Fathom

What is Fathom?

Fathom is a privacy-focused website analytics tool that gives you traffic, referrer, and event data without cookies or tracking individual visitors across sites. It's built as a lightweight, GDPR-friendly alternative to Google Analytics, aimed at people who want to know what's happening on their site without the compliance overhead or the bloated dashboard that comes with GA4. It's often mentioned alongside Plausible as one of the two default picks in this space.

Key features

• Cookieless, privacy-first tracking that doesn't require a cookie consent banner in most jurisdictions
• Event and campaign tracking for measuring specific actions, not just pageviews
• Permanent data retention rather than the rolling windows some competitors impose
• Lightweight tracking script that has minimal impact on page load performance
• Simple, single-page dashboard instead of GA4's layered reporting structure

Who it's for

Indie hackers and small teams who want clear traffic numbers without configuring GA4 or worrying about cookie consent. If you need deep e-commerce funnel analysis or advanced audience segmentation, a fuller-featured platform like GA4 still covers more ground.

Pricing

Flat monthly subscription tiers based on pageview volume, with a free trial. No perpetual free tier.