Piwik PRO vs Matomo
Matomo and Piwik PRO are two leaders in the privacy-focused web analytics space. Both products are fully GDPR-compliant, support cookieless tracking and offer granular controls for customer data security.
Learn how Matomo vs Piwik PRO stacks up in our head-to-head comparison.
Matomo vs Piwik PRO at a Glance
Matomo and Piwik PRO have common origins. Both products evolved from the community-led, open-source project (Piwik), launched by Matomo CEO, Matthieu Aubry in 2007. Since 2016, Matomo and Piwik PRO have been operating as separate business entities — and maintained a different product vision and positioning.
Matomo remains an open-source product with free-forever On-Premise installations and premium Cloud plans. Our products are recognised for ethical data collection by global data regulators (such as French CNIL). Matomo is by 1+ million websites, and nearly 10% of the top 10,000 websites in the world choose Matomo as their web analytics solution.
Piwik PRO is no longer open-source but offers a freemium Cloud tier with limitations. On-Premise installations are only available for enterprise clients. The company has over 250 customers in almost 40 countries across the globe.
Please note: We aim to keep this table accurate and up to date. However, if you see any inaccuracies or outdated information, please email us at marketing@matomo.org
| FEATURES & CAPABILITIES |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| GENERAL | ||
| On-Premise (self-hosted) |  | |
| Cloud | | |
| EU-hosted Servers | | |
| Open-source | |  |
| Google Analytics Data Importer | | |
| Roll-Up Reporting | | |
| No Data Sampling | | |
| No Data Limits | | |
| Unsampled Reports | | |
| White Label | | |
| Real-time Reporting | | |
| Support | | |
| Annotations | | |
| PRIVACY & COMPLIANCE | ||
| GDPR Compliant | | |
| 100% Data Ownership | | |
| Advanced Privacy Controls | | |
| GDPR Manager | | |
| Cookieless Tracking Option | | |
| Consent-free Tracking | | |
| REPORTING CATEGORIES | ||
| Basic Metrics (All standard visitor metrics and reports including location, device, OS, and engagement behaviour) | | |
| Exit Pages | | |
| Website Actions (Tracking behaviour on your website including entry pages) | | |
| Channel Referrer / Campaign Tracking | | |
| Event Tracking | | |
| Goal Tracking | | |
| Advanced Segmentation | | |
| User-flows | | |
| Site Search | | |
| Built-in Tag Manager | | |
| Heatmaps | | |
| Session Recordings | | |
| A/B Testing | | |
| Form Analytics | | |
| Media Analytics | | |
| Funnels and Multi Attribution | | |
| Data Driven Attribution | | |
| Search Engine Keyword Rankings | | |
| Ecommerce Reporting | | |
| Downloads and Outlinks Tracks Automatically | | |
| Content Interactions | | |
| Log Analytics | | |
| Custom Reporting | | |
| Custom Dimensions | | |
| Intranet Analytics | | |
| INTEGRATIONS | ||
| Integration with Google Ads | | |
| Integration with Microsoft Ads and Yandex Ads | | |
| Integration with Google Search Console | | |
| Integration with the full Google Marketing Platform (Including Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360 etc. ) | | |
| Integration with Bing and Yahoo Search Consoles | | |
| TECHNICAL SETUP | ||
| Full access to raw data via API | | |
| Full access to raw data via SQL | | |
Similarities between Matomo and Piwik PRO
Matomo and Piwik PRO evolved from the same project. However, Piwik PRO employees no longer contribute to the Matomo project in any way — and our product development roadmaps are fully separate.
But because of the shared grassroots, Matomo and Piwik PRO share a host of features and use similar approaches to ethical data processing.
Comprehensive privacy controls
Matomo and Piwik PRO put consumer privacy at the helm of their operations. The two only collect first-party user data by default and offer various data anonymization techniques to prevent personally identifiable information (PII) collection.
Because of the robust privacy controls, Matomo and Piwik PRO are compliant with global privacy laws and sectoral regulations (e.g., HIPAA). Unlike Google Analytics, the most widely used web analytics solution, Matomo and Piwik PRO are fully GDPR compliant. The invalidation of the Privacy Shield by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2020 has rendered Google Analytics in breach of GDPR provisions. Based on this decision, individual data regulators have since recognised GA usage as illegal.
