Software Alternatives & Startups

Pulse by Ciphera VS Simple Analytics

Compare Pulse by Ciphera VS Simple Analytics and see what are their differences

Pulse by Ciphera logo Pulse by Ciphera

Privacy-first web analytics — traffic, uptime, performance and search data in one dashboard, cookie-free by design

Simple Analytics logo Simple Analytics

The privacy-first Google Analytics alternative located in Europe.
  • Pulse by Ciphera KPI rail + 30-day chart + referrers/campaigns
    KPI rail + 30-day chart + referrers/campaigns //
    2026-09-02
  • Pulse by Ciphera 100% availability, 56ms response, incident history, recent checks
    100% availability, 56ms response, incident history, recent checks //
    2026-09-02
  • Pulse by Ciphera Lighthouse scores 82/97/100/92 + page-load filmstrip + metrics
    Lighthouse scores 82/97/100/92 + page-load filmstrip + metrics //
    2026-09-02
  • Pulse by Ciphera Search Console clicks/impressions + live query rankings
    Search Console clicks/impressions + live query rankings //
    2026-09-02
  • Pulse by Ciphera Bunny bandwidth, cache hit rate, edge regions, error split
    Bunny bandwidth, cache hit rate, edge regions, error split //
    2026-09-02

Pulse by Ciphera is privacy-first web analytics — traffic, uptime, performance and search data in one dashboard, cookie-free by design.

Pulse answers what site owners actually ask: how many people visited, where they came from, what they read, and whether the site is fast and up. It does that without cookies and without storing anything about individual visitors, so there is no consent banner to bolt on for the analytics.

In one dashboard: - Traffic: visitors, pages, referrers, UTM campaigns, custom events, funnels, scroll depth, realtime - Uptime monitoring with incident history - Performance checks (Lighthouse-based, on our own runners) - Search data from Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster - CDN analytics (bunny.net)

Open where it counts: open-source client (AGPL dashboard + tracking script, Apache-2.0 CLI); managed EU cloud backend. The code that runs in your visitors' browsers is public and auditable.

Your numbers stay reachable: a public read API (additive for at least 24 months), an open-source CLI (brew install ciphera-net/tap/pulse), and CSV export. If your numbers are only reachable through a vendor's UI, "your data is yours" means little; the API and CLI make leaving realistic.

European by design: built by Ciphera BV in Belgium; analytics data hosted on Swiss infrastructure.

Free to 5,000 pageviews/month; paid from €7/month; every feature on every plan.

Live demo (our own site's real data): https://pulse.ciphera.net/demo Docs: https://help.ciphera.net/docs/pulse CLI: https://github.com/ciphera-net/pulse-cli WordPress plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/pulse-analytics/

  • Simple Analytics Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-09-05

Simple Analytics gives you insights into the performance of your website without ever collecting personal data, with a clean interface, and simple integration. GDPR, CCPA and, PECR compliant because we don't handle personal data and set no cookies.

Pulse by Ciphera

$ Details
freemium
Platforms
Online Web SaaS Wordpress Mac Linux
Release Date
-
Startup details
Country
Belgium
Founder(s)
Ciphera
Employees
1 - 9

Simple Analytics

$ Details
paid Free Trial $9 / Monthly (Max 10,000 page views)
Platforms
-
Release Date
2018 September
Startup details
Country
Netherlands

Pulse by Ciphera features and specs

  • Cookie-free tracking
    No cookies, nothing stored about individual visitors; no consent banner needed for the analytics
  • Tracking script
    Under 5KB
  • Traffic analytics
    Visitors, referrers, UTM campaigns, custom events, funnels, scroll depth, realtime
  • Uptime monitoring
    Availability, response time and incident history, checked every 5 minutes
  • Performance checks
    Lighthouse-based, daily, mobile and desktop, on our own runners
  • Search data
    Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster integrations
  • CDN analytics
    bunny.net bandwidth, cache and error data

