A Matomo alternative for funnels

How deep the funnel goes

why did signups drop last week, and what did the people who left do instead?

Matomo genuinely has funnels. Here is what it takes to get to one, both ways.

Matomo

1 Pick cloud or self-hosted, and if self-hosted, provision and maintain the server
2 Choose a plan that actually includes Funnels, since the free Community edition does not
3 Define the funnel as a sequence of pages or goals in the plugin
🥱 Set the date range, read the step-by-step drop-off, then open the visitor log to see what any one person did instead

Tiny Funnel

1 Log in, the funnel is already drawn and the drop is on the bar
2 Filter to the week and the source that changed
3 Open the journeys of visitors who stopped at that step
4 Read what each of them did instead, return visits included
💡 Five journeys usually make the answer obvious, because people fail in patterns.

built for answers, not data scientists

Tiny Funnel is obsessed with getting you answers as quickly as possible. The funnel is the page that loads when you log in, and any visitor's whole journey is one click away.

See your funnel from every angle

The main view is always your funnel. You choose which visitors and from when and where.

See a visitor's full journey

Where they came from, which campaign, every page they touched, and whether they bounced, came back later, or converted.

what each one does

Matomo against Tiny Funnel, on the things that decide it.

Capability	Matomo	Tiny Funnel
Funnels	A real feature, sequence-based, but gated behind a paid tier on both cloud and self-hosted. Not in the free Community edition.	The whole product. Steps recorded by clicking through your own site, and a step can be a page view, a click, a server event or a page state.
What the dashboard opens on	A GA-shaped reports overview covering the whole site, with Funnels as one report among many once you have it.	One funnel, a bar per step, the drop-off between each pair, filters pinned above it.
Hosting and maintenance	Self-hosted core is free forever, unlimited hits and users, but you provision, patch and back up the server. Cloud removes that, priced by monthly hits.	Hosted only. Nothing to provision, patch or back up, and nothing to self-host if that is a requirement.
A step with a condition on it	A goal or a page in the funnel definition. Matching what an element says is not a documented funnel condition.	"Count Subscribed only when the element says subscribed" is a per-step condition, not a plugin purchase.
A step your backend confirms	A server-side tracking API exists and can log a goal, matched by the identifiers you send it.	Post the event with your own user id, Bearer-authed per funnel, and it lands on the journey of the visitor who caused it.
One visitor's journey	A visitor log exists and can be read per session, alongside the aggregate funnel report.	Open any visitor and read their whole path, return visits and the step where they stopped included.
Cookies and data ownership	Can be configured cookie-less, and self-hosting means the data never leaves your own infrastructure.	Cookie-less by default, first-party, hosted only. If owning the infrastructure is the requirement, that is Matomo's, not ours.
Pricing	Self-hosted Community is free. Cloud starts around €29 a month for the entry traffic tier. Funnels need a paid tier either way.	$10 a month per active funnel, visitors unlimited. 7-day trial, no card, and pausing a funnel stops the bill.

Track a funnel • $10/mo

which one is yours

Both answer real questions. They are not the same question.

Stay on Matomo if

Owning your own data, on your own infrastructure, is a real requirement here
You want GA-shaped reporting across the whole site, not one flow through it
Somebody here is willing to run and maintain a self-hosted service
A plugin ecosystem and long track record matter more than a five-minute setup
Free forever, self-hosted, beats a subscription regardless of features

Switch to Tiny Funnel if

You want a funnel today, not after choosing a plan or configuring a plugin
Nobody here wants to run or patch a server for an analytics tool
You sell software, a course or another virtual good
The question you keep asking is about one flow through a handful of pages
You want the visitor-level detail without buying a bundle to get it

what Matomo does better

Data ownership, if self-hosted, which for some buyers is the entire decision
A genuinely free forever self-hosted core with unlimited hits and users
Feature breadth that reaches close to GA4's, including funnels once you are on the right plan
A long track record and a large plugin ecosystem
Can be configured cookie-less, with the choice in your own hands
GA-shaped reporting for teams who already think in that mental model

What a funnel actually costs to add

If Matomo is already running, the honest comparison is not "Matomo vs Tiny Funnel", it is what it costs to add a fast funnel view on top of what you have. On Matomo, that means confirming you are on a plan that includes Funnels (Team and up on self-hosted, Business and up on Cloud), then defining the sequence in the plugin. On Tiny Funnel, it means a second script tag and a click-through of the flow you care about.

Neither is a criticism of Matomo. If data ownership is the reason you chose it, that reason has not gone away, and Tiny Funnel does not compete on it. We are hosted only, and we would rather say that plainly than dress it up as a design choice.

The layer that is not in the free tier

Matomo's Community edition, self-hosted and free forever, does not include Funnels at all, which is worth knowing before you assume the feature is there. Once you are on a plan that has it, the gap narrows to speed and depth: a Matomo funnel is a report you configure, and a Tiny Funnel funnel is drawn the moment you click through your own site with the recorder on, with per-visitor journeys and per-step conditions included rather than layered on.

The short version

Keep Matomo if owning the data matters. Add Tiny Funnel for a funnel that costs one script tag and a click-through, with nothing to provision and no plan tier to check first.

frequently asked questions

Does Matomo have funnels?

Yes, genuinely, and we should say so plainly. Funnels are a sequence-based report, available from the Team bundle up on self-hosted and from the Business plan up on Cloud, but not on the free Community edition. The feature is real. The cost is choosing a paid tier and, on self-hosted, running the server it lives on.

Can I run Matomo and Tiny Funnel at the same time?

Yes. The two scripts do not interfere, and if data ownership matters enough to justify self-hosting, keeping Matomo for that reason while adding Tiny Funnel for a fast, no-maintenance funnel view is a reasonable combination.

Is Tiny Funnel a self-hosting option?

No, we are hosted only. If owning your own infrastructure is the actual requirement, Matomo's self-hosted Community edition is the honest answer and we would rather point you at it than pretend otherwise.

Will the two tools show the same numbers?

Not necessarily. Matomo's funnel counts a sequence of pages or goals you defined in the plugin. A Tiny Funnel funnel counts visitors reaching a step, where a step can carry a condition or be confirmed by your backend. Different definitions can produce different, equally correct numbers for the same underlying traffic.

Cookie-less means no consent banner, right?

Not something we can promise. Consent obligations depend on where you are and on everything else running on your site, and Tiny Funnel does keep a visitor id in local storage. What we can tell you is what it does. No cookies, no fingerprinting, no cross-site tracking, nothing shared with ad networks, and typed values never captured.

the bottom line

Two honest summaries, then the shortest way to decide.

Matomo

Matomo is the honest answer when owning your own analytics data is the actual requirement. Self-hosted, it is free forever and reaches close to GA4's breadth, funnels included once you are on a plan that has them, and that trade is worth making for the right team.

Tiny Funnel

Tiny Funnel is funnel analytics with nothing to provision and nothing to buy up a tier for. Where visitors come from, which of them buy, and how far and how often each cohort gets down your funnel, live within minutes of adding one script tag.

Owning the data on your own infrastructure is the actual requirement

Matomo

You want GA-shaped, whole-site reporting and already think that way

Matomo

I want a funnel today, without choosing a plan or running a server

Tiny Funnel

A step needs my backend, or an element's text, to confirm it

Tiny Funnel

I keep wondering what the people who left did instead

Tiny Funnel