Mirage Analytics vs Plausible: The 2026 Comparison
Mirage Analytics vs Plausible: Rich Features or Absolute Lightness?
Two privacy-respecting analytics tools. Two radically different visions of what “understanding your users” means.
On one side, Plausible Analytics: a sub-1 KB script, a clean dashboard, essential metrics. On the other, Mirage Analytics: session replay, heatmaps, error monitoring, conversion tracking — all without third-party cookies or persistent trackers.
The question is not which is “better.” The question is: what do you actually need to make better decisions?
This detailed comparison will help you choose the tool suited to your context — in full transparency about the strengths and limitations of each.
The Plausible Approach: The Beauty of Minimalism
Plausible was born in 2019 from a legitimate frustration: Google Analytics is too heavy, too intrusive, too complex for the majority of sites. Plausible’s response was radical — a script of less than 1 KB (75 times lighter than Google Analytics), zero cookies, a single dashboard that fits on one screen.
This is a deliberate design choice, not a technical limitation. Plausible deliberately does not offer session replay, heatmaps, or error monitoring. The goal is to answer a simple question: how many people visit my site, where do they come from, and what do they look at?
For many sites — blogs, showcase sites, landing pages — that is sufficient. And Plausible excels at this mission: the user experience is remarkable, the dashboard is immediately readable, and the script’s lightness has a measurably positive impact on Core Web Vitals.
The Plausible team has also done admirable transparency work. Their data policy is public, their code is open (AGPL), and their communication is clear about what the tool does and does not do. In an often opaque analytics ecosystem, this is refreshing.
Plausible’s Concrete Strengths
- Ultra-light script: less than 1 KB, near-instant loading, no perceptible performance impact
- Intuitive dashboard: viewable in 30 seconds, no training needed, accessible to the entire team
- Native UTM parsing: automatic decomposition of source, medium, campaign, content, and term parameters
- Custom properties (Business plan): ability to track custom events with associated properties
- Complete API: Stats API and Sites API for programmatic data extraction
- Community Edition: self-hosted version available for organizations that want to host themselves
- Zero cookies: no cookies at all, not just “no third-party cookies” — even more radical than most alternatives
The Mirage Analytics Approach: Understanding the “Why”
DPLIANCE designed Mirage Analytics with a different conviction: numbers alone are not enough. Knowing that 500 people visited your product page does not tell you why 480 of them left without converting.
That is where session replay, heatmaps, and error monitoring change the game. These are not “nice to have” — they are the tools that transform quantitative data into qualitative understanding.
And all of this, without third-party cookies, without persistent trackers, with data hosted in France on Scaleway.
A Concrete Example
Imagine you are launching a redesign of your pricing page. With Plausible, you will see that traffic to this page is 2,000 visitors per month, with a 65% bounce rate. That is useful data, but it does not tell you much about what to improve.
With Mirage Analytics, you can:
- Replay sessions of visitors who left the page without clicking a CTA: do they scroll to the bottom? Do they hesitate between two plans? Do they spend time on the FAQ or ignore it?
- View the click heatmap: which elements attract clicks? Are there “false clicks” on non-clickable elements (signaling UX confusion)?
- Analyze the scroll heatmap: how far do your visitors scroll? If 70% never see your most popular offer at the bottom of the page, the problem is identified
- Detect JS errors: does a JavaScript bug prevent the “Free trial” button from working on certain browsers?
This level of understanding is simply impossible with an aggregated metrics tool, however elegant it may be.
Detailed Comparison Table
| Criterion | Mirage Analytics | Plausible Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Script size | Standard script (rrweb included) | < 1 KB |
| Session replay | Native (rrweb) | No |
| Click + scroll heatmaps | Included | No |
| JS error monitoring | Included | No |
| Conversion tracking | Multi-type (Purchase, Initiate, Prospect) + CSS price tracking | Basic goals + revenue tracking |
| Visual funnels | No | No (Business plan only, basic) |
| Dashboard | Detailed (analytics + replay + heatmaps + errors) | Clean, single page |
| Custom properties | No | Yes (Business plan) |
| API | In development | Stats API + Sites API |
| UTM parsing | No (in development) | Yes |
| CSV export | No (in development) | Not natively (API) |
| Cookies | Zero third-party cookies, zero persistent trackers | Zero cookies |
| Open source | No (proprietary SaaS) | Partially (AGPL, open UI code) |
| Self-hosted | No | Yes (Community Edition) |
| Cloud hosting | Scaleway, France | Hetzner, Germany (EU) |
| CDN | N/A | Bunny (Slovenia, EU) |
| Price | From 19 EUR excl. tax/month | From 9 EUR/month (10,000 pageviews) |
| CNIL-exempt | Yes (zero cookies, zero persistent trackers) | Yes (zero cookies, zero personal data) |
Sources: Plausible Data Policy, Plausible Pricing, Plausible Privacy Policy
What Plausible Does Not Do (and Owns It)
This is not about criticizing Plausible for what it is not. The Plausible team is transparent about its positioning. But it is important to understand what this concretely means for your ability to optimize your site.
