Softwr

Automation Integration · head to head

Lytics vs Umami

L

Lytics

Automation Integration

The customer data platform for personalization

From
$400/month
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: Lytics billed in credits where one credit is an update to a user profile, so the bill tracks how often profiles change rather than how many exist; 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: Lytics covers Data collection, Umami covers Cookie-free tracking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Lytics and Umami actually diverge.

Attributes where Lytics and Umami differ
AttributeLyticsUmami
Starting price$400/monthFree
Pricing modelusage-basedPer month by event count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Linux
CategoryAutomation IntegrationMarketing
Founded2013Unknown

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 Lytics

  • Data collection
  • Audience segmentation
  • Predictive analytics
  • Personalization
  • Real-time activation
  • Analytics
  • 100+ integrations
  • Marketing platforms

Only in Umami

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

Both cover

  • API access

What people use each for

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

Lytics

  • Building unified customer profiles from behavioural and marketing datanot Umami
  • Segmenting audiences and syncing them to marketing destinationsnot Umami

Umami

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

Where each one falls short

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

Lytics

  • Billed in credits where one credit is an update to a user profile, so the bill tracks how often profiles change rather than how many exist
  • Most inbound events consume a full credit each, and Cloud Connect sync events consume half a credit per updated row
  • The free Developer tier is capped at 2M monthly credits and 10 domains
  • The Growth plan is $500 a month for 5M credits, with additional credits at $500 per 10M
  • Enterprise begins above 10M credits and is quoted rather than 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

Lytics

$400/month
  • Professional$400/month
    • Core CDP features
  • Advanced$1200/month
    • Advanced personalization
    • Priority support
  • Enterprise$3000/month
    • Custom solutions
    • Dedicated support

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 Lytics if

  • You need data collection.
  • You also want audience segmentation.
Lytics 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 Lytics or Umami better?
Neither clearly leads. Lytics starts at $400/month and Umami at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Lytics or Umami?
Umami has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $400/month for Lytics and Free for Umami.
Does Lytics or Umami run on more platforms?
Lytics 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. Lytics starts at $400/month.
What is Lytics best used for?
Lytics is most often used for building unified customer profiles from behavioural and marketing data, segmenting audiences and syncing them to marketing destinations. Of those, building unified customer profiles from behavioural and marketing data and segmenting audiences and syncing them to marketing destinations are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
What can Lytics do that Umami cannot?
Lytics covers Data collection, Audience segmentation, Predictive analytics, Personalization. Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events. Both handle API access.

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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