head to head · open source
Fathom Lite vs OpenWebAnalytics
Fathom Lite has 8,020 GitHub stars, 383 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. OpenWebAnalytics has 2,689 stars, 488 forks, 115 open issues and last shipped today. Fathom Lite leads on adoption by 198% (8,020 vs 2,689 stars). Fathom Lite is written in Go under MIT; OpenWebAnalytics is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. Fathom Lite has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, OpenWebAnalytics 18%. OpenWebAnalytics was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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.
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Side by side
| Fathom Lite | OpenWebAnalytics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.0K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-03-18 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 383 | ⑂ 488 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Fathom Lite if
- You weight community size — 8.0K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenWebAnalytics if
- You want the OpenWebAnalytics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and OpenWebAnalytics fits your workflow better
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 →
About OpenWebAnalytics
Open Web Analytics is an open source web analytics server written in PHP and released under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later. It ships the OWA Server together with a first party JavaScript tracking client that can be added to web pages, and it is positioned by its maintainers as an alternative to commercial analytics tools such as Google Analytics. The project lives in the PHP ecosystem and is distributed through its GitHub repository, with a WordPress integration plugin and a PHP SDK maintained alongside it for sites and applications that want tracking wired in without hand rolling the client.…
read the full OpenWebAnalytics overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Fathom Lite or OpenWebAnalytics more popular?
Fathom Lite has 8,020 GitHub stars and OpenWebAnalytics has 2,689. Fathom Lite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Fathom Lite and OpenWebAnalytics free?
Both are open source. Fathom Lite is licensed under MIT and OpenWebAnalytics under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Fathom Lite and OpenWebAnalytics?
Fathom Lite is written in Go and OpenWebAnalytics in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Fathom Lite or OpenWebAnalytics?
Choose Fathom Lite if you want the larger community (8,020 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenWebAnalytics if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.