What is GoatCounter best at?

Being a free, tiny, radically private pageview counter. There are no cookies or localStorage, IP addresses are never stored, and the whole project is open source and funded by donations rather than ads or investors. Pulsetic asks a different question: not how many people came, but how fast the website was for them and whether it was up at all.

How much does GoatCounter cost?

Nothing. GoatCounter is entirely free, funded through GitHub Sponsors, with fair-use limits on the hosted service and self-hosting encouraged for heavy use. There are no paid tiers at all. Pulsetic also has a free plan with 10 monitors, status pages and 1,000 RUM pageviews a month, with paid plans from $9 when you need more.

Does GoatCounter measure page speed or Core Web Vitals?

No, and that is by design: GoatCounter is a deliberately minimal pageview counter, not a performance tool. There are no load times, no Core Web Vitals, no error tracking and no realtime view. Pulsetic records LCP, CLS, INP, FCP and load time percentiles (p50, p75, p95) from real visits.

Can GoatCounter tell me when my website is down?

No. GoatCounter has no uptime monitoring, no alerting and no status pages, and because its dashboard updates in batches rather than realtime, even a traffic drop takes a while to show. Pulsetic checks your website as often as every 30 seconds from up to 15 regions. It alerts you by email, webhook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, SMS, WhatsApp or phone call.

Is Pulsetic a drop-in replacement for GoatCounter?

No. Pulsetic does not count unique visitors and does not track events, goals, funnels or UTM campaigns. If GoatCounter is doing the counting job for you, keep it; it is excellent at that job. Both scripts are tiny and cookieless, so they coexist fine: GoatCounter for traffic, Pulsetic for performance and uptime.

Does Pulsetic's tracking script use cookies?

No. Like GoatCounter, Pulsetic sets no cookies and writes nothing to localStorage. There is no client-side visitor identifier at all, because Pulsetic does not need to count unique visitors. The script sends up to two small performance beacons per pageview, with no sampling.

What does Pulsetic cost when GoatCounter is free?

Honest answer: Pulsetic has a real free plan too, with 1,000 RUM pageviews a month, 10 monitors and status pages, commercial use allowed. Pulsetic also covers what a free counter was never meant to provide: uptime monitoring at scale, faster checks, longer retention and human support, and the pricing page lists which plans include each. And if GoatCounter covers everything you need, supporting it with a donation is money well spent.

When should I add or switch to Pulsetic?

When the questions change: you care less about how many people came and more about why the website felt slow, whether Core Web Vitals pass, and who tells you when it goes down. Pulsetic answers those from its free plan up. Most GoatCounter users would add Pulsetic rather than switch, since the two measure different things and both scripts stay out of the way.

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Pulsetic vs GoatCounter: the breakdown

Credit where due: GoatCounter is one of the most principled projects in web analytics. It is entirely free, funded by donations rather than ads or investors, there are no cookies and no localStorage, and the whole thing is open source, with self-hosting encouraged for heavy use.

GoatCounter set out to count visits, and it deliberately stops there. There is no performance data: no load times, no Core Web Vitals, no realtime view. And nothing watches your website from outside: no uptime checks, no alerts, no status page. Those are scope decisions, not failures; it is simply a different job.

That’s why people searching for a GoatCounter alternative land on Pulsetic: the same tiny, cookieless approach, pointed at how the website felt. It measures LCP, CLS, INP and FCP plus load times at p50, p75 and p95 from real visits, checks uptime as often as every 30 seconds from up to 15 regions, and includes status pages.

Let’s compare the two.

Measure how the website felt

GoatCounter tells you how many people came; it never set out to measure load times, vitals or anything in realtime. Pulsetic records LCP, CLS, INP and FCP, plus load times at p50, p75 and p95, from real visits on every plan.
Someone watching from outside

A pageview counter only sees visitors who arrive. Pulsetic checks your website from outside and alerts you once a second region confirms it is down, by email, webhook, Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, SMS, WhatsApp or phone call. Checks run as often as every 30 seconds, from up to 15 regions.
A proper on-call story

Pulsetic comes with status pages, subscriber emails and incident updates, with human support behind them. GoatCounter is a volunteer project sustained by donations; supporting it is worthwhile, but it is not an on-call system.

“Pulsetic has transformed my website monitoring experience with its intuitive interface and real-time tracking capabilities. I love how effortlessly I can keep tabs on my site’s performance, ensuring everything runs smoothly!”
Koen Kanters

Senior Software Engineer at ASML

Pricing: Pulsetic vs GoatCounter

Free plans

GoatCounter is entirely free, with fair-use limits and self-hosting encouraged for heavy use. Pulsetic’s free plan covers 10 monitors, status pages and 1,000 RUM pageviews a month, commercial use allowed.
Paid plans

GoatCounter has no paid tiers; you support it through GitHub Sponsors. Pulsetic’s alternative to GoatCounter starts at $9 for 10,000 RUM pageviews plus 10 uptime monitors.
What paid buys

With GoatCounter there is nothing to buy: support happens over GitHub issues and email, as a donation-funded project allows. Pulsetic’s subscriptions fund human support, longer RUM retention and monitoring at scale.