No Session Replay
You will never see how a user navigates your site. Impossible to detect a confusing form, a misplaced button, or a purchase journey that stalls at a specific step. This is a design choice: Plausible considers replay inherently intrusive.
This positioning is respectable, but it has practical consequences. If a user abandons your contact form at step 3 of 4, Plausible will tell you the page was viewed but not that the “postal code” field is problematic on mobile. You will have the symptoms (low completion rate) but not the diagnosis (undersized field, numeric keyboard not triggered, confusing validation error).
No Heatmaps
No visualization of click zones or scroll depth. You know a page was viewed 1,000 times, but not how visitors interact with the page content. Does your main CTA receive clicks? Is your content at the bottom of the page seen by anyone? Plausible cannot answer these questions.
For simple content sites (blogs, informational showcase sites), this is not necessarily a problem. But for e-commerce sites, SaaS, pricing pages, or conversion landing pages, heatmaps are often the tool that makes the difference between a redesign based on intuitions and one based on data.
No Error Monitoring
If a JavaScript error prevents your users from completing a purchase, Plausible will not tell you. You will need an additional tool (Sentry, LogRocket, Bugsnag, etc.) — adding another script, another bill, and another dashboard.
JavaScript error monitoring is often underestimated. Yet silent JS errors are one of the most frequent causes of conversion loss: a button that stops responding, a form that does not submit, a slider that freezes. These bugs can affect a specific browser, a particular mobile device, or only manifest under certain conditions — making them nearly impossible to detect through manual testing.
What Mirage Analytics Does Not Do (and Owns It Too)
Transparency must go both ways. Here are Mirage Analytics’ concrete limitations compared to Plausible.
Heavier Script
The integration of session replay (via rrweb) means a client-side script significantly heavier than Plausible’s sub-1 KB. For sites where every kilobyte counts (ultra-optimized blogs, high mobile traffic on slow networks, projects where Lighthouse Performance Score is a strategic KPI), this is a tradeoff to evaluate.
However, context matters: Mirage Analytics’ script size remains smaller than most behavioral analytics tools on the market (Hotjar, FullStory, Contentsquare). And loading is asynchronous, limiting impact on First Contentful Paint.
No UTM Parsing
Mirage Analytics does not yet decompose your campaign UTM parameters. This feature is in development, but if marketing campaign tracking is central to you — if you regularly launch email campaigns, social ads, or sponsored content with UTM tags — this is a real limitation to consider.
No CSV Export
Data export is not yet available (in development). If you need to leverage your analytics data in third-party tools (Google Sheets, Excel, Looker Studio, a data warehouse), this is a temporary but significant barrier for teams accustomed to working with exported data.
No Self-Hosting
Unlike Plausible’s Community Edition, Mirage Analytics does not offer a self-hosted version. It is a managed SaaS, hosted on Scaleway in France. For organizations with strict self-hosting policies (certain government departments, certain financial institutions), this is an eliminating criterion.
No Custom Properties
Plausible (Business plan) allows sending custom events with associated properties — for example, tracking a button click with the color of the A/B test variant. Mirage Analytics does not yet offer this granularity in event tracking.
The Price Question
Plausible starts at 9 EUR/month for 10,000 monthly pageviews. This is the Starter plan, with a single site and essential features.
The Growth plan (14 EUR/month) adds team access and multi-site (3 sites). The Business plan, needed for custom properties and basic funnels, is roughly double the Starter.
Mirage Analytics starts at 19 EUR excl. tax/month. The 10 EUR/month difference covers access to session replay, heatmaps, error monitoring, and advanced conversion tracking — features that with Plausible would require adding third-party tools (Hotjar, FullStory, Sentry) at far higher costs.
The Real Calculation: Complete Stack Cost
If you compare Plausible alone vs Mirage alone, Plausible is cheaper. But if you need to understand user behavior in depth, the relevant comparison is the complete stack:
| Stack | Estimated monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Plausible Starter | 9 EUR/month |
| Plausible + Hotjar (Basic) | 9 + 32 = 41 EUR/month |
| Plausible + Hotjar + Sentry | 9 + 32 + 26 = 67 EUR/month |
| Mirage Analytics | 19 EUR excl. tax/month |
At comparable functionality (analytics + replay + heatmaps + error monitoring), Mirage Analytics is the most economical and simplest option to manage. You go from a fragmented stack with three different dashboards, three scripts to maintain, and three invoices to track, to a single, coherent product.
