You’ve probably heard that Plausible is one of the best privacy-first alternatives to Google Analytics. It’s a solid pick, and thousands of site owners use it for exactly that reason.
But if you also want to see what visitors actually do on your site, not just where they came from, the picture gets more complicated. Plausible and SimpleStats solve similar problems in different ways. So the right choice depends on what you actually need from your dashboard.
This comparison breaks down where each tool wins, where it falls short, and which one fits your specific situation. No spin, just what each tool actually does.
In This Article:
What Is Plausible?
Plausible is a privacy-first analytics tool built to replace Google Analytics with something simpler and cookie-free. It works on any site through a tracking script, with a dedicated WordPress plugin for WP users specifically.
Plausible shows the traffic numbers you’d expect: visitors, pageviews, referrers, and top pages, plus goal tracking and custom events.
What Is SimpleStats?
SimpleStats is a privacy-first analytics platform built around one idea: top-tier features, like heatmaps, session replays, and revenue tracking, on top of the basic dashboard, kept simple and priced fairly instead of locked behind enterprise pricing. It works through a WordPress plugin, or a one-line tracking code for any other platform.
Where Plausible focuses on traffic numbers, SimpleStats tries to answer the next question too: once you know visitors showed up, what did they actually do on the page?
Setup and Installation
Both tools offer a one-click WordPress plugin. Install either one, activate it, and tracking starts within minutes. No code, no developer needed.
Both plugins also show basic stats right inside your WordPress dashboard, with one click through to the full app for everything else. SimpleStats does this out of the box. Plausible has the same option, but you need to turn on “View stats in WordPress” in the plugin settings first.
One smaller setup detail: Plausible has a free “bypass ad blockers” toggle for more accurate data, though it’s off by default and needs a cache clear afterward to take effect. SimpleStats offers similar ad-blocker-resistant tracking through a custom domain, but only on the Growth plan and up.
Key Takeaway: Both tools install in minutes and show live stats right inside WordPress. SimpleStats works this way out of the box; Plausible has a couple of settings worth switching on.
Analytics Dashboard and Reporting
Both dashboards show pageviews, visitors, top pages, referrers, and campaign links at a glance. Plausible’s single-page dashboard is intentionally minimal, everything sits on one screen, it’s even part of their pitch: “all essential metrics on one page without complex menus.”
SimpleStats has this too, but takes it further, splitting deeper insight into dedicated sections: Goals, Visitor Journeys, Heatmaps, Session Replays, and Realtime each get their own page in the sidebar.
For the basics, both dashboards hold their own equally well. Once you want to go beyond traffic numbers into visitor behavior specifically, SimpleStats pulls ahead: two of those sections don’t exist on Plausible at any price, more on that in the next section.
Both dashboards let you filter in detail and watch current visitor activity as it happens. Both export to CSV, but only SimpleStats exports to PDF too. A few deeper metrics, like bounce rate and session duration, depend on which tracking mode you pick on SimpleStats, more on that trade-off in the Privacy section below.
Key Takeaway: Both dashboards nail the basics equally well. SimpleStats pulls ahead once you want to go deeper into visitor behavior, thanks to its dedicated sections.
Privacy and Compliance
Plausible never sets a cookie, on any plan, for any feature, including revenue attribution once you reach the Business plan. It’s also open source, so you or a developer can audit the code yourself, or self-host it entirely instead of using Plausible’s hosted service.
SimpleStats’s Lightweight tracking sets no cookies and needs no consent banner. It’s GDPR, CCPA, and PECR compliant automatically.
That said, several SimpleStats features live behind Advanced tracking instead, including heatmaps, session replays, full ecommerce attribution, and bounce rate. Advanced tracking uses three anonymous cookies and does require visitor consent.
Your data still never leaves SimpleStats’s servers and is never sold, shared, or used for advertising, cookies or not. But it wouldn’t be accurate to call the whole product cookie-free.
Key Takeaway: Plausible treats “no cookies, no exceptions” as a hard rule. SimpleStats sets no cookies by default too, but a handful of features trade that off for cookies you opt into.
Heatmaps and Session Replays
Plausible doesn’t offer heatmaps or session replays on any plan, including Enterprise. Here’s their own full feature list, straight from their homepage: scroll depth, AI traffic, SEO tracking, funnels, bot filtering, and more.
