VeritaMetrics vs Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics is a cookieless, EU-domiciled analytics tool with a light script, a long track record, and a real conversational AI you can ask questions of. VeritaMetrics matches its privacy stance and adds session replay, deeper automatic event capture, and revenue tracking; our own site-health flagging is rule-based, not AI, and it runs without being prompted rather than answering a question.
Problems we built for, and where we stop
What people run into with analytics tools in general, read from the research, not a pitch against this one.
“decisions about landing pages, content and ad spend are being made from numbers with a messed up denominator”
What we do: Every pageview carries a bot label with a reason code; the dashboard shows the top reasons held back.
Where we stop: We label and do not block. Three reason codes fire today. A label is a statement about a signal, not a verdict. Reason-per-bot is not unique: Swetrix, Rybbit and PostHog show one.
“my tag broke and I found out weeks later”
What we do: An automatic notice when a reliably active site goes quiet.
Where we stop: Total silence only, not a drop or a partial break.
“a ten-minute read counted as a zero-second bounce”
What we do: Bounce needs one pageview and under 10 engaged seconds, and the threshold is shown.
Where we stop: Equals GA4's threshold, so new only against the privacy tools.
“GA4 users dropped after the banner and the modelling never brought them back”
What we do: Runs beside GA4 and counts on our own servers.
Where we stop: The capture rate is an unaudited estimate until capture-audit_plan.md finishes.
“an upgrade that will not boot, RAM and ClickHouse for a small site”
What we do: Hosted, no operations.
Where we stop: Not open source and not self-hostable.
“every tool says privacy matters, and very few say anything meaningful about what they actually collect”
What we do: The privacy pages list what is stored and for how long.
Where we stop: The wording is hedged on consent by design, and the visit ID is pseudonymous, not anonymous.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | VeritaMetrics | Simple Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Privacy & Compliance | ||
| Cookieless by default | Yes | Yes |
| Consent banner claim (vendor claim) | Usually, see /privacy | Claimed, no caveat |
| GDPR position (vendor claim) | Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)), see /privacy | Yes |
| Data storage region | London, UK | EU (Netherlands) |
| Tracking & Data | ||
| Script size (gzipped) | ~8KB | ~ 3.8 KB |
| Ad blocker resilience | Yes | CNAME subdomain or proxy |
| No-JS fallback (pixel) | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic event capture | Yes | Outbound, emails, downloads |
| Rage & dead click detection | Yes | No |
| Bot classification, with a reason per visit | Yes | Undocumented |
| Bounce that counts an engaged single-page read | Yes | Undocumented |
| Features | ||
| Session replay (DOM recording) | No | No |
| Visit timeline (event list) | Yes | No |
| Automated insights | Rule-based, no LLM | AI assistant (chat + insights) |
| Funnels | Ordered steps, conversion window, event steps | Yes |
| Retention / cohorts | For signed-in users, in pseudonymous mode | No |
| Revenue attribution | Tracking only, no attribution | No |
| Live visitor count | No | Yes |
| Hourly granularity | No | Yes |
| Report time zone | No | Yes |
| Embed / iframe | No | Yes |
| Data export | CSV / JSON / XLSX | CSV / JSON |
| Pricing & Hosting | ||
| Self-hosting option | On request (contact sales) | No |
| Open source | No | No |
When to choose Simple Analytics
- A Dutch legal entity operating under EU law, a jurisdiction point some regulated buyers weigh beyond hosting location
- Live since 2018, with a large customer base and recognizable logos
- A first-class no-JS pixel and server-side tracking path for AMP and script-free pages
- A conversational "ask your analytics" AI, iterated since 2023
When to choose VeritaMetrics
- An automatic notice when a reliably active site goes quiet, so a dead tag does not go unnoticed for weeks
- Automatic capture of button clicks and form submits, where Simple Analytics auto-tracks outbound links and downloads only
- Revenue tracking, where Simple Analytics has no equivalent
- Privacy-safe session replay, which Simple Analytics does not offer
- Rage and dead-click detection to surface broken or slow controls
- A rule-based score that flags site-health issues on its own, versus a chat you have to prompt, though only Simple Analytics’ version is genuinely AI
What VeritaMetrics does that Simple Analytics doesn't
Every item is a row in the table above, ticked in our column and marked No in theirs.
- Rage & dead click detection
- Visit timeline (event list)
- Retention / cohorts
- Revenue attribution
- Self-hosting option
Pricing
Simple Analytics: Free tier (5 sites, 30-day history). Self-Serve from €15/mo, priced by datapoints. Enterprise on request.
VeritaMetrics: Free plan, then paid from 7 €/mo
See pricing and plansSimple Analytics vs VeritaMetrics: common questions
- Does Simple Analytics need a cookie banner?
- Simple Analytics sets no cookies, and like VeritaMetrics it markets itself as usable without one. Whether a banner is required is decided by ePrivacy Art. 5(3), and by PECR in the UK, which covers storing or accessing information on a device whether or not it is personal data. Treat that as a question for your own legal review rather than a settled answer from either vendor.
- Does Simple Analytics have session replay?
- No. Session replay is absent from its product, docs, and feature-request backlog. VeritaMetrics includes privacy-safe session reconstruction.
- Is Simple Analytics open source or self-hostable?
- No for the core product, which is a proprietary SaaS. Only its client-side tracking scripts are MIT-licensed. There is no self-hosting option.
- What does the Simple Analytics AI do?
- It is a conversational query tool over your metrics, built on OpenAI’s API and live since 2023. You ask it questions, and it is genuinely AI. VeritaMetrics has no equivalent; our own site-health score is rule-based and flags issues without being prompted, which is a different thing done a different way, not a competing AI.
Switch from Simple Analytics to VeritaMetrics
Same privacy commitment. More complete data. Deeper reporting.