PulseTrack vs Plausible
Plausible and PulseTrack agree on the hard part: no cookies, no cross-site tracking, data in the EU. They disagree on scope. Plausible stays a beautifully small traffic dashboard; PulseTrack adds heatmaps, session replay, A/B tests and revenue from Stripe. Here is the whole picture, including where Plausible is the better answer.
Same privacy stance
Neither tool sets a cookie or follows a visitor across sites. If that is your only requirement, both qualify and the rest is about scope.
One tool or two
Plausible measures traffic. Seeing why a page fails means adding a second tool. PulseTrack keeps heatmaps, replay and experiments in the same account.
Where Plausible wins
Its script is 1.3 KB against our 3.7 KB, its code is AGPLv3 and self-hostable for free, and it imports your Google Analytics history today.
Side by side
| Criterion | PulseTrack | Plausible |
|---|---|---|
| Works without cookies | No cookie, no local storage: a daily-rotating anonymous identifier computed on the server | No cookies, no persistent identifiers, no cross-site or cross-device tracking |
| Free plan | 1 site, 5,000 events a month, 1 funnel, 30 days of history — no card | No free plan; a 30-day trial without a card, then a paid plan |
| Entry price | €9 a month: 3 sites, 50,000 events, heatmaps, session replay and the AI assistant | $9 a month: 10,000 pageviews on the Starter plan (pageviews and events do not count the same way) |
| Heatmaps | Click, scroll and rage-click maps (Starter plan and above) | Not offered |
| Session replay | Recorded sessions with every input masked (Starter plan and above) | Not offered |
| A/B tests and feature flags | Experiments with a significance verdict, and percentage rollouts | Not offered |
| Funnels | From the free plan (1 funnel), 5 on Starter, 20 on Growth, with revenue lost per step | Funnels and user journeys are on the Business plan, $19 a month |
| Revenue per traffic source from Stripe | Connect a read-only Stripe key; payments are matched to the sessions that brought them (Growth plan and above) | Revenue attribution from custom events you send with an amount, on the Business plan; no Stripe connection |
| Retention cohorts | Weekly cohorts on any event, with the return curve | Not offered |
| MCP server for AI assistants | Ours, hosted, OAuth sign-in, read-only by default, changes only with your permission | An MCP server built by the Sentry team and linked from Plausible's docs, not published by Plausible itself |
| Google Analytics import | Not yet: PulseTrack measures from the day you install it | Included from the Starter plan |
| Open source and self-hosting | Not open source; hosted service only | AGPLv3, with a free self-hosted Community Edition |
| Data hosted in the EU | Stored in Ireland, servers in Dublin | Built and hosted in the EU on European-owned infrastructure |
| API | Stats API and daily signed export (Growth plan and above) | Stats API on the Business plan, 600 requests an hour; Sites API on Enterprise |
| Base script weight | 3.7 KB gzipped; heatmaps and replay load extra code only when you enable them | 1.3 KB gzipped, measured on 18 September 2026 — lighter than ours |
Choose PulseTrack if…
- You want to see why a page fails, not only that it fails — heatmaps and replay included.
- You want to know which channel brings paying customers, straight from Stripe.
- You run A/B tests or feature flags and would rather not add a third tool.
- You want to start free and stay free while the site is small.
Choose Plausible if…
- You want the lightest possible script and nothing more than traffic numbers.
- You want to read the source, or host it yourself for free.
- You need your Google Analytics history imported now.
Two tools that measure the same thing differently
Plausible counts pageviews; PulseTrack counts events, and a pageview is one event among others. A plan sold on 10,000 pageviews and one sold on 50,000 events are not the same allowance, in either direction: a content site sends almost only pageviews, while an app that tracks clicks and form steps burns through events much faster. Compare on your own traffic before comparing the prices.
Why our script is heavier
1.3 KB against 3.7 KB is a real difference and it comes from what the file does. Ours carries identify(), group(), feature-flag evaluation and the hooks that trigger heatmaps and replay on demand. If you never use any of them, you are paying for code you never run — that is an honest reason to pick Plausible.
Open source, and what it buys you
Plausible is AGPLv3 and can be self-hosted for free; PulseTrack is not open source. If auditing the code or keeping the data on your own machines is a requirement, that settles it. If what you actually want is for the data to stay in Europe, both answer it: ours is stored in Ireland and served from Dublin.
Frequently asked
Can I run both at once?+
Yes, the two scripts are independent. Expect close but not identical numbers: both count visitors per day without cookies, but each has its own bot filtering and its own way of closing a session.
Does PulseTrack need a cookie banner, like Plausible does not?+
PulseTrack sets no cookie and reads nothing on the device, exactly as Plausible does. Whether your site needs a banner also depends on the other tools it loads, so check with your own advisor.
Is session replay compatible with not having cookies?+
Yes. A recording is attached to a session, not to a person followed across days, and every input value is masked in the browser before anything is sent.
Sources, checked on 18 September 2026
- Plausible Analytics — Pricing (plans, trial, features per plan)
- Plausible docs — Accessing your Plausible data (Stats API, MCP)
- plausible/analytics on GitHub — AGPLv3, Community Edition
- plausible.io/js/script.js, measured by PulseTrack (compressed transfer size)
Products change: something looks out of date? It was accurate on the date above, and we correct it as soon as it is reported. Plausible is a trademark of its owner, not affiliated with PulseTrack.