Counter review
A free, focused option for cookie-free visitor counting and basic site insights.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Nov 2026
Counter is a privacy-focused web analytics service for website owners who need basic visitor insights without cookies, logging, or IP-address fingerprinting. Its browser tracking script and dashboard cover daily unique visitors, referrals, geographic information, page visits, and aggregated statistics for devices, browsers, operating systems, screen sizes, and languages. Counter is available as a hosted service and can also be self-hosted from its AGPL-licensed source code, making it suitable for privacy-conscious teams that want control over deployment and data handling.
The product’s strongest fit is its narrow, clear measurement scope. Historical daily archives persist permanently, while recent hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly statistics are deleted after a period. Official integration guidance covers WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and Backdrop CMS, giving website owners several established publishing and commerce platforms to work with. The hosted service uses a pay-when-ready model and includes a free service, while self-hosting provides another route for organizations that prefer to operate the software themselves.
Counter should appeal to small website owners and teams that mainly need visitor counts, referrers, geography, page visits, and basic device or browser reporting. It is less suitable for product analytics or marketing measurement that depends on verified events, funnels, ecommerce reporting, APIs, or mobile support. Buyers who need those capabilities should choose a broader analytics platform instead. Counter’s value is in privacy-focused, aggregated web measurement rather than a wide analytics feature set.
Questions about Counter
What does Counter run on? Web. It runs in the cloud and self-hosted.
What does Counter integrate with? 6 integrations, including WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix and Weebly.
Who is Counter built for? Solo users and small businesses (our editorial estimate).
Counter pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Cookie-free aggregated tracking without logging or IP fingerprinting
- Covers visitors, referrals, geography, pages, devices, and browsers
- Free open-source self-hosting under an AGPL license
- Where it doesn't
- No verified events, funnels, ecommerce tracking, or APIs
- No mobile support is listed
- Recent hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly data has limited retention
Counter fact sheet, pricing and score →
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