Simple Analytics features and specs

  • Privacy-focused
    Simple Analytics does not collect personal data, ensuring compliance with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. This approach appeals to users concerned about data privacy.
  • Ease of Use
    The platform prides itself on a user-friendly interface, making analytics accessible for individuals with varying levels of technical expertise.
  • No Cookies
    By eliminating the need for cookies, Simple Analytics reduces the complexity of compliance and improves user trust.
  • Transparent Pricing
    Offers straightforward pricing without hidden fees, which benefits small to medium-sized businesses looking for cost-effective solutions.
  • Quick Setup
    Setting up Simple Analytics is a quick process, often taking just a few minutes, reducing the time and effort required to begin tracking site data.
  • Lightweight Script
    The tracking script is lightweight, ensuring that it does not significantly affect website loading times, thus maintaining a good user experience.
  • User-friendly Interface
    Offers a clean and intuitive dashboard that is easy to navigate, making it accessible for users without technical expertise.
  • Real-time Insights
    Provides real-time data insights that enable users to make quick, informed decisions based on the most current information.
  • Simplicity
    Designed with simplicity in mind, focusing on essential metrics without overwhelming users with unnecessary data.
  • AI-driven Analysis
    Utilizes AI to deliver intelligent insights and forecasts, enhancing user understanding of data trends and behaviors.

Possible disadvantages of Simple Analytics

  • Limited Features
    Compared to more comprehensive platforms like Google Analytics, Simple Analytics offers fewer features and customization options, which may not satisfy advanced users.
  • Basic Reporting
    The reporting capabilities are basic and may not provide in-depth insights that large enterprises or data-driven teams may require.
  • No Integration with Ad Services
    Simple Analytics lacks built-in integrations with advertising services like Google Ads, potentially complicating the tracking of campaign performance.
  • Smaller User Community
    Given its niche market focus, the platform has a smaller user community, which can make it harder to find peer support or community-driven solutions.
  • Less Mature Ecosystem
    Unlike older platforms, Simple Analytics may lack integrations with a wide range of third-party tools and services, limiting its flexibility.
  • Cost
    While the pricing is transparent, it can still be seen as relatively high for the features offered, especially when compared to free alternatives like Google Analytics.
  • Customization Constraints
    May have limited customization options for users who need specific dashboards or reports tailored to their particular needs.
  • Scalability Issues
    Might not be suitable for very large websites with complex data analytics needs due to its simplified design.
  • Pricing
    While offering unique features, the cost might be higher than expected for users primarily seeking basic analytics solutions.

Analysis of Simple Analytics

Overall verdict

  • Simple Analytics is a good choice for users who prioritize privacy and simplicity in their web analytics tools. It provides sufficient insights for basic website analytics needs without overwhelming users with too much data or complex features.

Why this product is good

  • Simple Analytics is often praised for its privacy-focused approach. It does not collect personal data, which appeals to users and businesses concerned about privacy and compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR. The platform offers an easy-to-understand interface with essential analytics metrics, making it accessible to users without a technical background. Additionally, Simple Analytics is lightweight, which means it doesn't slow down websites as much as other analytics tools might.

Recommended for

    Simple Analytics is recommended for small to medium-sized businesses, bloggers, and website owners who need straightforward analytics and value privacy. It’s particularly suitable for those looking to comply with privacy regulations without compromising on user data protection.

Pulse by Ciphera videos

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Simple Analytics videos

Fathom, simple analytics. A Google Analytics alternative | Privacy & Simplicity focused! 🎯

More videos:

  • Review - Seriously Simple Analytics Review
  • Review - Seriously Simple Analytics Review
  • Demo - Why we created Simple Analytics
  • Review - Simple Analytics for Solopreneurs Review – Still Good?
  • Review - Simple Analytics: My Review of This Cookieless GA4 Alternative
  • Review - The Story of Simple Analytics

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Pulse by Ciphera and Simple Analytics)
Website Performance Monitoring
Analytics
0 0%
100% 100
Marketing Analytics
9 9%
91% 91
Web Analytics
2 2%
98% 98

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Pulse by Ciphera and Simple Analytics.

What makes your product unique?

Pulse by Ciphera's answer

Most privacy analytics tools show traffic and stop there. Pulse puts traffic, uptime, performance, Google Search Console + Bing data and CDN analytics in one dashboard, cookie-free by design. The client is open source (AGPL dashboard + tracking script, Apache-2.0 CLI), the backend is a managed EU cloud service, and our own dashboard is public at https://pulse.ciphera.net/demo — real live data, not a staged demo.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Pulse by Ciphera's answer

Compared to Google Analytics: Pulse sets no cookies and stores nothing about individual visitors, so there is no consent banner to bolt on, and the dashboard answers everyday questions without configuration work. Compared to the privacy-first tools (Plausible, Fathom, Simple Analytics): the bundle. Uptime, performance, search and CDN data are included, every feature is on every plan, and paid starts at €7/month. Leaving is also kept realistic on purpose: a public read API that stays additive for at least 24 months, an open-source CLI, and CSV export.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Pulse by Ciphera's answer

Site owners and small teams — founders, developers and marketers — who want honest numbers without surveilling their visitors, and would rather not run a cookie banner just for analytics. It works anywhere, but EU companies feel the GDPR reality most directly, and Pulse is built by a Belgian company for exactly that.