By choosing Matomo or Piwik PRO over Google Analytics, businesses can reduce privacy-related compliance and regulatory risks and reassure consumers of ethical data usage.
GDPR manager
Under the GDPR, data subjects (your website users) have the right to access their personal data, request personal data removal, restrict or deny automated data processing or correct inaccuracies in collected records.
Matomo helps honour such requests with a built-in GDPR-manager — a feature for obtaining consent to tracking, user data collection, processing and anonymization. Piwik PRO has a similar tool, called Consent Manager. It helps manage web tracking opt-ins, consent form generation and subsequent consent management (validation, change or withdrawal).
100% data ownership
Matomo and Piwik PRO guarantee 100% data ownership. Analytics data collected on your behalf will never be shared with any third parties. That’s in sharp contrast to Google Analytics, where user data is the actual payment for its “free” product. Google retains the right to use collected data for advertising purposes and product development without informing the end-users (you).No data sampling
To improve analytics delivery, web analytics apps (like Google) apply data sampling. Instead of analysing all available data points, the app processes a subset of data and then shows you approximated findings.
Data sampling leaves you with distorted intel, especially as your website traffic increases. With analytics solutions that sample data, you could be making critical business decisions on inaccurate data.
With Matomo and Piwik PRO, you get 100% real reporting, based on the actual visitor data collected.
In addition, Matomo updates dashboard reports every 10 seconds, while Piwik PRO refreshes session data every 30 minutes, which is close to real-time. With both, your web analytics remains the ground source of truth.
Integrations with Google products
Matomo and Piwik PRO have native integrations with Google Search Console and Google Ads. You can migrate from Google Analytics without losing connections to other Google products.
With Matomo, you can also bring all your historical GA data with you using the Google Analytics Importer plugin. That’s unlike Google Analytics 4, which presently doesn’t have backward compatibility with its predecessor – Universal Analytics. After the announced sunset date of October 1st, 2023, UA will no longer process new hits – meaning your analytics data will remain splintered across two products.
Piwik PRO launched a GA migration assistant this year. It’s still in beta mode so you have to apply for early access. The app will help you migrate all GA and Google Tag Manager settings to your Piwik PRO account. However, Piwik PRO is yet to announce whether they’ll support historic GA data imports. This makes Matomo a better Piwik PRO alternative for Google Analytics migration.
Basic metrics covered
Matomo and Piwik PRO offer a familiar set of reporting dimensions and data points including website visitor counts, traffic sources, user locations, device types and on-site behaviour tracking features. You can analyse how visitors navigate your website: which pages they land on, where they go next and what makes them convert or bounce off.
Feature-wise, both products are comparable to Google Analytics (and even better in several cases!).
Advanced analytics features
Data-driven marketers and analysts will be delighted with the following advanced features Matomo and Piwik PRO share:
- Event tracking
- Exit pages analysis
- Site search
- Downloads and outlinks tracking
- Content interactions
- Channel referrer
- Campaign tracking
- Annotations (not available in GA4)
- Funnel analytics
- Data-driven attribution
- Roll-up reporting (not available in GA)
- Ecommerce reporting
You can also create custom reports and select extra analytics dimensions to drill down into your data. Separately, you can also customise your dashboard view and apply segments to various dashboards.
Built-in tag manager
Both Matomo and Piwik PRO have a built-in tag management system (TMS).
Tags are HTML or JavaScript-based snippets you can use to integrate different first- or third-party app resources into your website – conversion tracking tools, exit surveys, remarketing pop-ups, social widgets and more.
A tag manager helps you create, organise and integrate various tags from one convenient dashboard. Instead of calling a developer, your team can generate and embed tags in several clicks.
Both Matomo and Piwik PRO ensure that all generated tags respect users’ privacy and don’t compromise data security.
Cookieless web analytics
Cookies are two-bit, lightweight data files, different apps use to identify users across websites. First-party cookies only store and exchange user data (such as username or IP address) from one website. Third-party cookies can carry this information across websites.
For years, most web analytics apps relied on third-party cookies to track user behaviours across web properties. The problem? Such tracking is invasive, breaches users’ privacy and results in creepy ad targeting. Hence, global regulators have progressively pressured Big Tech firms to curb third-party usage and switch to cookieless user tracking.