Still, no heatmaps anywhere in it. So if you want to see where visitors click, you’d need to add a second tool like Hotjar on top of Plausible.
SimpleStats includes both, starting on the Pro plan for just $19/month: 5 heatmaps and 1,000 session replays a month. That’s the kind of behavior data most tools charge separately for, bundled into the same plan as your regular analytics. Both features run on Advanced tracking mode, the trade-off covered in the Privacy section above.
Key Takeaway: SimpleStats bundles heatmaps and session replays starting at $19/month. Plausible doesn’t offer either at any price, so you’d need a separate tool like Hotjar, and a second subscription, to get the same visibility.
eCommerce Tracking
Plausible tracks ecommerce revenue on the Business plan ($19/month) and above, where it also connects that revenue back to the campaign or channel that drove it.
SimpleStats tracks ecommerce revenue starting on the Hobby plan ($10/month), on either tracking mode. The difference is attribution: on Lightweight tracking, SimpleStats shows your total revenue and order counts, but doesn’t tie individual sales back to a specific visitor or traffic source. For that, you’d need Advanced tracking, the same tradeoff as heatmaps above.
Setup-wise, SimpleStats currently works on any ecommerce platform through a few lines of code on your order pages. Native WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads integrations are coming soon.
See Why Site Owners Choose SimpleStats
Privacy-first analytics with heatmaps, session replays, and eCommerce tracking, from $10/month.
See Why Site Owners Choose SimpleStats →Pricing
Plausible starts at $9/month for up to 10,000 monthly pageviews on one site, with no free tier at all. Ecommerce attribution and funnels aren’t available until the $19/month Business plan.
SimpleStats has an actual free plan, 500 pageviews a month, to test the dashboard before paying anything. Paid plans then start at $10/month for 10,000 pageviews, with ecommerce tracking included. Heatmaps and session replays start on the $19/month Pro plan.
Key Takeaway: SimpleStats wins on price for the free tier and for including more at each paid tier, as long as you’re comfortable with Advanced tracking’s cookies for the features that need it.
Plausible vs SimpleStats: Which Should You Choose?
Choose Plausible if:
- Keeping every feature, including revenue attribution, completely cookie-free with no exceptions matters most to you
- You want bounce rate, session duration, and returning-visitor counts without ever switching on cookies
- Self-hosting the tool yourself appeals to you more than relying on a vendor’s servers
- You’re only tracking traffic and don’t need heatmaps or session replays at all
Choose SimpleStats if:
- Seeing where visitors click matters to you, without paying for and installing a second tool
- You want ecommerce revenue tracking at a lower price tier, $10/month instead of $19/month
- A free plan to test the dashboard before committing appeals to you
- You’re fine using Advanced tracking’s anonymous cookies to get behavior data, since that data never leaves SimpleStats’s servers or gets used for ads
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Plausible have heatmaps or session replays?
No. Plausible focuses on traffic analytics only. If you want heatmaps or session replays, you’d need a separate tool, or a platform like SimpleStats that includes them.
Does SimpleStats Use Cookies?
SimpleStats’s default Lightweight tracking sets no cookies and needs no consent banner. Some features, like heatmaps, session replays, and full ecommerce attribution, require Advanced tracking, which uses a small number of anonymous cookies.
Which tool is cheaper, Plausible or SimpleStats?
SimpleStats has a free plan and starts at $10/month with ecommerce tracking included. Plausible has no free tier and starts at $9/month, but ecommerce attribution isn’t available until $19/month.
Can I switch from Plausible to SimpleStats?
Yes. Neither tool requires a Google account, and both use a simple plugin or one line of tracking code, so switching mainly means updating your tracking code and starting a fresh data history.
Does Plausible work with WordPress?
Yes. Plausible’s WordPress plugin can proxy tracking through your own site to help it avoid ad blockers, but that setting isn’t on by default, you have to turn it on yourself in the plugin settings.
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Get SimpleStats Now →Plausible and SimpleStats both start from the same idea: analytics shouldn’t require handing your visitors’ data to Google. From there, they diverge: Plausible keeps everything on one simple, strictly cookie-free page, while SimpleStats spreads deeper insight and cheaper pricing across dedicated sections, trading that strict policy for a few extra features along the way. Pick based on what you actually want to see, not just how it gets collected.