GhostStat vs Matomo: cookieless analytics compared
Matomo is the best-known open-source alternative to Google Analytics, and you can host it yourself. GhostStat is hosted and cookieless out of the box, with every plugin on every plan. Here is how to choose.
Matomo has been the go-to open-source alternative to Google Analytics for years. You can run it on your own server for free, or let the Matomo team host it for you, and it covers most of what GA does. GhostStat takes a different route: a hosted, cookieless service where heatmaps, recordings, funnels and visitor intelligence are part of every plan. This comparison of GhostStat vs Matomo uses Matomo’s own documentation for every statement about Matomo, and it is honest about when Matomo is the better fit.
Last checked: 11 October 2026. If something here is out of date, let us know.
Matomo vs GhostStat at a glance
| GhostStat | Matomo | |
|---|---|---|
| How you run it | Hosted service; on your own servers for Enterprise | Self-hosted (On-Premise) or Matomo Cloud |
| Cookies | None; no localStorage or fingerprinting | Uses cookies by default; can be switched off with disableCookies |
| Heatmaps and session recordings | Included on every plan | Premium feature (paid plugin on On-Premise; allowances on Cloud) |
| Funnels, A/B testing, form analytics | Included on every plan | Premium features on On-Premise |
| Licence | Commercial service | Core and tracker GPL v3; premium plugins under InnoCraft’s EULA |
| Data location | Dronten, the Netherlands (EU) | Your server (On-Premise) or Frankfurt, Germany (Cloud) |
| Maintenance | None for you | Updates, database, backups and scaling on On-Premise |
| Price | Free plan; paid plans on pricing | On-Premise core free; Cloud priced by monthly hits |
Self-hosting: Matomo’s biggest strength
If your organisation must keep analytics data on its own infrastructure, Matomo is hard to beat. The Matomo pricing page lists the On-Premise Community edition as free forever, and lets you choose where the data lives. Matomo Cloud is the hosted alternative; Matomo states that Cloud data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany.
Self-hosting is not free in practice, though. Someone has to install updates, run and back up the database, keep the server secure and scale it when traffic grows. For a developer team with spare capacity that is fine. For a marketing team or a small business it often is not.
GhostStat is a hosted service, with its data stored in Dronten, the Netherlands. You paste one line before </head> and the rest is our job. For enterprise customers, GhostStat sets up custom installations on their own infrastructure; there is no public download (contact us). If you want to download analytics software and run it yourself, without an enterprise agreement, Matomo is the better choice, and we would rather tell you that now.
Cookies and consent
Matomo uses cookies out of the box. Its cookie FAQ says “Matomo uses cookies to store some information about visitors between visits”, and explains how to add _paq.push(['disableCookies']); to turn them off. Matomo also notes that disabling cookies “can impact the accuracy of Matomo reports, as cookies help track returning visitors.” And in its cookieless FAQ Matomo adds that it “can be configured to be used in some EEA countries without consent” — so the result depends on how you configure it and where your visitors are.
GhostStat has no cookie setting to get right, because it never sets one. It also uses no localStorage, sessionStorage or fingerprinting, and it never writes an IP address to disk: the IP is used in memory to look up the location, then dropped. Visitors are counted with an identifier that is salted per site and rotates daily. The details are in our privacy policy.
Features: core, premium and plugins
Matomo’s free core covers the standard web analytics reports. Several of the features people switch for are premium, though. Matomo sells premium plugins such as Heatmap & Session Recording, A/B Testing, Funnels and Form Analytics, released under the InnoCraft End User Licence Agreement according to Matomo’s licence FAQ. On Cloud, heatmaps and recordings come with plan-based allowances.
In GhostStat, every plugin is available on every plan, including Free. That includes:
- Heatmaps and session recordings, with masking for inputs.
- Funnels, goals and form analytics to find where visitors drop out.
- A/B tests and UX experiments.
- Ecommerce, cohorts and retention.
- Visitor intelligence: intent, friction and attention per visit, read from behaviour.
- Public stats pages, counters and email reports.
On the Free plan each plugin has a monthly view allowance; paid plans remove it. The live numbers are on the pricing page.
Licence and openness
Matomo’s core and JavaScript tracker are released under the GPL v3, so you can read, change and redistribute the code. That openness is a real advantage if you want to audit or adapt the software yourself.
GhostStat is a commercial service, not an open-source project. What we publish instead is what we collect and what we never collect, in plain language in our privacy policy.
Price and total cost
Matomo On-Premise costs nothing to download. The real cost is the server, your team’s time and any premium plugins you add. Matomo Cloud is priced by monthly hits, so the bill grows with your traffic; see Matomo’s pricing page for current tiers.
GhostStat has a Free plan and paid plans, with prices and limits read live from our billing system on the pricing page. There are no paid add-ons: every plugin is part of the product.
Matomo or GhostStat: how to choose
Choose Matomo if your data must stay on your own servers, if you need open-source code you can audit and change, or if you have a team that is happy to run and maintain analytics infrastructure.
Choose GhostStat if you want cookieless analytics without configuring cookies away, heatmaps, recordings and funnels without buying plugins, and nothing to install or maintain. You can start free and run it next to Matomo while you compare.
Weighing other tools too? See the best Google Analytics alternatives, GhostStat vs Plausible and GhostStat vs Google Analytics 4.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
Is GhostStat open source like Matomo?
No. Matomo’s core is GPL v3 and can be self-hosted; GhostStat is a commercial service, hosted or, for enterprise customers, installed on their own infrastructure. GhostStat publishes exactly what it collects in its privacy policy.
Can I self-host GhostStat?
For enterprise customers, yes: GhostStat sets up a custom installation on your own infrastructure. There is no public download; contact us. If you want free software to download and run yourself, Matomo On-Premise is a good fit.
Does Matomo use cookies?
Yes, by default. Matomo documents a disableCookies setting and notes that turning cookies off can make returning-visitor reports less accurate. GhostStat never sets cookies.
Are heatmaps and session recordings free in Matomo?
Not on the free On-Premise core: Heatmap & Session Recording is a premium plugin, and Matomo Cloud includes it with plan-based allowances. In GhostStat both are included on every plan, including Free.
Where is GhostStat data stored?
In Dronten, the Netherlands, inside the EU. Matomo Cloud stores its data in Frankfurt, Germany; Matomo On-Premise stores it wherever you host it.
Can I move from Matomo to GhostStat?
Yes. Add the GhostStat snippet next to Matomo, compare both for a few weeks, then remove Matomo when you are happy. Your Matomo history stays in Matomo. Setup help is here.
