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Business Intelligence · head to head

Amazon QuickSight vs Umami

Amazon QuickSight logo

Amazon QuickSight

Business Intelligence

Scalable, serverless BI by AWS

From
$3/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Umami logo

Umami

Marketing

Open source, cookie-free web analytics you can self-host for the cost of a database

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Umami has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon QuickSight reader and Reader Pro roles charged separately at $3 and $20/month; Umami there is no cohort analysis, retention curve, session replay or multi-touch attribution, so a marketing team that needs to justify channel spend will still buy a second tool and Umami becomes a supplementary dashboard.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon QuickSight and Umami actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon QuickSight and Umami differ
AttributeAmazon QuickSightUmami
Starting price$3/monthFree
Pricing modelper-userPer month by event count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsAWSWeb, Linux
CategoryBusiness IntelligenceMarketing
Founded2006Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Amazon QuickSight

  • SPICE In-memory Engine
  • ML Insights
  • Natural Language Queries
  • Embedded Analytics
  • Pay-per-session
  • Redshift
  • S3
  • Athena

Only in Umami

  • Cookie-free tracking
  • Self-hosting
  • Small tracking script
  • Custom events
  • Funnels and goals
  • Multi-site and teams
  • Public dashboards
  • API access

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Amazon QuickSight

  • Business intelligencenot Umami
  • Dashboard creationnot Umami
  • Data visualizationnot Umami

Umami

  • A developer who wants traffic numbers on a personal or client site without adding a consent bannernot Amazon QuickSight
  • An organisation whose legal or procurement team has ruled out sending visitor data to a US advertising companynot Amazon QuickSight
  • A high-traffic site where hosted analytics priced by pageview band has become expensive and self-hosting removes the ceiling entirelynot Amazon QuickSight
  • A team that wants analytics data in a database they already control so they can query and join it themselvesnot Amazon QuickSight

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Amazon QuickSight

  • Reader and Reader Pro roles charged separately at $3 and $20/month
  • Author and Author Pro roles charged at $24 and $40/month
  • $250/month infrastructure fee required if Pro users or Q&A enabled
  • SPICE storage charged at $0.38/GB monthly (10 GB included)
  • Pixel-perfect reports start at $500/month for 500 monthly units
  • Alerts charged at $0.05-$0.50 per 1,000 metrics evaluated

Umami

  • There is no cohort analysis, retention curve, session replay or multi-touch attribution, so a marketing team that needs to justify channel spend will still buy a second tool and Umami becomes a supplementary dashboard.
  • Self-hosting is only free in licence terms; you own the database, the upgrades, the backups and the query performance at scale, and a busy site's events table grows quickly enough to need real attention.
  • Because it stores no persistent identifier, it cannot follow a user across devices or sessions in any meaningful way, which makes returning-visitor and lifetime-value questions unanswerable by design rather than by omission.
  • Cloud overage is billed per event beyond the plan allowance, so a traffic spike or a badly instrumented custom event can produce a bill materially above the $20 or $200 headline before anyone notices.
  • It is maintained by a small team, so the pace of new capability is modest and enterprise expectations such as SSO, granular role permissions and formal support agreements are limited compared with commercial analytics vendors.

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon QuickSight

$3/month
  • Reader$3/month
    • Dashboard viewing only
  • Reader Pro$20/month
    • Enhanced reader capabilities
  • Author$24/month
    • Dashboard creation and editing
  • Author Pro$40/month
    • Advanced authoring features

Umami

Free
  • Self-hostedFree
    • MIT licensed, no licence fee
    • No event limit imposed by the software
    • Unlimited websites and users
  • Cloud HobbyFree
    • Up to 100,000 events per month
    • 3 websites
    • 6 months data retention
  • Cloud Pro$20/month
    • Up to 1,000,000 events per month
    • Unlimited websites
    • Unlimited team members
  • Cloud Business$200/month
    • Up to 10,000,000 events per month
    • All Pro features
    • Higher volume overage rate

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon QuickSight if

  • You need spice in-memory engine.
  • You work on AWS.
  • You also want ml insights.
Amazon QuickSight review

Choose Umami if

  • You need cookie-free tracking.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux.
  • You also want self-hosting.
Umami review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon QuickSight or Umami better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month and Umami at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon QuickSight or Umami?
Umami has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3/month for Amazon QuickSight and Free for Umami.
Does Amazon QuickSight or Umami run on more platforms?
Amazon QuickSight runs on AWS. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use Umami for free?
Yes. Umami has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Amazon QuickSight starts at $3/month.
What is Amazon QuickSight best used for?
Amazon QuickSight is most often used for business intelligence, dashboard creation, data visualization. Of those, business intelligence and dashboard creation are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon QuickSight do that Umami cannot?
Amazon QuickSight covers SPICE In-memory Engine, ML Insights, Natural Language Queries, Embedded Analytics. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon QuickSight: What does Amazon QuickSight cost per user?

QuickSight pricing varies by user role. Readers start at $3/month, Reader Pro at $20/month, Authors at $24/month, and Author Pro at $40/month. All prices are per user per month.

Source
Umami: Is Umami really free?

Self-hosted, yes; it is MIT licensed with no event cap. You pay for the server and database. Umami Cloud has a free tier at 100,000 events a month and paid tiers from $20.

Amazon QuickSight: Does QuickSight charge an infrastructure fee?

Yes, QuickSight charges an infrastructure fee of $250/month per account if the account has at least one Pro user, has Q&A enabled via topics, or has dashboard Q&A enabled.

Source
Umami: Do I need a cookie consent banner?

For Umami analytics specifically, generally no, because it sets no cookies and stores no personal data. Other tags on your site may still require one.

Amazon QuickSight: What are QuickSight's session capacity pricing options?

Session capacity pricing starts at $250/month for 500 sessions. Annual plans range from $20,000/year for 50,000 sessions to $258,000/year for 1,600,000 sessions, with volume discounts reducing unit costs from $0.50 to $0.16 per additional session.

Source
Umami: Can it replace Google Analytics?

For traffic, referrers and event counts, yes. For attribution modelling, audiences and advertising integration, no.

Amazon QuickSight: How much does additional SPICE storage cost?

Additional SPICE storage beyond the included 10 GB costs $0.38 per GB per month. Authors receive 10 GB included, but Readers do not.

Source
Umami: What does it need to run?

A container and a PostgreSQL or MySQL database. Most people deploy it on infrastructure they already pay for.

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