple and GDPR-compliant. PostHog goes deep into product analytics. Here is how to choose.
The analytics market has fractured since Google Analytics 4 replaced Universal Analytics in 2023. GA4 is still free and dominant, but its GDPR compliance is contested, its UI is complex, and the migration from UA lost features many teams relied on. This has created real alternatives worth considering.
GA4 — free, powerful, complicated
- Best for — Anyone running Google Ads — GA4 attribution data feeds directly into Google Ads, which no other analytics tool can replicate.
- Biggest advantage — Free forever, no data limits, deep Google ecosystem integration (Search Console, Ads, BigQuery export).
- Biggest problem — GDPR compliance is contested — several EU data protection authorities have ruled it non-compliant for EU businesses. Requires cookie consent banner.
- UI complexity — The exploration and reporting UI has a steep learning curve. Getting basic stats requires building reports that UA showed by default.
Plausible — privacy-first simplicity
- Best for — EU businesses, anyone who wants to remove cookie consent banners, teams who want a clean single-page dashboard without setup.
- No cookies, no personal data — Plausible counts visits using a hash of anonymised data — discarded daily. GDPR compliant without consent banners.
- Self-hostable — Open source. Run it on your own VPS for free — all data stays in your infrastructure.
- Limitation — Web traffic analytics only. No product analytics — funnels, cohorts, user paths, session replays — that require PostHog or Mixpanel.
PostHog — open source product analytics
- Best for — Product teams who need funnels, cohort analysis, session replays, feature flags, and A/B testing in one tool.
- Free tier — 1M events/month free, session replays included. Generous for early-stage products.
- Self-hostable — Docker-based deployment. Your data on your infrastructure. No third-party data sharing.
- Complexity — Requires setting up custom events — you cannot install the script and get useful data immediately without defining what to track.
The most common setup
Run Plausible for traffic analytics (no cookies, no consent banner) and PostHog for product analytics (events, funnels, session replays). The two are complementary, not competing — Plausible answers "how many visitors", PostHog answers "what did they do".
Fathom — the simplest alternative to GA
Fathom is the closest experience to Universal Analytics — simple, fast, cookie-free, and a clean one-page dashboard. At $14/month, it is slightly pricier than Plausible but has a slightly more polished product. Strong choice for agencies managing multiple client sites (one subscription covers unlimited sites).
Ready to decide?
Use the Analytics Screener to filter by your criteria and compare options head-to-head.