Question 3: Plausible vs Fathom vs Simple Analytics - which one should I choose for a small blog?

Choosing the right privacy-first analytics tool for a small blog comes down to balancing cost, data ownership, and features. Plausible, Fathom, and Simple Analytics are the three gold standards for lightweight, cookieless website tracking, but they cater to slightly different priorities.

Here is a breakdown to help you decide which one is best for your small blog.

Quick Comparison Table

1. Plausible Analytics: Best Overall & Value for Growing Blogs

Plausible is widely considered the darling of the privacy-friendly analytics movement. It is lightweight (script size is < 1 KB) and completely open-source.

Pros:

Cleanest UI: The dashboard is single-page, gorgeous, and gives you everything you need at a glance (sources, top pages, bounce rate) without clutter.

Self-Hosting Option: If you are technically inclined, you can host Plausible yourself for free on a server (e.g., Hetzner or DigitalOcean).

Community & Integrations: Because of its popularity, it has the most third-party plugins, WordPress integrations, and community support.

Cons:

Its cheapest tier starts at $9/month for up to 10,000 pageviews, which can feel a bit steep if your blog is brand new and getting almost zero traffic.

Verdict: Choose Plausible if you want a polished dashboard, value an open-source ethos, or might want to self-host down the line.

2. Fathom Analytics: Best for Value at Scale & Performance

Fathom focuses heavily on speed, enterprise-grade infrastructure, and privacy. Like the others, it bypasses ad-blockers effectively and requires no cookie banners.

Pros:

Better Entry Value for Traffic: Fathom’s base plan is $15/month, but it covers up to 100,000 pageviews. If your blog already gets steady traffic (or you expect rapid growth), Fathom is significantly cheaper per pageview than Plausible's lower tiers.

Uptime and Speed: Uses AWS CloudFront globally, making its tracking script load blindingly fast.

Multiple Sites: You can track multiple sites under one subscription.

Cons:

Closed-source, and the starting price ($15) is the highest of the three.

Verdict: Choose Fathom if your blog already gets tens of thousands of views a month, as its pricing scale is much kinder to higher traffic volumes.

3. Simple Analytics: Best for Simplicity & Built-in Extras

True to its name, Simple Analytics focuses on a clean experience while offering a few unique extra features that bloggers might enjoy.

Pros:

Great Pricing Tier: Like Fathom, their baseline plan starts at $9/month for up to 100,000 pageviews, making it very budget-friendly for small-to-medium blogs.

AI Assistant: They feature a built-in AI assistant that lets you query your analytics data using plain English (e.g., "What were my top referral sources last week?").

Extra Features: Includes tweet buttons, automated email reports, and easy data exports.

Cons:

The interface is clean, but some users find Plausible’s UI slightly more intuitive.

Verdict: Choose Simple Analytics if you want maximum pageviews for your dollar on a paid plan and like the idea of chatting with your data via an AI assistant.

The Alternative: Are you on WordPress?

If your small blog runs on WordPress and you have tight or zero budget, you might not even need a paid SaaS tool right away:

Matomo (Self-Hosted): Free, incredibly powerful, and respects privacy if configured without cookies. (Requires your own web hosting).

WP-Stats or Light Server-Side Logs: Analyzing your raw hosting logs (via tools like GoAccess) is 100% private, free, and bypasses ad-blockers entirely, though it lacks a slick dashboard.

Final Recommendation for Your Small Blog

If your blog is brand new (< 10k monthly views) and you want the absolute best community/UI: Go with Plausible (or self-host it if you love tech projects).

If you already get 20k–100k views/month and want the best price-to-traffic ratio: Go with Simple Analytics or Fathom (both give you 100k pageviews on their entry tiers, whereas Plausible charges more as you scale past 10k).

Which platform is your blog currently built on, and roughly how many monthly pageviews are you starting with?