Technology · head to head
Amplitude vs Umami

Amplitude
Technology
The digital analytics platform to understand your users
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -

Umami
Marketing
Open source, cookie-free web analytics you can self-host for the cost of a database
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Amplitude metered on event volume, so instrumenting more of a product raises the bill even if the audience does not grow; 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: Amplitude covers Event tracking, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Amplitude and Umami actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Amplitude
- Event tracking
- User segmentation
- Funnel analysis
- Retention analysis
- Cohort analysis
- A/B testing
- Revenue analytics
- Predictive analytics
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.
Amplitude
- User behavior analysisnot Umami
- Feature adoption trackingnot Umami
- Conversion rate optimizationnot Umami
- Customer journey mappingnot Umami
- Retention improvementnot Umami
Umami
- A developer who wants traffic numbers on a personal or client site without adding a consent bannernot Amplitude
- An organisation whose legal or procurement team has ruled out sending visitor data to a US advertising companynot Amplitude
- A high-traffic site where hosted analytics priced by pageview band has become expensive and self-hosting removes the ceiling entirelynot Amplitude
- A team that wants analytics data in a database they already control so they can query and join it themselvesnot Amplitude
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Amplitude
- Metered on event volume, so instrumenting more of a product raises the bill even if the audience does not grow
- The free plan covers 2M events a month
- The Plus plan scales to 70M events, above which pricing is custom
- Growth and Enterprise pricing is not published
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
Amplitude
Free- StarterFree
- 2 million events per month
- Plus$49/month
- $0.049 per MTU
- Up to 300k MTUs
- Advanced analytics
- GrowthFree
- Causal insights
- Feature experimentation
- Real-time streaming
- EnterpriseFree
- Cross-product analysis
- Advanced permissions
- Dedicated account manager
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 Amplitude if
- You need event tracking.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Ios, Android, Api.
- You also want user segmentation.
Choose Umami if
- You need cookie-free tracking.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux.
- You also want self-hosting.
Questions people ask
- Is Amplitude or Umami better?
- Neither clearly leads. Amplitude starts at Free and Umami at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Amplitude or Umami?
- Amplitude starts at Free and Umami at Free.
- Does Amplitude or Umami run on more platforms?
- Amplitude runs on Web, Ios, Android, Api. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
- Can I use Amplitude for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Amplitude best used for?
- Amplitude is most often used for user behavior analysis, feature adoption tracking, conversion rate optimization, customer journey mapping. Of those, user behavior analysis and feature adoption tracking are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
- What can Amplitude do that Umami cannot?
- Amplitude covers Event tracking, User segmentation, Funnel analysis, Retention analysis. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Amplitude: Does Amplitude have a free plan?
Yes, Amplitude offers a free Starter plan with 2 million events per month and access to the entire platform including analytics, session replay, and experimentation features.
SourceUmami: 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.
Amplitude: What is Amplitude's pricing based on?
Amplitude's pricing is based on the number of monthly tracked users (MTUs), data volume, and advanced features selected. The Plus plan starts at $49 per month with a rate of $0.049 per MTU.
SourceUmami: 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.
Amplitude: What analytics features does every Amplitude plan include?
Every plan includes access to the full platform: analytics, session replay, feature experimentation, web experimentation, guides and surveys, activation, and AI tools like AI Feedback and AI Assistant.
SourceUmami: Can it replace Google Analytics?
For traffic, referrers and event counts, yes. For attribution modelling, audiences and advertising integration, no.
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.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- Amplitude vs Mixpanel
- Amplitude vs PostHog
- Amplitude vs Segment
- Amplitude vs Heap
- Amplitude vs Pendo
- Amplitude vs RescueTime
- Amplitude vs Productboard
- Amplitude vs Dashlane
- Amplitude vs Canny
- Amplitude vs LogRocket
- Amplitude vs ClickUp
- Amplitude vs Okta
- Amplitude vs Checkmk
- Amplitude vs Envoy
- Amplitude vs etcd
- Amplitude vs Excalidraw
- Amplitude vs GitHub Desktop
- Amplitude vs Height
- Amplitude vs Matomo
- Amplitude vs Plausible
- Amplitude vs Fathom Analytics
- Amplitude vs Mautic
- Amplitude vs Countly
- Amplitude vs Freshpaint
- Amplitude vs Simple Analytics
- Amplitude vs Attribution
- Amplitude vs CallRail
- Amplitude vs Microsoft Clarity
- Amplitude vs Octoboard
- Amplitude vs Onclusive
- Amplitude vs WebEngage
- Amplitude vs Woopra
- Amplitude vs Wunderkind
- Amplitude vs Whatagraph
- Amplitude vs MoEngage
- Amplitude vs Optimizely
- Umami vs Mixpanel
- Umami vs PostHog
- Umami vs Segment
- Umami vs Heap
- Umami vs Pendo
- Umami vs RescueTime
- Umami vs Productboard
- Umami vs Dashlane
- Umami vs Canny
- Umami vs LogRocket
- Umami vs ClickUp
- Umami vs Okta
- Umami vs Checkmk
- Umami vs Envoy
- Umami vs etcd
- Umami vs Excalidraw
- Umami vs GitHub Desktop
- Umami vs Height
- Umami vs Matomo
- Umami vs Plausible
- Umami vs Fathom Analytics
- Umami vs Mautic
- Umami vs Countly
- Umami vs Freshpaint
- Umami vs Simple Analytics
- Umami vs Attribution
- Umami vs CallRail
- Umami vs Microsoft Clarity
- Umami vs Octoboard
- Umami vs Onclusive
- Umami vs WebEngage
- Umami vs Woopra
- Umami vs Wunderkind
- Umami vs Whatagraph
- Umami vs MoEngage
- Umami vs Optimizely
