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Business Intelligence · head to head

Cabin vs Rill Data

Cabin logo

Cabin

Business Intelligence

Cookieless web analytics that also reports the carbon footprint of your website

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Rill Data logo

Rill Data

Business Intelligence

Local-first BI on DuckDB and ClickHouse with dashboards defined as code

From
$20/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Cabin has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Cabin the analytics are deliberately shallow: no funnels, no cohort retention, no session replay and no user-level journeys, so anything beyond traffic and event counts requires a second tool.; Rill Data the seat price of 20 dollars is misleading as a budget figure: Rill’s own calculator puts a small two-seat project at around 256 dollars a month, with compute making up the great majority.
  • They diverge on capability: Cabin covers Cookieless tracking, Rill Data covers Local development.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cabin and Rill Data actually diverge.

Attributes where Cabin and Rill Data differ
AttributeCabinRill Data
Starting priceFree$20/month
Pricing modelPer month by pageview volumePer user per month plus metered compute
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows

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

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 Cabin

  • Cookieless tracking
  • Carbon reporting
  • 1.2kb script
  • Custom events
  • Ad-blocker bypass
  • MCP access
  • Branded dashboards
  • EU data storage

Only in Rill Data

  • Local development
  • Dashboards as code
  • Embedded DuckDB
  • Bring your own database
  • Alerts and scheduled reports
  • Embedded analytics

What people use each for

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

Cabin

  • Replacing Google Analytics on a site where a cookie consent banner is hurting conversion and you do not need behavioural advertising datanot Rill Data
  • An organisation with a published sustainability commitment that needs a reportable figure for its website emissionsnot Rill Data
  • An agency managing many client sites that wants unlimited domains and branded client dashboards for a flat $45 a monthnot Rill Data
  • A developer who wants to query site analytics conversationally through an MCP-connected assistant rather than reading a dashboardnot Rill Data

Rill Data

  • An analytics team that wants dashboard changes to go through code review rather than being edited in a web UInot Cabin
  • Interactive exploration of event-scale data where a warehouse round trip per filter click is too slownot Cabin
  • Embedding fast slice-and-dice dashboards into a product where the underlying store is already ClickHouse or Druidnot Cabin
  • A data engineer prototyping a metrics layer locally on a laptop before committing to any cloud spendnot Cabin

Where each one falls short

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

Cabin

  • The analytics are deliberately shallow: no funnels, no cohort retention, no session replay and no user-level journeys, so anything beyond traffic and event counts requires a second tool.
  • Carbon figures are modelled from bytes transferred using CO2.js assumptions about grid intensity and device energy, not measured, so they are directionally useful and should never be presented as audited emissions data.
  • Cabin is a product of Normally, a design studio, rather than a company whose sole business is analytics, which puts a reasonable question mark over long-term roadmap investment and support depth.
  • The 30-day retention on the free tier and 12 months on Plus mean year-on-year comparison needs the $45 Scale plan, which is a large jump for a small site that only wanted longer history.
  • Because it does not use cookies or cross-site identifiers, returning-visitor and multi-session attribution are approximations, which matters if anyone in the business is trying to reconcile it with an ad platform's numbers.

Rill Data

  • The seat price of 20 dollars is misleading as a budget figure: Rill’s own calculator puts a small two-seat project at around 256 dollars a month, with compute making up the great majority.
  • Dashboards are defined in YAML and SQL, so business users cannot create or change one without a developer and a Git workflow, which stalls self-service adoption.
  • It is built for the explore-a-metric pattern and does not produce pixel-perfect financial or operational reports, so most organisations still need a second reporting tool.
  • AI tokens and API calls are quota-limited per seat, with API overage at a cent per call, so programmatic consumers can create an unbudgeted line item.
  • As a smaller vendor competing against Looker, Tableau and Power BI, the ecosystem of consultants, templates and trained analysts is thin, which raises the cost of hiring for it.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cabin

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1 domain
    • 10,000 pageviews per month
    • 30-day data retention
  • Plus$14/month
    • Up to 10 domains
    • 100,000 pageviews per month
    • 12-month retention
  • Scale$45/month
    • Unlimited domains
    • 5,000,000 pageviews per month
    • Unlimited retention

Rill Data

$20/month
  • Starter$20/month
    • Per seat, up to twenty seats
    • Three projects
    • Compute at 0.15 USD per compute unit hour
  • Growth$30/month
    • Per seat, up to one hundred seats
    • Ten projects
    • Compute at 0.20 USD per compute unit hour
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Annual platform licence with negotiated capacity
    • Unlimited seats and projects
    • Dedicated infrastructure

Which should you pick?

Choose Cabin if

  • You need cookieless tracking.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want carbon reporting.
Cabin review

Choose Rill Data if

  • You need local development.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want dashboards as code.
Rill Data review

Questions people ask

Is Cabin or Rill Data better?
Neither clearly leads. Cabin starts at Free and Rill Data at $20/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cabin or Rill Data?
Cabin has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cabin and $20/month for Rill Data.
Does Cabin or Rill Data run on more platforms?
Cabin runs on Web. Rill Data runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Cabin for free?
Yes. Cabin has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Rill Data starts at $20/month.
What is Cabin best used for?
Cabin is most often used for replacing google analytics on a site where a cookie consent banner is hurting conversion and you do not need behavioural advertising data, an organisation with a published sustainability commitment that needs a reportable figure for its website emissions, an agency managing many client sites that wants unlimited domains and branded client dashboards for a flat $45 a month, a developer who wants to query site analytics conversationally through an mcp-connected assistant rather than reading a dashboard. Of those, replacing google analytics on a site where a cookie consent banner is hurting conversion and you do not need behavioural advertising data and an organisation with a published sustainability commitment that needs a reportable figure for its website emissions are not what Rill Data is typically brought in for.
What can Cabin do that Rill Data cannot?
Cabin covers Cookieless tracking, Carbon reporting, 1.2kb script, Custom events. Rill Data covers Local development, Dashboards as code, Embedded DuckDB, Bring your own database.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cabin: Do I need a cookie consent banner with Cabin?

No. It sets no cookies and collects no cross-site identifiers, and data is stored in the EU, which is the specific reason most buyers switch to it.

Rill Data: Is Rill open source?

The Rill developer binary is open source and free to run locally; Rill Cloud is the paid product.

Cabin: How accurate is the carbon measurement?

It is an estimate derived from data transfer using the CO2.js model. It is reliable for tracking change over time on your own site and unsuitable as an audited emissions figure.

Rill Data: How much does it actually cost?

Seats start at 20 USD per month, but hosted compute at 0.15 USD per compute unit hour typically dominates the bill. Bringing your own database removes the usage fee.

Cabin: Who makes Cabin?

It was built at Normally, a research and design studio in London, out of work on data, privacy and the carbon footprint of digital products.

Rill Data: Can business users build dashboards?

Not directly. Dashboards are YAML and SQL under version control.

Cabin: Can it replace Google Analytics entirely?

For traffic, referrer and event reporting, yes. For advertising attribution, audience building and funnel analysis, no.

Rill Data: Which databases can back a deployed project?

DuckDB, ClickHouse, Druid, Pinot, Snowflake and others.

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