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Email Marketing · head to head

Keila vs Umami

Keila logo

Keila

Email Marketing

AGPL newsletter tool from Germany, self-hostable or hosted in the EU with no free plan

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: Keila there is no free hosted plan at all, stated as deliberate policy, so unlike almost every competitor there is no way to run a small list at zero cost without self-hosting it yourself.; 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: Keila covers Priced by emails sent, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Keila and Umami actually diverge.

Attributes where Keila and Umami differ
AttributeKeilaUmami
Pricing modelPer month by emails sentPer month by event count
PlatformsWeb, Linux, Self-hostedWeb, Linux
CategoryEmail MarketingMarketing

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 Keila

  • Priced by emails sent
  • Bring your own sender
  • EU hosting
  • Sign-up forms
  • Segmentation
  • Markdown and block editor
  • Multiple projects
  • Discounts

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.

Keila

  • A membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times morenot Umami
  • A European publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the EU under a GDPR-friendly arrangementnot Umami
  • A technical team that wants to self-host its newsletter tool and route sending through its existing AWS SES accountnot Umami
  • An agency running several separate client lists that does not want to pay per project or per additional listnot Umami

Umami

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

Where each one falls short

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

Keila

  • There is no free hosted plan at all, stated as deliberate policy, so unlike almost every competitor there is no way to run a small list at zero cost without self-hosting it yourself.
  • Marketing automation is minimal, with none of the behavioural triggers, journey builders or e-commerce revenue attribution that Klaviyo, Brevo and Mailchimp treat as table stakes.
  • The self-hosted route puts deliverability entirely on you: reputation, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, warm-up and bounce handling are your problem, and a badly configured instance will land in spam folders.
  • It is a small project from a small company, so the integration ecosystem is thin and there is no partner network, template marketplace or large body of community expertise to draw on.
  • Email volume tiers step in fixed blocks, so an organisation whose sending is uneven across the year either overbuys at the annual peak or has to change plan repeatedly.

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

Keila

Free
  • Self-hostedFree
    • AGPL-3.0-or-later licence with no fee
    • Official Docker image and sample compose file
    • You supply hosting and a sending backend
  • Keila XS$8/month
    • Two thousand emails per month
    • Unlimited contacts and projects
    • Send with Keila or bring your own email server
  • Keila M$32/month
    • Fifteen thousand emails per month
    • Unlimited contacts and projects
    • Sign-up forms and segmentation
  • Keila XXL$256/month
    • Two hundred and fifty thousand emails per month
    • Unlimited contacts and projects
    • Intermediate tiers at 16, 64 and 128 EUR for 5,000, 50,000 and 100,000 emails

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 Keila if

  • You need priced by emails sent.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted.
  • You also want bring your own sender.
Keila 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 Keila or Umami better?
Neither clearly leads. Keila 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, Keila or Umami?
Keila starts at Free and Umami at Free.
Does Keila or Umami run on more platforms?
Keila runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use Keila for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Keila best used for?
Keila is most often used for a membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times more, a european publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the eu under a gdpr-friendly arrangement, a technical team that wants to self-host its newsletter tool and route sending through its existing aws ses account, an agency running several separate client lists that does not want to pay per project or per additional list. Of those, a membership organisation holding forty thousand contacts but sending only one newsletter a month, where contact-metered pricing would cost many times more and a european publisher or public body that needs subscriber data held in the eu under a gdpr-friendly arrangement are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
What can Keila do that Umami cannot?
Keila covers Priced by emails sent, Bring your own sender, EU hosting, Sign-up forms. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Small tracking script, Custom events, Funnels and goals. Both handle Self-hosting.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Keila: Is Keila free?

The software is, under AGPL-3.0-or-later, if you self-host. The hosted service has no free plan by deliberate policy and starts at 8 EUR a month.

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.

Keila: How is the hosted service priced?

By emails sent, from 8 EUR for two thousand up to 256 EUR for two hundred and fifty thousand a month. Contacts and projects are unlimited on every tier.

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.

Keila: Can I use my own email provider?

Yes. AWS SES, Sendgrid, Mailgun, Postmark, generic SMTP or a personal inbox are all supported as sending backends.

Umami: Can it replace Google Analytics?

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

Keila: Are there discounts?

Pentacent offers reduced rates to nonprofits and open source projects on request.

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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