Counter vs Umami
| Tagline | Minimalist self-hosted hit counter and page-view tracker | Simple, fast, privacy-focused web analytics in a single lightweight dashboard |
| Category | Product & Web Analytics | Product & Web Analytics |
| Replaces | Google Analytics, Hotjar | Google Analytics |
| GitHub stars | 2k | 37k |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 1/5 Effortless | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | One-Click Docker Manual | One-Click Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 1 month ago | 6 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Counter
- No funnel, cohort, or retention analysis whatsoever
- No custom event tracking beyond page hits
- Data aggregation is coarse; no drill-down by browser, OS, or campaign
Umami
- Deliberately minimal: no heatmaps, session replay, or deep product-analytics like funnels/retention found in Mixpanel/Amplitude.
- Event/custom-property analytics are basic compared to dedicated product-analytics tools.
- No built-in alerting or anomaly detection.
Bottom line
Choose Counter if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Umami for the larger community and ecosystem. Umami has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Umami
Simple, fast, privacy-focused web analytics in a single lightweight dashboard