Statcounter vs Umami Comparison 2026
Statcounter's specialty is a live feed of individual visits, seeing what one specific referral actually did, free forever under 5,000 sessions with fourteen days of retention, then $18 a month for 20,000. Umami counts visits with no cookies or consent banner at all, open source so it can be self-hosted for nothing, or run as a free cloud tier with six months of retention, then $20 a month for a million events. Statcounter answers what one visitor did; Umami avoids the cookie question entirely and lets you run it yourself.
A visitor log with a lasting free tier
Open source site analytics with no cookie banner
At a glance
- Statcounter starts cheaper, at $18.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Statcounter | Umami | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $18 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial (they differ) | 30 days | 14 days |
| API |
Statcounter
A visitor log with a lasting free tier
Statcounter has been counting visitors since before analytics became a discipline, and it still does the thing that made it useful: a live feed of individual visits rather than only aggregates, which is how somebody works out what one specific referral actually did. The free plan keeps two weeks of history for a small site. Paying buys longer retention, more sessions and session replay. It is a visitor log rather than a product analytics suite, and anybody wanting funnels and cohorts is looking at the wrong tool.
Our note
Use this alongside a modern analytics tool rather than instead of one, because the visitor feed answers a question the others do not and it answers little else. Fourteen days of retention on the free plan is the limit that will push you to pay, sooner than the session count.
Umami
Open source site analytics with no cookie banner
Umami counts visits without cookies or personal data, which is what keeps a consent banner off the front of a site nobody came to for a consent banner. The whole thing is open source, so it can be self-hosted for nothing on hardware you already pay for, and the cloud plan exists for people who would rather not. Events are the billing unit above the free tier. The dashboard is deliberately one screen.
Why people weigh these two
- Umami instead of Statcounter
- Umami is open source with no cookie banner, from $20 with a free tier.
- Statcounter instead of Umami
- Statcounter keeps a visitor log with a lasting free tier, paid from $18.
Which one should you pick
Pick Statcounter to see what one particular referral did, visit by visit, which an aggregate-only tool cannot show. Basic is free forever under 5,000 sessions, though retention is only fourteen days; Premium at $18 a month raises the session cap and adds replay.
Pick Umami if avoiding cookies and consent banners matters, or you would rather self-host on a server you already run, for nothing beyond that cost. Its free cloud tier keeps six months of history, well past Statcounter's fourteen days, and Pro at $20 a month includes up to ten team members at no extra seat cost.
Common questions
- Which free tier keeps data longer?
- Umami's free Hobby tier keeps six months of retention. Statcounter's free Basic plan keeps only fourteen days, which is usually what pushes people to pay.
- Can either one be self-hosted?
- Umami can, for free, since it is open source. Statcounter has no self-hosted option mentioned; it is a hosted service only.
- Which shows individual visitor sessions rather than aggregates?
- Statcounter does, with a live feed of individual visits, its long-standing advantage. Umami stays aggregate, with no visit-by-visit feed.
- Which is cheaper at the first paid tier?
- Statcounter's Premium is $18 a month for 20,000 sessions. Umami's Pro is $20 a month for a million events, a different unit, so the two are not directly comparable by volume.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.