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Marketing · head to head

Freshpaint vs Umami

Freshpaint logo

Freshpaint

Marketing

Privacy layer that lets healthcare organisations run marketing analytics without sending PHI

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: Freshpaint filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.; 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: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and Umami actually diverge.

Attributes where Freshpaint and Umami differ
AttributeFreshpaintUmami
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by event count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Linux

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

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 Freshpaint

  • PHI detection and redaction
  • Business associate agreement
  • Event verification
  • Pixel replacement
  • Consent governance
  • Advertising destinations
  • Analytics and session tools
  • Audience activation

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.

Freshpaint

  • A health system told by legal to remove its Meta and Google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaignsnot Umami
  • A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot Umami
  • A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot Umami
  • A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot Umami

Umami

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

Where each one falls short

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

Freshpaint

  • Filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.
  • Pricing is not published on the vendor site despite three named tiers, and third party reports of entry around 599 US dollars a month cover only the lowest tier, with audiences and advertising activation sitting above it.
  • It addresses web and marketing tracking rather than the whole protected health information estate, so it solves one exposure while patient data in the CRM, call centre and email tooling remains a separate problem.
  • The commercial case rests on a specific regulatory interpretation of online tracking technologies, and litigation and future guidance could narrow or widen it, which makes the size of the problem it solves less stable than a compliance purchase usually is.
  • It is built for healthcare and priced accordingly, so an organisation wanting a general customer data platform pays for a regulatory specialism it does not need and gets narrower general purpose functionality than Segment or RudderStack.

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

Freshpaint

On request
  • Comply$undefined/month
    • Governance and consent foundation
    • PHI detection and redaction
    • Web analytics, funnels and surveys
  • Perform$undefined/month
    • Everything in Comply
    • Audiences and demand side platform activation
    • Attribution, journeys and recommendations
  • Scale$undefined/month
    • Everything in Perform
    • Ad performance reporting
    • Full AI feature access

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 Freshpaint if

  • You need phi detection and redaction.
  • You also want business associate agreement.
Freshpaint 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 Freshpaint or Umami better?
Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint 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, Freshpaint or Umami?
Umami has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for Umami.
Does Freshpaint or Umami run on more platforms?
Freshpaint 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. Freshpaint starts at On request.
What is Freshpaint best used for?
Freshpaint is most often used for a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns, a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed, a compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committee, a multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tags. Of those, a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns and a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
What can Freshpaint do that Umami cannot?
Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Freshpaint: Why can a hospital not just use Google Analytics?

US Department of Health and Human Services guidance treats IP addresses and health related page URLs as protected health information in this context, and advertising and analytics platforms will not sign a business associate agreement, so the disclosure is unlawful without an intermediary that filters.

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.

Freshpaint: Does Freshpaint sign a BAA?

Yes, and it holds SOC 2 Type II. That is the central reason it exists, because the destination platforms will not.

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.

Freshpaint: What does it cost?

Freshpaint does not publish prices. Three tiers, Comply, Perform and Scale, are all sales led, and third party sources report entry around 599 US dollars a month for the lowest.

Umami: Can it replace Google Analytics?

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

Freshpaint: Will my ad performance suffer?

Somewhat. Stripping identifiers reduces what platforms can optimise against. The trade is weaker targeting in exchange for measurement that a compliance committee will approve.

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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