Feature comparison

GoatCounter

Free plan / trial

Free Plan

Free (donation-funded)

Price (USD/mo)

$9

Free (donation)

Monitoring

Check time

30 sec (Team plan)

n/a

Real User Monitoring (RUM)

✕

Multi-step browser checks

✕

Choice of regional data centers

n/a

SSL monitoring

✕

Keyword monitoring

✕

Ping / ICMP monitoring

✕

Port monitoring

✕

TCP monitoring

✕

Domain monitoring

✕

Cron / heartbeat monitoring

✕

Custom HTTP requests

✕

Customized responses

✕

Downtime screenshots

✕

Chart annotations

✕

API

Built-in AI assistant (chat)

✕

MCP server

✕

n8n integration

✕

Cloudflare IP allowlisting

n/a

Monitoring data retention

3 mo to 5 yr by plan

n/a

Status Pages

Incident updates

✕

Status updates for subscribers via email

✕

Maintenance windows

✕

Status badges

✕

Customized domain

✕

Customized colors

✕

Customized logo

✕

Remove branding

✕

Customized status page layout

✕

CSS customization

✕

Custom email sender & templates

✕

AI writing assistant

✕

Page translations

✕

Password-protected status page

✕

SSO-protected status page

✕

Notifications

Email alerts

✕

SMS alerts

✕

Phone call alerts

✕

WhatsApp alerts

✕

Slack alerts

✕

MS teams alerts

✕

Discord alerts

✕

Telegram alerts

✕

Mattermost alerts

✕

Webhooks alerts

✕

Zapier alerts

✕

Twilio alerts

✕

Datadog integration

✕

Integration with SIGNL4

✕

Analytics

See response times

n/a

Response time by location

n/a

Custom date range reports

Scheduled email reports

Not documented

Web Analytics & RUM

Cookieless tracking

Core Web Vitals (field data)

✕

Load time percentiles (p50/p75/p95)

✕

JS error tracking

✕

Realtime visitors

✕

Traffic breakdowns (pages, geo, devices)

Goals / custom events

✕

Events only

Analytics data retention

3 mo to 5 yr by plan

Not documented

Self-hostable

✕

Security

Two-factor authentication

Single Sign-On (SAML)

✕

Role-based access

Not documented

Support

Chat

✕

Human Support

Email + GitHub

AI Support

✕

Helpdesk Articles

Email Support

Comparison based on publicly available information as of October 2026. Features and pricing change frequently, so please verify current details on each provider’s website.

Trusted by teams at companies around the world

And there’s more in Pulsetic’s free plan…

See where your website is loading slowly

We’ll check your website’s response times from different locations around the world, so you know if there’s an issue in a particular region.
Alerts wherever you want them

When your website fails a check and a second location confirms it, Pulsetic alerts you by email or webhook.
Never let your SSL expire again

We’ll let you know when it’s time to update your SSL certificate, so you can renew it before customers see error messages.

GoatCounter counts who came. Pulsetic measures how it felt and watches for downtime.

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Frequently asked questions

What is GoatCounter best at?

Being a free, tiny, radically private pageview counter. There are no cookies or localStorage, IP addresses are never stored, and the whole project is open source and funded by donations rather than ads or investors. Pulsetic asks a different question: not how many people came, but how fast the website was for them and whether it was up at all.
How much does GoatCounter cost?

Nothing. GoatCounter is entirely free, funded through GitHub Sponsors, with fair-use limits on the hosted service and self-hosting encouraged for heavy use. There are no paid tiers at all. Pulsetic also has a free plan with 10 monitors, status pages and 1,000 RUM pageviews a month, with paid plans from $9 when you need more.
Does GoatCounter measure page speed or Core Web Vitals?

No, and that is by design: GoatCounter is a deliberately minimal pageview counter, not a performance tool. There are no load times, no Core Web Vitals, no error tracking and no realtime view. Pulsetic records LCP, CLS, INP, FCP and load time percentiles (p50, p75, p95) from real visits.
Can GoatCounter tell me when my website is down?

No. GoatCounter has no uptime monitoring, no alerting and no status pages, and because its dashboard updates in batches rather than realtime, even a traffic drop takes a while to show. Pulsetic checks your website as often as every 30 seconds from up to 15 regions. It alerts you by email, webhook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, SMS, WhatsApp or phone call.
Is Pulsetic a drop-in replacement for GoatCounter?

No. Pulsetic does not count unique visitors and does not track events, goals, funnels or UTM campaigns. If GoatCounter is doing the counting job for you, keep it; it is excellent at that job. Both scripts are tiny and cookieless, so they coexist fine: GoatCounter for traffic, Pulsetic for performance and uptime.
Does Pulsetic's tracking script use cookies?

No. Like GoatCounter, Pulsetic sets no cookies and writes nothing to localStorage. There is no client-side visitor identifier at all, because Pulsetic does not need to count unique visitors. The script sends up to two small performance beacons per pageview, with no sampling.
What does Pulsetic cost when GoatCounter is free?

Honest answer: Pulsetic has a real free plan too, with 1,000 RUM pageviews a month, 10 monitors and status pages, commercial use allowed. Pulsetic also covers what a free counter was never meant to provide: uptime monitoring at scale, faster checks, longer retention and human support, and the pricing page lists which plans include each. And if GoatCounter covers everything you need, supporting it with a donation is money well spent.
When should I add or switch to Pulsetic?

When the questions change: you care less about how many people came and more about why the website felt slow, whether Core Web Vitals pass, and who tells you when it goes down. Pulsetic answers those from its free plan up. Most GoatCounter users would add Pulsetic rather than switch, since the two measure different things and both scripts stay out of the way.