Amplitude vs Matomo

Additional reporting capabilities

There’s one notable area where Matomo Web Analytics and Amplitude differ — despite having a relatively similar range of core analytics features:

Amplitude focuses on product analytics, specifically providing insights into user behaviour within digital products like websites and apps. That’s not to say that businesses can’t use Amplitude for reporting and basic website analytics. But it lacks the reporting capabilities of more specialised web analytics tools like Matomo.

As a more comprehensive solution, Matomo has a broader range of features and advanced analytics capabilities, including:

• Content tracking with insights into content performance, including impressions and interactions
• Form analytics with detailed reports into how visitors interact with forms
• Media analytics with insights into how visitors interact with media, namely video and audio content
• Heatmap analytics with insights into clicks, mouse movements and scrolls on a page
• SEO Web Vitals for website performance monitoring, including page speed and loading
• Visits log with a record of all website visits and details about individual user sessions

Ease of GDPR compliance

Matomo has a built-in GDPR Manager — which isn’t available on Amplitude.

These integrated GDPR tools guarantee that data subjects — in this case, website visitors — can exercise their right to access, delete or request a copy of their data and withdraw consent. To ensure full compliance with the EU’s privacy regulations, Matomo includes the following:

• Features for exporting and deletion of user data
• Data anonymisation features, including anonymisation of visitors’ IP addresses and geolocation
• Automatic deletion or anonymisation of historical data
• Support for “Do Not Track” preferences

Given its extent of control, Matomo is a better option for organisations in banking, fintech, healthcare, and other industries with strict data privacy requirements.

Heatmap analytics

While both platforms support monitoring and visualising digital user experiences, one area where Matomo has an advantage is the Heatmaps feature — which Amplitude doesn’t currently offer.

In tandem, Heatmap Analytics and Session Recordings provide a more comprehensive view of how visitors navigate and interact with a website across desktop and mobile devices.

Ease of use

When switching to new analytics software, marketing teams and website owners should also consider the time and resources required for implementation and training. Teams will need to learn how to navigate the user interface (UI) and fully utilise the tool’s features.

Amplitude’s user interface is less than intuitive, especially compared to other popular analytics solutions. One common community critique is that it feels cluttered. The various menus and settings make it harder to navigate and contribute to a steep learning curve.

Matomo Cloud strikes a balance between user-friendliness and a comprehensive range of features. Its simple, easy-to-navigate interface doesn’t feel as cluttered.

Open-source platform

Matomo Analytics is an open-source platform under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — a copyleft license that guarantees freedom to use, share and change all software versions.

That’s one of the main reasons Matomo can provide flexibility users can’t get with Amplitude Analytics. With hundreds of customisation options and configurations, businesses can adapt Matomo to their specific needs and industry requirements instead of being limited by default settings.

Beyond flexibility, another advantage of the source code being freely available on GitHub, with an active community of developers worldwide, is that Matomo is considerably more reliable and secure.

Deployment options

When it comes to deployment, Amplitude offers only a Cloud hosting option. Matomo Analytics, on the other hand, allows users to choose between Matomo Cloud and Matomo On-Premise, depending on their needs. It supports on-premise deployment and a Cloud version, with the option to switch between the two at any point.

With Matomo’s self-hosted digital analytics platform, users have access to the same range of features, 100% data ownership and the same level of user privacy they’d get with Matomo’s Cloud hosting service. The option to self-host is a huge advantage for businesses handling sensitive data or adhering to strict privacy policies. It eliminates any data limits and gives them complete control over where the data is stored.

It’s worth noting that both versions also support white labelling.

Data ownership

While Amplitude has implemented measures to protect data, users don’t have the same control over data storage and processing as they do with Matomo. Matomo remains one of the few digital analytics platforms that ensures 100% data ownership.

Matomo only uses your data for analytics and will never share it with (or sell it to) third parties. Since they have complete control over data, businesses that choose Matomo Web Analytics do not have to display cookie consent banners.

Pricing plans: Matomo vs Amplitude

Amplitude pricing

Amplitude follows a freemium model with tiered pricing. Users can choose between a free Starter plan and three additional tiers.

The free plan supports up to 50,000 monthly tracked users (MTU) and includes basic analytics features and starter templates, making it suitable for individuals.

Here’s an overview of Amplitude’s pricing structure:

• Plus plan: Supports tracking between 1,000 and 300,000 users per month. Includes unlimited product analytics, custom events, behavioural cohorts, and limited monitoring and alerts.
• Growth plan: Includes advanced behavioural analysis, anomaly detection, A/B testing, and custom metric tracking for business KPIs.
• Enterprise plan: Provides cross-product analysis, custom predictive audiences, advanced permissions, and granular access controls.

Amplitude’s Growth and Enterprise plans don’t have public pricing; the Plus plan starts at $49 per month (paid annually).

Matomo pricing

Matomo publicly discloses its prices, giving it an advantage in transparency. Compared to the cost of Amplitude’s Plus plan, Matomo is more affordable.

Here’s an overview of Matomo’s pricing plans:

• Business plan: Starts at €22 for up to 50,000 hits per month (e.g., tracked page views, events, downloads).
• Enterprise plan: Custom pricing with additional features like SEO Web Vitals and Crash Analytics.

While Matomo doesn’t have a free plan for the Cloud version, it offers a 21-day free trial. The On-Premise solution is free to download and install.

Matomo is a complete web analytics solution

Amplitude is a powerful tool for understanding user behaviour within digital products. However, for web and mobile analytics, Matomo has the edge.