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OpenRev vs Plausible

Plausible describes itself as “Simple, privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative”

The short answer

Plausible is privacy-first, cookieless traffic analytics, available as a hosted EU service or as the self-hosted, AGPL-licensed Community Edition. OpenRev is built around revenue: it connects payment providers and credits each payment to the visitor and channel that brought it in. Plausible shows revenue only from custom events your site sends, on its Business plan, and that feature isn't in the Community Edition.

Facts checked on , from Plausible's own site. Sources

Side by side

Pricing

OpenRev

Free. You pay only for your own hosting, and small sites fit Cloudflare's free plan

Plausible

Cloud from $9/month for 10k monthly pageviews; revenue, funnels and the Stats API need Business, from $19/month. 30-day free trial. Community Edition is free

Source code

OpenRev

Open source (MIT)

Plausible

Open source core (AGPL-3.0); some premium features are proprietary

Hosting

OpenRev

You host it: Cloudflare Workers + D1, Docker or Node.js, with D1, SQLite or PostgreSQL

Plausible

Hosted in the EU, or self-hosted Community Edition with Docker

Revenue attribution

OpenRev

Built in: payments are linked to visitors and the channel that brought them, with LTV and renewals by source

Plausible

From custom events your site sends with a value (Business plan; not in Community Edition)

Payment providers

OpenRev

Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Polar, Dodo Payments, Creem, Shopify, WooCommerce, Gumroad, Paystack and Razorpay, plus a custom webhook and a Payments API

Plausible

No direct connections; WooCommerce purchases via the WordPress plugin

Cookies

OpenRev

First-party visitor ID by default; optional cookieless mode per site

Plausible

Cookieless by default, no persistent identifiers

Goals & funnels

OpenRev

Plausible

Goals on every plan; funnels on Business only

Visitor journeys

OpenRev

Plausible

Aggregate paths only (Business); no per-visitor journeys

Realtime view

OpenRev

Plausible

API

OpenRev

REST API with an OpenAPI spec

Plausible

Stats API (Business plan), Events API

MCP server for AI agents

OpenRev

Built into every install

Plausible

No

Alerts

OpenRev

Payments, goals, traffic spikes and digests to Slack, Discord, Telegram, email or webhooks

Plausible

Traffic spike and drop emails; weekly or monthly reports by email or Slack

The main differences

Revenue

Plausible's revenue tracking is built on custom events: your site sends each purchase with a value. It needs the Business plan and isn't in the Community Edition. OpenRev receives signed webhooks from your payment provider, so renewals and refunds count too, and credits each payment to the visitor's source.

Cookies and consent

Plausible is cookieless by default and says you don't need a consent banner for it. OpenRev stores a first-party visitor ID by default, which keeps attribution working when a purchase comes days after the first visit. Its cookieless mode is a per-site option.

Self-hosting

Plausible Community Edition is free to self-host with Docker under the AGPL, but it leaves out funnels, user journeys and revenue goals. A self-hosted OpenRev has every feature, under the MIT license.

Individual visitors

Plausible deliberately doesn't track individual users, so there are no per-visitor journeys. OpenRev shows each visitor's sessions, pages, goals and payments.

Hosted option

Plausible Cloud is a managed service hosted in the EU. OpenRev has no hosted version: you always run it yourself.

Which one fits you

Choose Plausible if

  • You mainly need traffic analytics and want cookieless tracking by default.
  • You want a managed service hosted in the EU.
  • You'd rather not track individual visitors at all.

Choose OpenRev if

  • You want to see which channels bring paying customers, using real payment data from your provider.
  • You want funnels, visitor journeys and revenue in a self-hosted install at no cost.
  • You want an MCP server so AI agents can query your analytics.

Switching from Plausible

Add OpenRev's script next to Plausible's and run both while you compare. OpenRev can't import Plausible history yet; it's on the roadmap.

OpenRev and Plausible: questions

Does Plausible track revenue?

Yes, from custom events: your site sends each purchase as an event with a monetary value. It needs the Business plan and isn't in the self-hosted Community Edition. Plausible doesn't connect to payment providers directly; OpenRev does, through signed webhooks.

Is OpenRev cookieless like Plausible?

Optionally. Plausible is cookieless by default. OpenRev stores a first-party visitor ID by default, for more accurate revenue attribution, and has a per-site cookieless mode that uses a daily-rotating hash instead.

Can I self-host Plausible for free?

Yes, Plausible Community Edition is free to self-host with Docker under the AGPL. It doesn't include funnels, user journeys, ecommerce revenue goals or the Sites API. OpenRev is free to self-host with all of its features.

Try OpenRev on your own site

One command sets it up on Cloudflare, Docker or Node.js. It's free.

Get started View on GitHub

Sources

Facts about Plausible come from these pages, read on October 25, 2026. Facts about OpenRev come from its source code and docs. Spotted something out of date? Open an issue.

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Plausible is a trademark of its owner. OpenRev is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Plausible.