head to head · open source
Plausible vs Fathom Lite
Plausible has 29,151 GitHub stars, 1,868 forks, 60 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Fathom Lite has 8,020 stars, 383 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Plausible leads on adoption by 263% (29,151 vs 8,020 stars). Plausible is written in Elixir under AGPL-3.0; Fathom Lite is written in Go under MIT. Plausible has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Fathom Lite 5%. Plausible was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (analytics, google-analytics, privacy), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Plausible | Fathom Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 8.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Elixir | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-03-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 383 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Plausible if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Fathom Lite if
- You want the Fathom Lite feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Fathom Lite fits your workflow better
About Plausible
Plausible Analytics is an open source, privacy first web analytics tool — a lightweight, cookie free alternative to Google Analytics — for teams that want traffic and conversion insights without collecting personal data, available as a managed cloud service or a self hosted community edition under the AGPL 3.0 licence.
read the full Plausible overview →
About Fathom Lite
Fathom Lite is the original open source, self hosted edition of Fathom Analytics — a simple, privacy focused website analytics tool written in Go with a Preact dashboard, released under the MIT licence for people who want to run their own analytics server rather than buy a hosted service.
read the full Fathom Lite overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Web & Product Analytics projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Web & Product Analytics field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Plausible or Fathom Lite more popular?
Plausible has 29,151 GitHub stars and Fathom Lite has 8,020. Plausible has the larger community by that measure.
Are Plausible and Fathom Lite free?
Both are open source. Plausible is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Fathom Lite under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Plausible and Fathom Lite?
Plausible is written in Elixir and Fathom Lite in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Plausible or Fathom Lite?
Choose Plausible if you want the larger community (29,151 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Fathom Lite if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.