Category
Product Analytics
Key features
Cookieless visit counting
Referrer and campaign tracking
Lightweight tracking script
01 — Overview
What is
GoatCounter
GoatCounter is an open source web analytics tool that counts visits without cookies or personal identifiers. It reports pageviews, referrers, campaigns, browsers, locations and screen sizes in a lightweight dashboard. Marketing teams can use it to track site and campaign traffic without a cookie banner, either on the hosted service or self-hosted.
02 — Who it’s for
Ideal Customer Profile
Best for personal sites, startups and small businesses that want basic traffic analytics with strong privacy. Very high traffic sites are pointed to self-hosting.
03 — Capabilities
Key Features
Cookieless visit counting
Referrer and campaign tracking
Lightweight tracking script
Tracking pixel and log file import
CSV and JSON exports
JSON API
Self-hosting option
05 — Similar tools
Alternatives
06 — FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What is GoatCounter used for?
It tracks website traffic such as pageviews, referring sites and campaign visits in a simple dashboard, as a lighter alternative to tools like Google Analytics.
Is GoatCounter privacy friendly?
Yes. It does not use cookies or unique identifiers to track people, and the site says it does not need a GDPR consent notice.
Can I self-host GoatCounter?
Yes. GoatCounter is open source, so you can run it on your own server, or use the hosted version at goatcounter.com.
Does GoatCounter have an API?
Yes. It offers a JSON API plus CSV and JSON exports, and data can also be sent through a tracking pixel, server log files or your app backend.