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PulsevsUmami

Pulse vs Umami

Umami is a free, open-source (MIT) analytics tool you can self-host at no cost, with a hosted Cloud (including a free Hobby tier) run by a US company.

PulsevsUmami
Starting price
Pulse
Free Personal tier; paid plans — see pricing
Umami
Self-hosted: free · Cloud: free Hobby, Pro $20/mo
Cookies
Pulse
None
Umami
None
Consent banner (EU)
Pulse
Not needed
Umami
Not needed
Open source
Pulse
Frontend + client open (AGPL)
Umami
Yes — MIT, self-hostable
Data residency
Pulse
Switzerland / EU
Umami
Your servers; Cloud US-primary (EU option)
Company jurisdiction
Pulse
Belgium (EU)
Umami
United States (Umami Software)

Umami is the budget champion — genuinely free to self-host, with a free cloud Hobby tier. The trade-offs are that you run and maintain it yourself, and Umami’s Cloud company is US-based. Pulse is a fully-managed EU service with Swiss/EU residency and no server to operate. See Pulse pricing. Prices for Umami were checked against their public pricing page on 2026-07-21 and can change — confirm the current figure with the vendor.

See the live demo

01 · Why teams pick Pulse

How Pulse compares to Umami

If cost is the deciding factor, Umami is very hard to beat — the software is MIT-licensed and free to self-host, and the cloud Hobby tier is free too. What you take on is operations: a database and app to run, update and secure yourself; and Umami Cloud is operated by a US company on US-primary infrastructure (an EU region is available). Pulse is the opposite trade — a fully-managed service with nothing to host, an EU company (Belgium) and Swiss/EU data residency — for teams who would rather not run infrastructure.

An EU company, under EU law

Pulse is operated by Ciphera BV, a Belgian company. Your analytics provider — and your GDPR and NIS2 jurisdiction — sits inside the EU, not offshore.

About Ciphera

Swiss data residency

Every byte of visitor data lives on infrastructure hosted in Switzerland — no transfer to the US, and no dependence on US-jurisdiction cloud providers.

EU web analytics

No cookies, no consent banner

Pulse sets no cookies and does not fingerprint visitors, so it is exempt from ePrivacy consent — no banner, and it counts every visitor, not just the ones who opt in.

How cookieless works

Open client, verifiable code

The dashboard and tracking script are open (AGPL) on GitHub, so you can read exactly what runs instead of taking our word for it.

See what is open

02 · The honest case

When Umami is the better choice

When the budget is zero and you’re happy to self-host, Umami wins outright.

  • You want a genuinely free, open-source (MIT) analytics tool you can self-host at no cost.
  • The free cloud Hobby tier covers a small site and you don’t need managed EU residency.
  • You have the ops capacity to run, update and secure the stack yourself.

If none of the above is a dealbreaker, Pulse gives you cookieless, banner-free analytics from an EU company with Swiss/EU data residency — and you can check it yourself on the live demo.

Keep reading

Related

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Switch from Umami without the banner

Start free on the Personal tier — one script tag, no cookies, no consent banner. Or open the live demo first and see Pulse running.

View live demo

Cookie-free · Open-source client · No personal data stored