What's the story behind your product?

Pulse by Ciphera's answer

Pulse comes out of Ciphera, a Belgian privacy company. We needed analytics for our own sites that met one rule: no cookies, nothing stored about individual visitors. The tools that met the privacy bar showed traffic only, and the tools with more data didn't meet the bar, so we built the dashboard we wanted and now run everything on it. Our own analytics are public at https://pulse.ciphera.net/demo, slow weeks included.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Pulse by Ciphera's answer

A Go backend with PostgreSQL, a Next.js dashboard (AGPL, public on GitHub), and a tracking script under 5KB. Performance checks run on our own Lighthouse runners rather than a third-party API. Everything is hosted on EU cloud infrastructure, with analytics data on Swiss infrastructure.

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Pulse by Ciphera and Simple Analytics

Pulse by Ciphera Reviews

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Simple Analytics Reviews

Top 10 AI Data Analysis Tools in 2024
Simple Analytics is a revolutionary web analytics platform that prioritizes user privacy and transparency above all else. Developed as an ethical alternative to data-hungry giants like Google Analytics, Simple Analytics offers a refreshingly lightweight and user-friendly solution for tracking website metrics without compromising on data protection. With its unwavering...
Source: powerdrill.ai
Privacy-oriented alternatives to Google Analytics
Simple Analytics was my original second contender for the analytics of this blog. The $19 a month starting plan with 100k pageviews is on the more expensive side, but their yearly deal gets you a better price than Fathom at just $9 a month.
Lightweight alternatives to Google Analytics
One is the minimalist Simple Analytics product, which is a cloud-based tool created by solo developer Adriaan van Rossum; it has a clean-looking interface with only the few key metrics, similar to Plausible. Another is Fathom, which was open source initially, but the current version is proprietary (although the company hopes to start maintaining the open-source code base...
Source: lwn.net

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Simple Analytics seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 26 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Pulse by Ciphera mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Pulse by Ciphera yet. Tracking of Pulse by Ciphera recommendations started around Sep 2026.

Simple Analytics mentions (26)

  • This Next.js blog template is awesome.
    Multiple analytics options including Umami, Plausible, Simple Analytics, Posthog and Google Analytics. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Awesome-no-code-tools
    Simple Analytics - Simple, clean, and friendly analytics. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • SaasRock v0.5.0 - Cookie consent and built-in Analytics
    SaasRock does not intend to invent the wheel, there are great analytics solutions out there, both free and powerful. But SaasRock’s main goal is to have everything you need when building SaaS applications, at least in a minimal way. - Source: dev.to / about 4 years ago
  • Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
    Regarding forbidden countries, it’s not forbidden in the Netherlands, yet. They will announce a verdict in a form of a report by the end of 2022 [1]. To give people an option and pink something else over Google Analytics, I have built an alternative, Simple Analytics [2]. It doesn’t use cookies or any form of tracking and you get still the useful data that 80% of the website owners need. [1]... - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago
  • Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics
    It is. Most startups in the EU have to use more and more businesses in the EU. The selection is little, so way more changes to succeed if your EU based and serve both markets. I run Simple Analytics [1], which is a privacy-first analytics business from the Netherlands. I see a lot of business from the EU just because we are from the EU as well. [1] https://simpleanalytics.com/?ref=hn. - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Pulse by Ciphera and Simple Analytics, you can also consider the following products

Google Analytics - Improve your website to increase conversions, improve the user experience, and make more money using Google Analytics. Measure, understand and quantify engagement on your site with customized and in-depth reports.

Plausible.io - Plausible Analytics is a simple, open-source, lightweight (< 1 KB) and privacy-friendly web analytics alternative to Google Analytics. Made and hosted in the EU, powered by European-owned cloud infrastructure 🇪🇺

Fathom Analytics - Simple, trustworthy website analytics (finally)

umami - A simple and open-source own your website analytics.

Matomo - Matomo is an open-source web analytics platform

Clicky - Clicky Web Analytics is a simple way to monitor, analyze, and react to your blog or web site's traffic in real time.