Because Google’s revenue is directly tied to the ability to collect and exchange 3P cookies with advertisers, Google Analytics 4 still relies on third-party cookies (to an extent). Matomo and Piwik PRO, on the other hand, don’t collect third-party cookies by default. Instead, each employs more ethical means for user data collection.
Both use first-party cookies by default and provide cookieless tracking as an option.
Matomo and Piwik PRO also provide ample tools for user data anonymization. Depending on the degree of privacy you want to guarantee you can, anonymize:
- IP addresses
- Geo-location information
- Session ID
- User ID (pseudonymization)
Combined these measures can help you collect essential website stats without violating users’ privacy.
Log analytics
Data-sensitive companies such as banks, healthcare institutions or public agencies can also opt for the most privacy-focused analytics option — log analytics.
In this case, the analytics app will capture data from log files stored on a web server instead of relying on an installed web tracking code. This way you can bypass tracking blockers and minimise JS usage (if that’s a security requirement). Log analytics, however, limits the amount of granularity you can collect.
Both Matomo and Piwik PRO support this option.
Intranet analytics
Intranet analytics allows tracking user behaviours on locally-hosted resources such as corporate wiki pages, internal portals or SharePoint properties.
Matomo and Piwik PRO can generate session IDs for intranet users with the same IP address, operating system and browser configurations to securely monitor how they engage with corporate resources.
Additionally, you can host intranet analytics locally. This minimises corporate data exposure beyond your premises.
Support
Matomo and Piwik PRO products come with extensive technical and product documentation. Most users can find answers to their questions via free self-service resources — guides, community forums and FAQ sections.
Matomo also offers email-based support to Cloud users. You can also check our free web analytics training series or Matomo Tag Manager video training series to learn more about our product. Separately, we offer premium support plans with managed onboarding where you get more hands-on support from a dedicated account manager.
Piwik PRO only offers email-based support on its Enterprise plan. The most expensive service tier also comes with a dedicated technical support rep, 24/7 monitoring and incident handling. As an extra service, you can also request analytics consulting, custom integrations and product training workshops. Piwik PRO also offers a community forum.
Differences between Matomo and Piwik PRO
Despite their shared past, Matomo and Piwik PRO are quite different today. The two products offer comparable privacy controls, analytics dimensions and support. But Piwik PRO is a more commercialised product with a greater focus on enterprise clients. Matomo, on the contrary, remains accessible for a wider range of companies, plus has several competitive features Piwik PRO lacks.
Open-source
Piwik PRO is no longer an open-source product. Since 2016, it has been operating as a separate business entity and fully commercialised its analytics product. Piwik PRO source code is no longer available publicly, meaning it cannot be independently audited or vetted.
Matomo still remains an open-source product with source code available on Github or on our website for Matomo On-Premise installation. Our vision is to offer a forever-free Matomo version without any restrictions on sharing, customisation or distribution.
Hosting options
Both Matomo and Piwik PRO support On-Premise and Cloud-based hosting. The crucial difference between Matomo vs Piwik PRO is that Matomo has a free self-hosting plan (On-Premise), while Piwik PRO doesn’t.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of hosting options:
| Hosting Options | | |
|---|---|---|
| On-Premise | Free (Premium features available at additional cost) | Premium |
| Public Cloud | Premium (EU infrastructure) | Freemium (EU infrastructure) |
| Private Cloud | Supported (learn more) | Premium (60+ Azure and AWS regions supported) |
Access to raw data
Since you retain 100% data ownership, you can request raw data downloads at any time. Matomo offers two options:
- API-based access. Offers an easy way to upload data to your data warehouse or business intelligence (BI) app.
- SQL-based access. With Matomo On-Premise, you can configure direct read-only access to the MySQL database for easy integration with most BI & data warehouse tools and BigQuery.
In comparison, Piwik PRO supports raw data access via API, Google BigQuery, CSV export or Tableau connector. The app doesn’t support SQL-based queries.
Search engine keyword rankings
Keyword research and optimisation are a big part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
Knowing which search terms people use to find your website and how well your rank for them in search engine results (SERPs) helps you optimise your site content to increase website traffic.
