umami is an open-source, privacy-first web analytics tool. Compare self-hosted vs Umami Cloud pricing, features, and how it works as a GA alternative.
umami is an open-source web analytics tool that tracks website traffic without cookies or personal data collection, built as a simpler, privacy-respecting alternative to Google Analytics.
It was created by Mike Cao in late 2020, initially to replace his own use of Google Analytics on personal projects, and was open-sourced from the start. Umami Software, Inc. later formalized the project as a company and raised 1.5 million dollars in pre-seed funding from Race Capital in 2022.
The project is MIT-licensed, meaning anyone can self-host it for free indefinitely, while Umami Cloud offers a managed hosted version for teams that prefer not to run their own server.
umami tracks pageviews, unique visitors, sessions, referrers, UTM campaign parameters, browser, device, and country-level data, along with custom events and conversion goal tracking, all without setting cookies.
The dashboard is intentionally minimal, presenting key metrics on a single screen instead of the deep, multi-report structure found in tools like Google Analytics 4.
Because it does not rely on cookies, umami can generally operate without triggering cookie consent banner requirements in many regions, and self-hosted deployments keep all visitor data under the site owner's control.
Self-hosting umami is completely free under its open-source MIT license; users only pay for their own hosting infrastructure.
Umami Cloud offers a free Hobby tier (around 100,000 events per month, limited sites) and a paid Pro tier priced around 20 dollars per month for roughly 1 million events per month, more sites, and longer data retention, with custom Enterprise pricing available for larger needs.
Yes, umami is free and open source under the MIT license when self-hosted; Umami Cloud offers a free tier plus paid tiers for higher usage.
umami was created by Mike Cao in late 2020, later formalized as Umami Software, Inc. with co-founders Brian Cao and Francis Cao.
Yes, umami is commonly used as a lightweight, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics.
No, umami tracks visitors without cookies, which helps many sites avoid cookie consent banner requirements.
Yes, umami is open source and can be self-hosted on your own server, VPS, or platforms like Docker, Vercel, or Railway.
Umami Cloud has a free Hobby tier for lower traffic sites and a paid Pro tier priced around 20 dollars per month for higher event volumes.
umami's cookie-free, privacy-focused design is built to align with GDPR and CCPA principles, though compliance ultimately depends on overall site configuration.
umami's source code is released under the MIT open-source license.