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Marketing · head to head

Umami vs WebEngage

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
WebEngage logo

WebEngage

Marketing

Customer engagement and retention automation for consumer businesses in India and Southeast Asia

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Umami has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: 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.; WebEngage nothing about pricing is published, and since the entire commercial argument for WebEngage is that it undercuts Braze and CleverTap, you cannot evaluate the one thing that makes it interesting without entering a sales process.
  • They diverge on capability: Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, WebEngage covers Journey designer.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Umami and WebEngage actually diverge.

Attributes where Umami and WebEngage differ
AttributeUmamiWebEngage
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer month by event countquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, LinuxWeb, iOS SDK, Android SDK, React Native, Flutter, API

Identical on both: 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 Umami

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

Only in WebEngage

  • Journey designer
  • Behavioural segmentation
  • Push and in-app
  • WhatsApp
  • Analytics
  • Personalisation
  • On-site surveys
  • Customer data platform

What people use each for

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

Umami

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

WebEngage

  • A consumer app in India or Southeast Asia with several million monthly users needs Braze-class journey automation at a price its marketing budget can absorb.not Umami
  • A fintech or edtech business needs WhatsApp as a primary retention channel rather than a secondary one, in a market where email open rates are low and WhatsApp is universal.not Umami
  • A media or ecommerce company wants behavioural segmentation and lifecycle journeys without building a customer data platform separately first.not Umami
  • A team wants funnels, cohorts and retention analysis in the same tool that sends the messages, so the analyst and the campaign manager are not reconciling two systems.not Umami

Where each one falls short

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

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.

WebEngage

  • Nothing about pricing is published, and since the entire commercial argument for WebEngage is that it undercuts Braze and CleverTap, you cannot evaluate the one thing that makes it interesting without entering a sales process.
  • Message volumes across email, SMS and WhatsApp are metered separately from the platform fee, so a campaign that succeeds increases the bill in ways the monthly tracked user figure does not capture.
  • It requires genuine engineering investment to instrument events and user attributes correctly, and a poorly instrumented deployment produces segments that are wrong rather than merely incomplete, which is expensive to discover after launch.
  • Enterprise assurance is lighter than the American incumbents: procurement teams expecting extensive compliance documentation, regional data residency guarantees and 24 hour follow-the-sun support may find gaps.
  • Its centre of gravity is India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, so partner availability, agency expertise and support hours all favour those regions and a European or North American buyer is a peripheral customer.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

WebEngage

On request
  • WebEngage$undefined/year
    • Priced by monthly tracked users and channels enabled
    • Journeys, segmentation and analytics included
    • Email, SMS and WhatsApp volumes charged separately

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.
Umami review

Choose WebEngage if

  • You need journey designer.
  • You work on Web, iOS SDK, Android SDK, React Native, Flutter, API.
  • You also want behavioural segmentation.
WebEngage review

Questions people ask

Is Umami or WebEngage better?
Neither clearly leads. Umami starts at Free and WebEngage at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Umami or WebEngage?
Umami has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Umami and On request for WebEngage.
Does Umami or WebEngage run on more platforms?
Umami runs on Web, Linux. WebEngage runs on Web, iOS SDK, Android SDK, React Native, Flutter, API.
Can I use Umami for free?
Yes. Umami has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. WebEngage starts at On request.
What is Umami best used for?
Umami is most often used for a developer who wants traffic numbers on a personal or client site without adding a consent banner, an organisation whose legal or procurement team has ruled out sending visitor data to a us advertising company, a high-traffic site where hosted analytics priced by pageview band has become expensive and self-hosting removes the ceiling entirely, a team that wants analytics data in a database they already control so they can query and join it themselves. Of those, a developer who wants traffic numbers on a personal or client site without adding a consent banner and an organisation whose legal or procurement team has ruled out sending visitor data to a us advertising company are not what WebEngage is typically brought in for.
What can Umami do that WebEngage cannot?
Umami covers Cookie-free tracking, Self-hosting, Small tracking script, Custom events. WebEngage covers Journey designer, Behavioural segmentation, Push and in-app, WhatsApp.

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.

WebEngage: How much does WebEngage cost?

It does not publish pricing. It is quoted by monthly tracked users with message volumes charged separately, and it typically comes in below Braze and CleverTap for equivalent volumes.

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.

WebEngage: Is it a CDP or a marketing automation tool?

Both, in practice. It assembles unified user profiles from event streams and then acts on them, though it is lighter than a dedicated CDP on data warehousing and identity resolution.

Umami: Can it replace Google Analytics?

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

WebEngage: Is WebEngage owned by anyone else?

No. It remains an independent Mumbai-based company.

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.

WebEngage: Which channels does it support?

Mobile push, in-app, web push, email, SMS and WhatsApp, with WhatsApp treated as a first-class channel rather than an add-on.

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