Matomo supplies comprehensive data on keyword positions in SERPs so that you can track and optimise your website performance on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Piwik PRO provides data on keyword positions from Google Search Console only.
Increase conversions on your website
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a set of tactics used for promoting desired website user behaviours such as completing account registration or making a purchase. From adjusting the call-to-action (CTA) position to minimising the number of required form fields, there are plenty of things marketers can do to drive more conversions.
Granular analytics is key to determining how various CRO tests affect your site performance. Matomo supplies you with extra intel via:
- Media Analytics – learn how your audience interacts with video and audio content.
- Form Analytics – analyse interactions with on-site forms using 50 different metrics.
- Heatmaps and Session Recordings – get a first-hand look into how visitors navigate around your website and which elements capture their attention the most (or not at all).
The above features are part of the Matomo Cloud plan and are available as paid plugins for On-Premise installations. Piwik PRO doesn’t offer comparable features.
Additionally, we offer native A/B testing (split testing) functionality. A/B tests are a quick way to verify how different versions of creative (product messaging, imagery, form placements, etc.) perform with users. With Matomo, you can create, manage, schedule and analyse various A/B experiments from a convenient dashboard.
Piwik PRO doesn’t have an out-of-the-box A/B testing functionality. But you run simple split tests using a pre-made template, provided in their Tag Manager.
Overall, Matomo has 90+ different plugins and widgets you can use for extending your web analytics capabilities. Piwik PRO doesn’t offer any plugins. To unlock extra features, you’ll have to switch to a premium Matomo Enterprise (formerly Piwik Enterprise) plan.
Integration with Microsoft Ads and Yandex Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a quick way to dial up website traffic. That said: it’s also an easy way to waste a ton of budgets unless you can analyse the campaign results.
Matomo connects with Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Yandex Ads through the Advertising Conversion Export feature. So you can avoid adding third-party advertising pixels and monitor campaign results in real-time straight from your dashboard.
Piwik PRO only integrates with Google Ads.
White label
Since Matomo remains an open-source project, we support white label product distribution. You can re-sell our analytics as your own product or embed Matomo analytics in other websites or apps. The set-up and customisation are easy thanks to our White Label plugin. You can white-label both Matomo On-Premise (premium) and Matomo Cloud (for free).
Piwik PRO supports limited white labelling only as part of its Enterprise plan. There’s no self-service plugin available. You’ll have to reach out to the Piwik PRO development team for help with a customised deployment.
Data retention policies
By default, Piwik PRO retains analytics data for 14 months. If you want to customise the data retention period, you’ll have to upgrade to a premium plan. In comparison, Matomo doesn’t have any limits on historic data collections for On-Premise installations. We retain all raw data for 24 months on our Cloud plan and report data retention isn’t time-bound.
You can also program a custom data retention period (based on your local compliance requirements). For example, France has a maximum data retention period of no more than 13 months.
Pricing
Matomo and Piwik PRO have different approaches to pricing.
With Matomo, you get forever-free access to On-Premise installations and WordPress analytics. Separately, we offer competitive Cloud plans starting at $23 (USD)/mo for 50K website hits – and going up as your traffic increases.
Piwik PRO, on the contrary, has a forever-free Cloud plan for up to 500,000 monthly actions, which are similar to Google Analytics hits. The free tier comes with Cloud hosting in the EU, a built-in tag manager, consent manager and community support.
However, if you want to self-host Piwik PRO or customise the data retention period, you’ll have to upgrade to an Enterprise plan (pricing available on demand). The Enterprise plan also includes access to a Customer Data Platform, dedicated tech support and extra customisation or add-ons.
Final thoughts
Matomo and Piwik PRO share some ancestry but took different product development vectors. Piwik PRO repositioned its offering more towards enterprise clients, seeking out a secure, robust, privacy-friendly web analytics product with managed support (and a substantial price tag).
Matomo, instead, focused on making privacy-centred web analytics available to every business regardless of its size or budget. We continue to distribute our product as an open-source to empower smaller businesses and NGOs with ethical data analytics tools. Separately, we have developed competitively-priced Cloud plans to support growing businesses and help enterprises adopt more customised analytics deployments.
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