Google Analytics 4 vs Plausible Analytics
Google Analytics 4
Google's event-based analytics platform and the default measurement tool on the open web, with a native BigQuery export.
Full directory entry →Plausible Analytics
A lightweight, open-source, cookieless web analytics tool with a sub-1 KB script and an EU-hosted cloud.
Full directory entry →Facts, side by side
| Google Analytics 4 | Plausible Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium | paid · from $9 |
| Pricing notes | Standard GA4 is free. Analytics 360 is enterprise-priced (quote-based) and raises limits — e.g. BigQuery daily export up to 20B events/day vs 1M on standard, and event-data retention up to 50 months vs 14. | Cloud Starter is $9/month for 10k monthly pageviews and one site; Growth ($14) adds 3 sites and 3 team members, Business ($19) adds 10 sites, Stats API access, funnels, and 5-year retention. 30-day trial, no card required; two months free on annual billing. The self-hosted Community Edition is free. |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes — Community Edition (AGPLv3) ships as Docker images; releases and some features trail the cloud product. |
| Categories | Analytics | Analytics |
| Who it's for | implementation engineers, measurement managers, marketing managers | marketing managers, measurement managers |
| Integrations listed | 4 | 2 |
Directory entries last updated: Google Analytics 4 2026-07-18 · Plausible Analytics 2026-07-18.
In brief
Google Analytics 4 — Google's event-based analytics platform and the default measurement tool on the open web, with a native BigQuery export. Pricing: freemium. Standard GA4 is free. Analytics 360 is enterprise-priced (quote-based) and raises limits — e.g. BigQuery daily export up to 20B events/day vs 1M on standard, and event-data retention up to 50 months vs 14. Self-hosting: No. Listed integrations: google-tag-manager, bigquery, google-ads, looker-studio.
Plausible Analytics — A lightweight, open-source, cookieless web analytics tool with a sub-1 KB script and an EU-hosted cloud. Pricing: paid · from $9. Cloud Starter is $9/month for 10k monthly pageviews and one site; Growth ($14) adds 3 sites and 3 team members, Business ($19) adds 10 sites, Stats API access, funnels, and 5-year retention. 30-day trial, no card required; two months free on annual billing. The self-hosted Community Edition is free. Self-hosting: Yes — Community Edition (AGPLv3) ships as Docker images; releases and some features trail the cloud product.. Listed integrations: google-tag-manager, google-analytics-4.
Which one, when
Derived mechanically from the structured facts above — deltas only, not an editorial verdict. Where the facts tie, read both entries.
- its pricing model is freemium, where Plausible Analytics is paid
- its entry lists implementation engineers in "who it's for"; Plausible Analytics's does not
- you want an open-source codebase — Google Analytics 4 is not open source
- you need to self-host — Plausible Analytics supports it and Google Analytics 4 does not
Also compare
GOOGLE ANALYTICS 4 VS: Adobe Analytics · Cloudflare Web Analytics · Heap · Matomo · Mixpanel · Piwik PRO · Snowplow
PLAUSIBLE ANALYTICS VS: Cloudflare Web Analytics · Fathom Analytics · Matomo · Pirsch · Simple Analytics · Umami