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CrowdTangle vs Umami

C

CrowdTangle

News

Social media insights and content monitoring platform

From
On request
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: CrowdTangle crowdTangle was retired by Meta on 14 August 2024, per Meta's own transparency page (Internet Archive capture, 12 December 2024), with Meta Content Library and Content Library API offered as replacements; 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: CrowdTangle covers Social listening, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CrowdTangle and Umami actually diverge.

Attributes where CrowdTangle and Umami differ
AttributeCrowdTangleUmami
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by event count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Linux
CategoryNewsMarketing
Founded2011Unknown

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 CrowdTangle

  • Social listening
  • Viral content tracking
  • Competitor monitoring
  • Brand mention tracking
  • Trending alerts
  • Custom dashboards
  • Team collaboration
  • Report generation

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.

CrowdTangle

  • Viral content trackingnot Umami
  • Social listeningnot Umami
  • Competitor analysisnot Umami
  • Trend identificationnot Umami

Umami

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

Where each one falls short

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

CrowdTangle

  • CrowdTangle was retired by Meta on 14 August 2024, per Meta's own transparency page (Internet Archive capture, 12 December 2024), with Meta Content Library and Content Library API offered as replacements

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

CrowdTangle

On request
  • Custom Plan$undefined/custom
    • Social monitoring
    • Competitor analysis
    • Trending content tracking

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 CrowdTangle if

  • You need social listening.
  • You also want viral content tracking.
CrowdTangle 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 CrowdTangle or Umami better?
Neither clearly leads. CrowdTangle starts at On request and Umami at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CrowdTangle or Umami?
Umami has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for CrowdTangle and Free for Umami.
Does CrowdTangle or Umami run on more platforms?
CrowdTangle runs on Web. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use Umami for free?
Yes. Umami has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. CrowdTangle starts at On request.
What is CrowdTangle best used for?
CrowdTangle is most often used for viral content tracking, social listening, competitor analysis, trend identification. Of those, viral content tracking and social listening are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
What can CrowdTangle do that Umami cannot?
CrowdTangle covers Social listening, Viral content tracking, Competitor monitoring, Brand mention tracking. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

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.

Umami: 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.

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