Overview

Matomo covers event and ecommerce tracking, conversion funnels, heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing and flows, with API access and more than 100 integrations. That range can keep measurement and behavioural analysis together; Matomo also says its data is unsampled. Raw data is retained for 24 months, while report data is retained indefinitely, a useful distinction for teams planning long-term reporting.

Teams can choose Cloud or self-hosted on-premise software. Matomo says both options provide full data ownership. Cloud data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany, and the platform supports GDPR compliance, cookieless tracking and anonymisation. Its ISO 27001:2022 certification is relevant for organisations weighing security requirements alongside deployment choice.

Key features

Heatmaps and session recordings help teams inspect visitor interactions; funnels and flows add ways to analyse paths toward conversion. Together with event and ecommerce tracking, these tools make Matomo a broader analytics choice than a reporting-only service. They are most useful when teams will act on behavioural findings, rather than merely collect page metrics.

Administration features include access controls and audit logs, with SAML or LDAP options. User limits vary by plan, so the controls matter more as a team grows—but the entry cloud tier’s four-user ceiling may rule it out for larger groups. Support ranges from forums and email to dedicated Customer Success and chat.

Pricing

The free Community plan is available through self-hosting, costs 0.00 USD per free, and is free forever. It has unlimited users and hits, with forum support. That removes seat and hit ceilings for organisations able to run the software themselves, but the support provision is narrower than the paid cloud options.

Team costs 275.00 EUR per month, billed monthly, and allows up to four users and 5M hits per month with email support. It suits a small team that wants cloud hosting and can stay within those caps; the seat limit is restrictive if analytics is shared widely. Cloud plans also offer annual billing with two months free, and Matomo says Cloud can scale to hundreds of millions of hits per month.

Business has custom pricing, up to 20 users and 30M hits per month. Enterprise has custom pricing, up to 50 users and 100M hits per month, with dedicated Customer Success and priority support. VIP uses custom pricing and custom user and hit limits, with dedicated support and enhanced security services. These higher tiers fit teams that need more capacity or higher-touch support, but the costs require a quote. Cloud offers a 21-day trial with no credit card required.

Raw-data retention is 24 months on the platform, so teams needing longer access to raw records should account for that constraint even though report data remains available indefinitely.

Platforms

Matomo supports API access and self-hosting, with Cloud-hosted and on-premise deployment options. Self-hosting is the free route; Cloud removes the need to host it yourself, while keeping data in Frankfurt, Germany.

Who it's for

Matomo suits organisations that value data ownership, privacy controls and a wide analytics toolkit, especially those able to self-host or whose team and traffic fit a cloud tier. It is less suitable for buyers who need a published price at higher volumes, more than four cloud seats at the Team level, or raw data kept beyond 24 months.

Pros and cons

Pros: Free self-hosting with unlimited users and hits makes Community practical for organisations able to manage their own deployment.
Pros: Analytics, funnels, heatmaps and recordings are combined with API access and more than 100 integrations.
Pros: Cloud and on-premise hosting both come with Matomo’s stated full data ownership, plus privacy features and ISO 27001:2022 certification.
Cons: Team’s four-user and 5M monthly-hit caps can constrain even modestly expanding cloud deployments.
Cons: Raw data retention stops at 24 months, which may not suit teams that need a longer raw-data history.
Cons: Business, Enterprise and VIP use custom pricing, making those tiers harder to budget without a quote.

Alternatives

For server-side tagging rather than a full analytics suite, Addingwell offers a free plan with 100,000 requests and a 90.00 EUR per month Pay as you go plan. Stape is another freemium option, with a Pay as you go plan at 8.00 USD per month billed yearly and a free trial. Cloudflare Zaraz may suit teams seeking a low-cost event allocation: its free plan includes 1,000,000 Zaraz Events per Cloudflare account each month, and its paid plan costs 5.00 USD per month.

Teams comparing broader analytics can consider Google Analytics, which is free of charge for businesses of every size. For a tag-management focus, Commanders Act Tag Management is a paid alternative. Tealium AudienceStream CDP is paid, prices by inbound events and does not charge per seat or integration. MetaRouter Server-Side Tag Management offers custom enterprise plans scoped to use cases, event volume and infrastructure footprint, without per-user or per-profile fees. Piwik PRO Tag Manager has a Business plan starting at 36.00 EUR per month, billed monthly, for up to 2M monthly actions, 20 domains and 25 months of data retention.

For more options, compare Web analytics tools, Heatmap and session replay tools, Session Replay Software and Tag Management Software.

Verdict

Choose Matomo if your team wants a broad analytics toolkit with data ownership and either free self-hosting or a cloud option whose caps fit your needs. The Community plan is particularly compelling for teams that can operate on-premise software; the main reasons to look elsewhere are the 24-month raw-data limit, narrow Team seat cap, or custom pricing at higher tiers.

	Ahoy	Matomo
Free plan	No	Yes
Free trial	No	No
Paid from	—	€275/mo
Open source	No	No
Platforms	api	api, self-hosted
Event tracking	Yes	Yes
Conversion funnels	Yes	Yes
Ecommerce tracking	Yes	Yes
API access	Yes	Yes
Free plan	—	Yes
Session recordings	—	Yes
Data retention	—	Raw data retention is 24 months; report data retention is forever.

Ahoy vs Matomo

Ahoy

Matomo