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Testing · head to head

GrowthBook vs Umami

GrowthBook logo

GrowthBook

Testing

Open source feature flags and A/B testing that run experiment analysis inside your own data warehouse

From
Free
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

  • Each has a real cost: GrowthBook warehouse-native analysis is only an advantage if you have a warehouse with clean event data in it; without one, GrowthBook has nothing to compute against and you are back to buying an event-collecting platform.; 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: GrowthBook covers Feature flags, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which GrowthBook and Umami actually diverge.

Attributes where GrowthBook and Umami differ
AttributeGrowthBookUmami
Pricing modelPer user per monthPer month by event count
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, DockerWeb, Linux
CategoryTestingMarketing

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 GrowthBook

  • Feature flags
  • Warehouse-native analysis
  • Reusable metric definitions
  • Bayesian and frequentist engines
  • CUPED variance reduction
  • Visual editor
  • Guardrail metrics

Only in Umami

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

Both cover

  • Self-hosting

What people use each for

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

GrowthBook

  • An engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product successnot Umami
  • A data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its BI toolnot Umami
  • A company with data residency or privacy constraints that cannot send user-level event data to a third-party vendornot Umami
  • Running long-tail experiments where sequential testing and CUPED shorten the time to a decision on low-traffic surfacesnot Umami

Umami

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

Where each one falls short

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

GrowthBook

  • Warehouse-native analysis is only an advantage if you have a warehouse with clean event data in it; without one, GrowthBook has nothing to compute against and you are back to buying an event-collecting platform.
  • Metrics are SQL, so a marketing or product team without data engineering support cannot define or fix them, and a badly written metric silently produces a confident wrong answer.
  • Cloud Pro bills per seat and then adds CDN request and bandwidth overages, so a high-traffic site can find the variable component exceeds the seat cost it budgeted for.
  • Self-hosting means you own the Mongo database, the SDK endpoint availability and the upgrade path, and a flag service that is down is a production incident, not an analytics inconvenience.
  • The statistics engine exposes real choices, Bayesian versus frequentist, sequential testing, variance reduction, and the tool will not stop a team that configures them wrongly, so it rewards statistical literacy and punishes its absence.

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

GrowthBook

Free
  • Open source (self-hosted)Free
    • Unlimited users, feature flags and experiments
    • One project
    • MIT licensed, you run the infrastructure
  • Starter (cloud)Free
    • Up to 3 users
    • 1 project
    • Unlimited flags, experiments and traffic
  • Pro (cloud)$40/month
    • Per seat, up to 50 users
    • 3 projects
    • CDN overage at $10 per million requests beyond the included allowance
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Unlimited users and projects
    • SSO, audit logs and advanced permissions
    • Available on cloud or self-hosted

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 GrowthBook if

  • You need feature flags.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want warehouse-native analysis.
GrowthBook review

Choose Umami if

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

Questions people ask

Is GrowthBook or Umami better?
Neither clearly leads. GrowthBook 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, GrowthBook or Umami?
GrowthBook starts at Free and Umami at Free.
Does GrowthBook or Umami run on more platforms?
GrowthBook runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use GrowthBook for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is GrowthBook best used for?
GrowthBook is most often used for an engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product success, a data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its bi tool, a company with data residency or privacy constraints that cannot send user-level event data to a third-party vendor, running long-tail experiments where sequential testing and cuped shorten the time to a decision on low-traffic surfaces. Of those, an engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product success and a data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its bi tool are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
What can GrowthBook do that Umami cannot?
GrowthBook covers Feature flags, Warehouse-native analysis, Reusable metric definitions, Bayesian and frequentist engines. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Small tracking script, Custom events, Funnels and goals. Both handle Self-hosting.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

GrowthBook: Is the self-hosted version actually usable, or crippled?

It is genuinely usable: unlimited users, flags and experiments on one project under an MIT licence. The paid tiers add multiple projects, SSO, audit logs and support.

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.

GrowthBook: Do I need a data warehouse?

For experiment analysis, effectively yes. Feature flagging works without one, but the reason to choose GrowthBook over a flag-only tool is the warehouse-native statistics.

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.

GrowthBook: How does the cost compare with LaunchDarkly or Optimizely?

GrowthBook charges per seat rather than per monthly active user or per tracked event, so cost stops scaling with traffic. At high volume that difference is large.

Umami: Can it replace Google Analytics?

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

GrowthBook: Does it support mobile and server-side flags?

Yes, there are SDKs across JavaScript, React, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java, Kotlin, Swift and more, covering client, server and mobile evaluation.

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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