LiteStats vs Plausible for a small website

A limited free plan or a hosted trial

LiteStats Free supports one website, 1,000 pageviews per month and 30-day rolling history. It is useful when a small site needs basic traffic reporting and fits that allowance. Collection pauses at the limit until the next month or an upgrade.

Plausible advertises a 30-day trial of its hosted service. Its official plan comparison lists Starter, Growth, Business and Enterprise, with site counts, retention and advanced features varying by plan. Check its current traffic tier and billing period rather than comparing a yearly equivalent with a monthly subscription.

Open source is a real decision point

Plausible publishes its code and offers a self-hosting route, described on its open-source page. If inspecting or operating the analytics service yourself is a requirement, include that in your evaluation. LiteStats is a hosted product and does not offer an open-source, self-hosted edition.

Check the advanced reports you rely on

Plausible’s documentation includes Search Console reporting, Google Analytics imports, team access, events, APIs and funnel analysis. Availability varies by plan. These are useful reasons to review its feature matrix in detail.

LiteStats Starter includes custom events, up to three sites and 500 successful MCP tool calls per calendar month. Pro supports up to ten sites, campaign reports, CSV/JSON export, document-scoped funnels and 1,000 MCP calls. The quota is shared across connections and sites. LiteStats has no Search Console integration or GA4 history importer.

Compare metric definitions, then script weight

LiteStats holds a random page-load identifier in memory. Full navigation or reload creates a new identifier; SPA routes can share it. Its reports estimate visits rather than unique people. Document-scoped funnels cannot follow someone across independent page loads.

Check how each product defines visits and conversions before comparing totals. For performance, use the published script benchmark as a dated transfer-size experiment, then measure your own pages. Script size alone does not establish a Core Web Vitals result.

When to put LiteStats on your shortlist

Try LiteStats if a small site fits the Free allowance, you want its focused dashboard, or its read-only MCP workflow suits your day-to-day analysis. Keep Plausible on the shortlist if its open-source option, import support or broader reporting integrations are requirements. Use the demos and your own test visits to decide.

Vendor sources reviewed on 18 October 2026. Features and plans can change; use the linked sources for current terms.