Matomo vs Google Analytics

It depends on what you need more. Matomo gives you control: you can self-host it or use its Frankfurt-hosted cloud, it doesn't sample data, and it offers heatmaps and session recordings. Google Analytics 4 is free and links natively to Google Ads, but it relies on cookies that need consent where the law requires it, samples queries above 10 million events, and keeps exploration data for at most 14 months on free properties.

Matomo On-Premise is free forever with unlimited users and hits, and it's open source under the GPL. You pay for your own server, and premium features such as heatmaps, session recordings, funnels, and A/B testing are paid plugins. Matomo Cloud is paid: for US visitors it starts at $26 a month for 50,000 hits, after a 21-day free trial that doesn't need a credit card.

Yes. Google says Google Analytics gives you its tools free of charge. The paid tier, Analytics 360, has no public price; Google sells it through its sales team, with service-level agreements, unsampled results, and higher limits.

GA4 sets first-party cookies that last two years by default, and Google's terms require you to get consent for them wherever the law requires it; with consent mode, tags send cookieless pings for visitors who decline and Google models the gap. Matomo also uses first-party cookies by default, but it can run without cookies or personal data, and Matomo says that setup can be exempt from consent in France, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands. For stricter regimes such as Germany, Matomo recommends treating JavaScript tracking as requiring consent.

Yes. Matomo's Google Analytics Importer is free and imports both GA4 and Universal Analytics properties. It brings over aggregated reports, not raw visits, so Matomo's Visitor Log, Custom Reports, and segmentation don't work on the imported periods.

GA4 may sample a report, exploration, or API request that covers more than 10 million events on a standard property; Analytics 360 starts at 100 million events per query and can go up to 1 billion. Matomo's pricing page lists "No data sampling" for every plan, Cloud and On-Premise.

Standard GA4 properties keep event-level data for 2 or 14 months, which limits explorations and funnel reports; standard aggregated reports aren't affected, and Analytics 360 allows up to 50 months. Matomo Cloud keeps raw data for 24 months and report data forever, and a self-hosted Matomo keeps whatever you store.

No. GA4's analysis tools are its reports and explorations (free form, funnel, path, segment overlap, cohort, user exploration, and user lifetime), with no heatmaps or recordings. Matomo has both: they're included in Matomo Cloud with monthly allowances (1,500 heatmap pageviews and 150 recordings at 50,000 hits) and are a paid plugin for On-Premise.