GoatCounter vs Tinylytics (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, GoatCounter grades higher than Tinylytics: 2.8 against 2.6 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
GoatCounter grades higher on the free plan. Tinylytics grades higher on ease of use. They get the same grade on value for money, features and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Tinylytics
Cookie-free web analytics with uptime and link checks
Which one is for you
Pick GoatCounter if
- Fits if you want visitor stats with no personal data collected
- Works for personal sites and small businesses on a budget
Look elsewhere if
- Too light for funnels, heatmaps or recordings
- Skip it if your site gets millions of pageviews a day, as the hosted service is not meant for that
- Watch out: it's funded by donations, so no support commitment is published
- Not for you if you need a paid plan with guarantees
Pick Tinylytics if
- Fits if you run a couple of small sites and want stats and uptime checks cheaply
- Works for a hobbyist who wants a public stats page
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a free plan, as only the 14-day trial is free
- Too light for SEO audits, team access or spike alerts on Zen, which are Ultra at $29
- Tight if a site passes 1 million hits a month, since fair-usage terms apply and the vendor may contact you
- Watch out: pricing is read from the homepage, as there's no pricing page
How we grade them
| 2.8GPAGoatCounterGood | 2.6GPATinylyticsGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AFree for personal sites and small-to-medium businesses, or free to self-host. It's donation-supported, with no paid plan. | A$7 a month for up to 2 sites when billed monthly, under 60% of the analytics cheaper quarter of $16.58. Ultra is $29 for 50 sites. |
| Free plan and trial | AFree outright, with no cap a normal site would reach. Millions of pageviews a day are out of scope. | C14 days free with every feature and no card. No free plan after that. |
| Features | CPageviews, referrers, browsers, locations, screen sizes and campaigns, plus exports and an API. It does that job fully, a smaller job than most analytics tools. | CCookie-free analytics, uptime and SSL monitoring, content checks, events, public stats, webhooks and an API. SEO audits, teams and alerts are Ultra only. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. You sign up and add one script, or self-host. | BNo store rating on record. You paste in a script and there's little else to set up. |
| Platforms and integrations | CWeb only, with an API and a couple of static-site tools (Gatsby, Publii). | CWeb only, with webhooks and an API but no integrations listed. |
| Best for | free, privacy-minded visitor stats | small-site stats with uptime checks |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: GoatCounter and Tinylytics. How we grade
Price against what you get
GoatCounter has no paid plan and scores 2.0 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Tinylytics starts at $7 a month and scores 2.3.
Tinylytics scores higher, and starts $7 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other website and product analytics tools on the chart, none scores higher than GoatCounter for less, and 3 score higher than Tinylytics for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- GoatCounter is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Tinylytics also covers reports and dashboards.
At a glance
| GoatCounter | Tinylytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free trial |
| Starts at | Free | $7 per month for up to 2 sites, billed monthly ($70 billed yearly) |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | None listed | 14 days free with every feature included, no credit card |
| Web | ||
| Made by | GoatCounter | Tinylytics |
| Price read from | goatcounter.com | tinylytics.app |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
GoatCounter
- The hosted service is meant for reasonable public use; heavy traffic is pointed to self-hosting.
- Funded by donations through GitHub Sponsors, so there is no paid plan or published support commitment.
- A deliberately small feature set; the vendor presents it as a simpler alternative to Google Analytics and Matomo.
Tinylytics
- There is no free plan; only the 14-day trial is free.
- Fair-usage terms apply above 1 million hits a month, and the vendor may contact heavy sites.
- SEO audits, team access, site groups, spike alerts and password-protected public stats are Ultra only.
- Pricing is read from the homepage; the site has no separate pricing page.
Key features
GoatCounter
- No personal-data tracking
- Visits are told apart without cookies or persistently stored personal data. The vendor says no GDPR notice is needed and lets you control what is collected.
- Light script
- The tracking script adds about 3.5KB to a page. A JavaScript-free tracking pixel is also offered.
- Several ways to send data
- Use the script tag, an image-based tracker, your application's middleware, or import server log files.
- Basic visitor statistics
- Reports show browser, location, screen size, referring sites and campaigns.
- Exports and an API
- All data can be exported, and the documentation lists CSV and JSON exports and a JSON API.
- Accessible interface
- The vendor lists accessibility as a high-priority feature, and says the interface works with screen readers.
Tinylytics
- Cookie-free analytics
- Counts visits, not people: no cookies, fingerprinting or cross-site tracking. Unique hits use rotating salts, and data is hosted in Europe.
- Uptime and SSL monitoring
- Checks a site from several regions every 10 minutes and emails when it goes down, returns or has a certificate problem. Ultra can check as often as every minute.
- Content checks
- Crawls pages on a schedule to flag broken links and mixed content. Ultra can add AI spell checking of visible page text.
- Events
- A data attribute on any button, link or form records clicks, downloads and sign-ups next to page views, with no tag manager.
- Insights, reports and public stats
- Opt-in traffic insights, a weekly email report and public stats pages, plus filtering by date, path, referrer, country, browser and platform.
- Webhooks, API and export
- Real-time webhooks for hits, kudos and monitoring events with signed payloads, a full API and CSV export of all data.
Plans
GoatCounter
Hosted service$0
Free for reasonable public usage, such as a personal site or a small-to-medium business. Millions of pageviews a day are out of scope.
Self-hosted$0
Run the open source app on your own server for any purpose; you pay only for your own hosting.
Tinylytics
Zen$7
per month for up to 2 sites ($70 billed yearly)
Every feature except the Ultra extras, on 2 sites, with unlimited hits and history.
Pro$14
per month for up to 20 sites ($140 billed yearly)
The same features as Zen on up to 20 sites, with unlimited hits and history.
Ultra$29
per month for up to 50 sites ($290 billed yearly)
Adds SEO audits, team access, site groups, spike alerts, spell checking and password-protected public stats.
Ways to pay less
GoatCounter
No public discounts listed.
Tinylytics
- Annual discount
Two months free with yearly billing
Yearly prices of $70, $140 and $290 are listed beside the monthly $7, $14 and $29, which equals ten months of the monthly rate.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, GoatCounter or Tinylytics?
As of Nov 12, 2026, GoatCounter is cheaper to start with: it is free, against $7 a month for Tinylytics. GoatCounter is free, and Tinylytics starts at $7 per month for up to 2 sites, billed monthly ($70 billed yearly).
Which has a free plan, GoatCounter or Tinylytics?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only GoatCounter has a free plan. Tinylytics does not, though it has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.