Hosting and Sovereignty
Both tools take European sovereignty seriously, but with important nuances.
Plausible hosts data on Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany, with a CDN via Bunny (Slovenia) and databases at UpCloud (Finland). Everything is European, ISO 27001 certified via Hetzner, and powered by 100% renewable energy. It is a solid and environmentally responsible infrastructure, GDPR-compliant.
Mirage Analytics hosts data on Scaleway in France. Scaleway is a French cloud infrastructure player, ISO 27001 and HDS (Health Data Hosting) certified, and undergoing SecNumCloud qualification from ANSSI — the highest level of cloud security certification issued in France.
For organizations subject to strictly French sovereignty requirements (public sector, healthcare, defense, operators of vital importance), Scaleway hosting is a tangible advantage. The ongoing SecNumCloud qualification is a strong signal for CISOs and DPOs who need to justify subcontractor choices to their management or regulator.
For organizations whose requirement is limited to “data in Europe,” both solutions are suitable.
Who Should Choose What?
Choose Plausible if:
- Your site is a blog, showcase site, or landing page and you only need basic metrics (visitors, page views, traffic sources, geolocation)
- Script lightness (< 1 KB) is an absolute priority for performance — every millisecond counts for your Lighthouse Score
- You want a minimalist dashboard viewable in 30 seconds, with no learning curve
- You do not need to understand individual user behavior — aggregated metrics suffice for your decisions
- Budget is tight and basic features are enough — 9 EUR/month is hard to beat
- You want the ability to self-host your analytics via the Community Edition
- UTM parsing is essential for your marketing campaigns
Choose Mirage Analytics if:
- You have an e-commerce site, SaaS, or web application and need to understand user journeys in depth
- Session replay is essential for identifying friction points, form abandonments, unexpected behaviors
- Heatmaps help you optimize conversion pages — understanding where users click and how far they scroll changes your design decisions
- Integrated JavaScript error monitoring replaces an additional tool (Sentry, LogRocket) and spares you a fragmented stack
- You prefer a single tool with a single dashboard rather than a fragmented analytics stack across three or four services
- Sovereign hosting in France is a regulatory criterion or strategic choice for your organization
- You want multi-type conversion tracking (Purchase, Initiate, Prospect) with dynamic price tracking
Discover the features of Mirage Analytics or explore our full range of sovereign solutions.
FAQ
Is Plausible open source?
Partially. Plausible’s interface code is published under the AGPL license on GitHub, but the Cloud service is proprietary. Plausible offers a self-hostable Community Edition for users who want full infrastructure control. Mirage Analytics is a proprietary SaaS with no self-hosted version, hosted exclusively on Scaleway in France.
Does Plausible offer heatmaps or session replay?
No. Plausible offers neither heatmaps, nor session replay, nor error monitoring. This is a deliberate choice to maintain an ultra-light script (< 1 KB) and stay true to its minimalist philosophy. If you need these features, you must add third-party tools like Hotjar or FullStory, which increases cost, complexity, and the number of client-side scripts loaded.
Is Mirage Analytics heavier than Plausible?
Yes, necessarily. Integrating session replay (rrweb) and heatmaps means a script heavier than Plausible’s sub-1 KB. This is the tradeoff for having rich behavioral data without an additional tool. Loading is asynchronous to limit Core Web Vitals impact, but total script weight remains higher than Plausible’s.
Are both tools exempt from CNIL consent requirements?
Yes. Plausible drops no cookies and collects no personal data. Mirage Analytics operates without third-party cookies or persistent trackers, with IP geolocation (IP not stored). Both approaches allow dispensing with a consent banner for analytics, in accordance with CNIL (French data protection authority) recommendations on the consent exemption for audience measurement.
Can Mirage Analytics and Plausible be used in parallel?
Technically yes, but it is rarely necessary. If your main need is basic metric tracking AND user behavior understanding, Mirage Analytics covers both. Plausible adds nothing that Mirage does not already do, aside from script lightness and UTM parsing (for now). The only relevant case is if you want a public statistics dashboard via Plausible while using Mirage Analytics internally for behavioral analysis.
How long does it take to migrate from Plausible to Mirage Analytics?
The technical migration is quick: just replace the Plausible script with the Mirage Analytics script. Allow 15 to 30 minutes for integration, then 2 to 4 weeks of recommended parallel operation to validate data consistency. Plausible’s historical data is not transferable, but since both tools are consent-exempt, you will have complete data from the first minute.
This article was updated on March 24, 2026. Pricing and feature information is based on the official websites of Plausible Analytics and Mirage Analytics product data.