StatCounter is the survivor of the counter era and it is genuinely useful: a visible counter plus real visitor logs, referrers and keyword data. The catch on the free plan is the log depth — it keeps only your most recent 500 pageviews, so on a busy day your history is already gone. Ours is a counter, not an analytics product, and it has no such window.
Running since 1999, and still the best free log-based analytics — with a 500-pageview memory on the free plan. Everything below is checked against statcounter.com itself — but pricing and limits move, so confirm anything that matters on their own page before deciding.
| FeedPulse | StatCounter | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever. No log depth to upgrade, because there is no log. | Free plan, then paid tiers that mainly buy you a deeper log (the free log keeps your most recent 500 pageviews) |
| Signup | No account, no project setup. Paste and it counts. | Account required, project created per site, code generated from their dashboard |
| What you get | A styleable counter (and separately, flags, online-now, heatmap) — no visitor log. | A visible counter plus visitor logs, referrers, exit links, keyword and location reports |
| Required link back | No required branding. The credit line is optional. | The free visible counter carries StatCounter branding; the invisible option is reserved for their terms |
| Cookies & privacy | No cookies, no IP storage, no per-visitor log to disclose. | Sets a cookie and logs IP-derived data, which is what makes the visitor log possible — and what needs declaring |
| Customisation | Your own CSS — it's HTML, not a preset image. | Counter style is chosen from their preset list rather than your own CSS |
| Where the data lives | Aggregate totals, with no rolling window to fall off. | Stored on their side; the free plan's rolling 500-pageview log is the hard limit |
| Removing it | Delete the snippet. Nothing left behind. | Remove the code; your stats stay in their account until you delete the project |
If you want to know WHO visited — the referrer, the search term, the path through your site, the returning-visitor flag — StatCounter does that and we flatly do not. Twenty-five years of log-based analytics for free is a real offer, and for a site where the visitor log is the point, take it.
Pick StatCounter when you want visitor logs and will accept a cookie and a 500-pageview window. Pick FeedPulse when you want the visible counter itself: styleable, unbranded, cookie-free, with no account and no history limit.
Pick StatCounter when you want visitor logs and will accept a cookie and a 500-pageview window. Pick FeedPulse when you want the visible counter itself: styleable, unbranded, cookie-free, with no account and no history limit. If you want to know WHO visited — the referrer, the search term, the path through your site, the returning-visitor flag — StatCounter does that and we flatly do not. Twenty-five years of log-based analytics for free is a real offer, and for a site where the visitor log is the point, take it.
That's exactly this. The FeedPulse hit counter needs no signup, sets no cookies and stores no IP addresses, so there's nothing to put in a privacy notice. You give up StatCounter's visitor log and referrer reports — if those matter more than the cookie banner, StatCounter is the better pick.
Nothing, at any traffic level. There is no paid tier to upgrade to, no session cap and no card on file — the whole product is free, including every other widget and all the SEO tools.