As a creator, you pour your energy into designing the perfect landing page, portfolio, or project hub. But once it’s live, a burning question appears—is anyone even seeing this? You need stats. But not just any stats. You want something that’s lightweight, easy to use, and doesn’t treat your visitors like ad-tracked lab rats.

TLDR: Analytics widgets can give you real-time feedback on your site, without sacrificing your visitors’ privacy. There are many privacy-first, plug-and-play tools made just for creators. These 7 are the best for adding stats quickly to landing pages, portfolios, and personal projects. No cookies. No code headaches. Just clean stats.

1. Plausible Analytics

Plausible is like the friendly neighbor of privacy-first analytics. It’s open-source, cookie-free, and designed to be super lightweight. You can add it to your site in minutes using just one line of code.

Some great reasons to try Plausible:

  • No cookies – doesn’t track personal data at all
  • Minimal impact – built to load lightning-fast
  • Simple dashboard – perfect for checking views at a glance

Good for: Creators, indie hackers, and bloggers who want privacy without fuss.

2. Simple Analytics

As the name hints, Simple Analytics keeps things—well—simple. But don’t let the clean UI fool you. This tool gives deep visibility into your traffic.

Here’s what stands out:

  • Bypass ad blockers – great if your audience uses Brave or Firefox
  • Nice-looking public dashboards – share stats if you want
  • Fun charts – because pie charts make everything better

Good for: SaaS founders, writers, and freelancers who want clean reports.

3. umami

Yes, like the taste. Umami is a completely free and self-hostable analytics platform. If you run your own server or use something like Vercel or Netlify, it’s a neat fit.

Top features:

  • Open-source and free forever
  • Real-time stats with responsive graphs
  • Team-friendly – multiple users can view stats

Good for: Developers, tinkerers, and privacy nerds who want full data control.

4. Fathom Analytics

Fathom is the cool older cousin in the privacy game. It’s super sleek and offers one of the fastest loading scripts out there—under 1kb. Great for SEO enthusiasts.

Why creators love Fathom:

  • Instant legal compliance – no annoying cookie banners needed
  • Useful insights – like top pages, referrers, and bounce rates
  • Supports custom domains

Good for: Creators prioritizing website speed, legality, and professional polish.

5. GoatCounter

Quirky name, powerful features. GoatCounter is privacy-focused and open-source, but does things a bit differently. It’s geared toward minimalist creators and small websites.

You’ll enjoy:

  • Totally free for personal use
  • Super lightweight scripts
  • Can self-host or let them host for you

Good for: Static sites, portfolios, and landing pages that don’t need fluff.

6. Counter.dev

Counter.dev is newer to the game, but perfect for developers and designers who want just essential tracking. No unnecessary clutter or tracking drama.

Lovely features include:

  • Open-source and actively developed
  • Beautiful graphs showing traffic trends
  • Option to self-host in minutes with cloud tools

Good for: Devs on Github Pages, Vercel, or anyone running static websites.

7. MetriFox

MetriFox isn’t as widely known (yet!) but it’s an exciting choice for creators who love customization. It offers easy integrations and a slick modern UX.

What’s cool:

  • Easy drop-in JavaScript snippet
  • Real-time visitors tracking
  • No IP storage or fingerprinting

Good for: Creators who love UI design and want to see things in action—live.

How Do You Add These Widgets?

Most of these tools work the same basic way. You’ll get a small script to copy and paste into your HTML (inside the <head> tag). That’s it!

If you use tools like Webflow, Carrd, Notion, or Framer, many of these analytics services play nicely with them. Some even offer native integrations.

Here’s a simple example:

<script async defer data-website-id="YOUR-ID" src="https://your.analytics.server/script.js"></script>

Just change the URL and ID based on your tool and you’re good to go!

Why Privacy-First Matters

Beyond the legal stuff (looking at you, GDPR), putting your users first builds trust. These tools don’t store IP addresses, don’t use cookies, and don’t track people across the web.

You still get to know:

  • How many people visit
  • Where they come from
  • What pages they like best

All without compromising anyone’s digital freedom.

What About Google Analytics?

Sure, Google Analytics is free and powerful. But it’s also bulky, hard to configure, and collects way more than you might need. Plus, it loves cookies and third-party tags—not great for personal sites where speed and trust are essential.

Privacy-first tools focus on what you actually care about: clean insights,
fast loading times, and respecting your audience.

Final Thoughts

You don’t need a bloated analytics platform to understand your audience. With just a few lines of code, you can get real insights into how people engage with your site—without sacrificing speed or privacy.

Try a few from this list and see what fits your vibe. Most offer free plans, and all respect your audience’s rights. Because respecting privacy isn’t just nice—it’s the smart, future-ready way to build on the web.

Here’s a quick recap of the top 7:

  1. Plausible – lightweight, fast, and open-source
  2. Simple Analytics – bypass blockers, great UI
  3. umami – powerful and great for devs
  4. Fathom – polished, legal-friendly platform
  5. GoatCounter – free, quirky, and efficient
  6. Counter.dev – minimal yet beautiful for devs
  7. MetriFox – modern, fast, and customizable

Go ahead. Add that slick widget. Get those insights—and leave cookies in the jar, where they belong 🍪.