Wholetally compared with GA4, Simple Analytics, Plausible and Fathom
Every claim about another product links to the page that says it. We read them all on 4 November 2026. Wholetally is new: a few items in its column are still being built.
Checked Nov 2026. Products change: if you spot something out of date, tell us and we’ll fix it. “Not found” means we looked in their docs and didn’t find it, not that it can’t be done.
| Question | Wholetally30-day free trial | Google Analytics 4 | Simple Analytics | Plausible | Fathom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cookies on your visitors’ devices | None. No cookies, no localStorage or sessionStorage. | YesYes: _ga and _ga_<id>, 2 years by default.Analytics Help: Google Analytics cookie usage on websites | NoNone.Simple Analytics docs: What we collect | NoNone.Plausible: Data policy | NoNo analytics cookies.Fathom: Data |
| How a unique visitor is counted | By referrer: a visit from another site or with no referrer is unique. An optional daily-rotating hash mode is off by default. | A client ID stored in the _ga cookie.Analytics Help: Google Analytics cookie usage on websites | By referrer. They count unique pageviews, not people.Simple Analytics docs: Unique visits | A hash of a daily salt, domain, IP and user agent. The salt is deleted every 24 hours.Plausible: Data policy | A SHA-256 signature of IP, user agent, site and a daily salt.Fathom: Data |
| Visitors who decline consent | The script needs no cookies or device storage. Whether you need a banner depends on your country and setup: check with your legal advisor. | PartlyBasic consent mode sends nothing. Advanced mode sends cookieless pings; modelling needs 1,000+ events a day for 7 days.Google Tag Platform: Consent mode overviewAnalytics Help: Behavioral modeling for consent mode | Cookieless script; same legal caveat applies.Simple Analytics docs: What we collect | Cookieless script; same legal caveat applies.Plausible: Data policy | Cookieless script; same legal caveat applies.Fathom: Data |
| Serve the script from your own domain | Yes: guides for Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, Next.js and Nginx. | YesYes, with a server-side Tag Manager container on your domain.Server-side Tag Manager: custom domain | YesYes: a proxy guide, and a custom subdomain on some plans.Simple Analytics docs: Proxy | YesYes: self-hosted proxy guides; a managed proxy on Enterprise.Plausible docs: Proxy introduction | Not foundNot found in their docs; the documented script loads from cdn.usefathom.com.Fathom docs: Advanced script settingsFathom docs: Features FAQ |
| Counts page loads with no JavaScript | Yes: the edge collector counts every HTML response, deduplicated against script hits. | NoNo. The Measurement Protocol adds to the tag, it doesn’t replace it.Measurement Protocol (Google Analytics 4) | PartlyPartly: a noscript pixel, and an events API you call from your server.Simple Analytics docs: Without JavaScriptSimple Analytics docs: Server-side events | PartlyPartly: an Events API you call from your server.Plausible docs: Events API | Not foundNot found: the API has no endpoint for sending pageviews.Fathom: API reference (llms.txt) |
| AI crawler report | Yes: per crawler, per page, at the edge. Kept out of visitor numbers. | NoNo. Known bots are excluded and you can’t see how many.Analytics Help: Known bot-traffic exclusion | PartlyBots are hidden from the dashboard; you can download them.Simple Analytics docs: Bots | Not foundNot found in their docs or changelog. Bots are filtered out.Plausible: Changelog | PartlyAI scrapers are blocked as bots; the breakdown has no per-crawler view.Fathom docs: Bot detection |
| AI assistants as a referral channel | Yes, including utm_source=chatgpt.com. | YesYes: an AI Assistant channel.Analytics Help: Default channel group | Not foundNot found in their docs.Simple Analytics: Features | YesYes: an AI Assistants channel (June 2026).Plausible: Changelog | YesYes: an AI tab in Referrers (October 2026).Fathom changelog: AI tab (Oct 2026) |
| Revenue by source | Yes: Stripe webhooks (test mode until launch). Refunds subtract. Stripe (incl. iDEAL). | YesYes: purchase events with value and currency.GA4: Measure ecommerce | Not foundNot found in their docs.Simple Analytics: Features | YesYes: revenue goals, on the Business plan.Plausible docs: Ecommerce revenue tracking | PartlyEvent values in cents; no Stripe integration found.Fathom docs: Ecommerce conversions |
| MCP server for AI agents | Yes: built in, read-only tools plus add_site. | YesYes: a read-only MCP server on Google Analytics’ GitHub.googleanalytics/google-analytics-mcp on GitHub | Not foundNot found. There’s an in-app AI chat that sends data to OpenAI with your consent.Simple Analytics docs: APISimple Analytics docs: AI chat | PartlyA community-built server (by Sentry), not by Plausible.Plausible docs: Data accessgetsentry/plausible-mcp on GitHub | Not foundNot found in their API reference.Fathom: API reference (llms.txt) |
| Where the data is | Planned: EU only. | EU traffic is collected on EU servers, then sent on to Google’s data centres for processing.Analytics Help: EU-focused data and privacy | EU, mainly the Netherlands.Simple Analytics: Pricing (FAQ) | EU. Visitor data does not leave the EU.Plausible: Data policy | EU traffic processed in the EU; anonymised analytics stored in the US.Fathom: EU data isolation |
| Open source | The script, under MIT. | The MCP server is open source; GA4 itself is not.googleanalytics/google-analytics-mcp on GitHub | The scripts, under MIT.simpleanalytics/scripts on GitHub | The whole product, under AGPLv3.Plausible: Open source | Not foundNot stated on the pages we read. |
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