Marketing · head to head
Mailgun vs Umami
Umami
Marketing
Open source, cookie-free web analytics you can self-host for the cost of a database
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Mailgun free tier limited to 100 emails per day, restricting high-volume use cases; 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.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Mailgun and Umami actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Mailgun
Nothing recorded that Umami does not also cover.
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.
Mailgun
- Transactional email delivery and SMTP relaynot Umami
- Email marketing at scale for developers and enterprisesnot Umami
Umami
- A developer who wants traffic numbers on a personal or client site without adding a consent bannernot Mailgun
- An organisation whose legal or procurement team has ruled out sending visitor data to a US advertising companynot Mailgun
- A high-traffic site where hosted analytics priced by pageview band has become expensive and self-hosting removes the ceiling entirelynot Mailgun
- A team that wants analytics data in a database they already control so they can query and join it themselvesnot Mailgun
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Mailgun
- Free tier limited to 100 emails per day, restricting high-volume use cases
- Log retention minimal on lower tiers (1 day on Free and Basic plans)
- Add-on pricing for email validations and extra emails can accumulate quickly for high-traffic users
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
Mailgun
Free- FreeFree
- 100 emails per day
- Basic APIs
- SMTP relay
- Basic$15/monthly
- 10,000 emails per month
- No daily limits
- Monthly overage options
- Foundation$35/monthly
- 50,000 emails per month
- 1,000 custom domains
- Email template builder
- Scale$90/monthly
- 100,000 emails per month
- SAML SSO
- 5,000 email validations
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 Umami if
- You need cookie-free tracking.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux.
- You also want self-hosting.
Questions people ask
- Is Mailgun or Umami better?
- Neither clearly leads. Mailgun 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, Mailgun or Umami?
- Mailgun starts at Free and Umami at Free.
- Does Mailgun or Umami run on more platforms?
- Mailgun runs on Web. Umami runs on Web, Linux.
- Can I use Mailgun for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Mailgun best used for?
- Mailgun is most often used for transactional email delivery and smtp relay, email marketing at scale for developers and enterprises. Of those, transactional email delivery and smtp relay and email marketing at scale for developers and enterprises are not what Umami is typically brought in for.
- What can Mailgun do that Umami cannot?
- Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Mailgun: What happens when I exceed my monthly email quota?
Mailgun allows monthly overage options on paid plans. Extra emails are charged from $1.30 to $1.10 per 1,000 emails depending on plan tier. Enterprise customers negotiate custom rates.
SourceUmami: 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.
Mailgun: Can I upgrade from Free to a paid plan and when does billing begin?
Yes, you can upgrade to paid plans anytime. The first month is free on Foundation ($35/month) and Scale ($90/month) plans, with billing starting on month two.
SourceUmami: 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.
Mailgun: What currencies and billing periods does Mailgun support?
Mailgun supports monthly billing in USD, EUR, and GBP. Charges are prorated for mid-month signups. Annual billing options are not explicitly listed on the pricing page.
SourceUmami: 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.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- Mailgun vs Moz
- Mailgun vs Buffer
- Mailgun vs Wrike
- Mailgun vs Hootsuite
- Mailgun vs Postmark
- Mailgun vs Northbeam
- Mailgun vs Iterable
- Mailgun vs Ahrefs
- Mailgun vs Customer.io
- Mailgun vs MoEngage
- Mailgun vs Attribution
- Mailgun vs Instapage
- Mailgun vs WebEngage
- Mailgun vs Woopra
- Mailgun vs Wunderkind
- Mailgun vs Whatagraph
- Mailgun vs Optimizely
- Mailgun vs Matomo
- Mailgun vs Plausible
- Mailgun vs Fathom Analytics
- Mailgun vs Mautic
- Mailgun vs Countly
- Mailgun vs Freshpaint
- Mailgun vs Simple Analytics
- Mailgun vs CallRail
- Mailgun vs Microsoft Clarity
- Mailgun vs Octoboard
- Mailgun vs Onclusive
- Umami vs Moz
- Umami vs Buffer
- Umami vs Wrike
- Umami vs Hootsuite
- Umami vs Postmark
- Umami vs Northbeam
- Umami vs Iterable
- Umami vs Ahrefs
- Umami vs Customer.io
- Umami vs MoEngage
- Umami vs Attribution
- Umami vs Instapage
- Umami vs WebEngage
- Umami vs Woopra
- Umami vs Wunderkind
- Umami vs Whatagraph
- Umami vs Optimizely
- Umami vs Matomo
- Umami vs Plausible
- Umami vs Fathom Analytics
- Umami vs Mautic
- Umami vs Countly
- Umami vs Freshpaint
- Umami vs Simple Analytics
- Umami vs CallRail
- Umami vs Microsoft Clarity
- Umami vs Octoboard
- Umami vs Onclusive