For privacy-first SaaS teams who care deeply about data sovereignty and advanced funnel tracking, Umami often appears on the shortlist of analytics options. While Umami is an excellent choice for lightweight tracking and GDPR compliance, many teams quickly bump into its limitations when they need deeper insights into user behavior, multi-step conversions, and flexible event tracking. In this article, we’ll explore five of the best self-hosted event tracking tools that go far beyond Umami’s basic funnels—tools preferred by data-conscious SaaS teams serious about growth without compromising user privacy.
TL;DR
Umami is a great start for lightweight, privacy-friendly analytics, but it falls short for teams who need granular event tracking and advanced conversions. Tools like PostHog, Plausible with Custom Events, and RudderStack offer richer data capabilities, real-time insights, and privacy compliance. These platforms are open-source or offer self-hosting options, putting teams in control of their data pipelines. Whether you’re scaling user acquisition or debugging your onboarding funnel, these tools provide deep visibility into user behavior without relying on big-tech trackers.
Why Go Beyond Umami?
Umami is designed to be simple and transparent, with a minimal JavaScript footprint. It’s perfect for high-level stats and traffic monitoring, but when teams need to optimize conversion funnels, analyze churn patterns, or segment users by behavior, Umami begins to show its limitations. The following five tools offer capabilities such as:
- Detailed, multi-step funnels
- Custom and retroactive event tracking
- User session replays and heatmaps
- Third-party integration support
- First-party data storage and compliance
Here’s a breakdown of the best tools teams are turning to in 2024 to gain insights Umami simply can’t provide.
1. PostHog: Full-Stack Product Analytics for SaaS Teams
PostHog is one of the most robust event tracking suites available as a self-hosted platform. Built for developers and product teams, PostHog combines event analytics, session recording, feature flags, and A/B testing into one cohesive platform. It supports retroactive funnel creation, making it especially helpful in agile environments where experimentation is frequent and fast.
Key features:
- Powerful visual funnel builder
- Session recording and heatmaps
- Full compliance with GDPR, CCPA, etc.
- Feature flag management included
- Integrates with sources like GitHub, Zapier, and Segment
If your team wants to track user flows, measure activation, or understand where users drop off without forfeiting privacy, PostHog is a serious upgrade from Umami.
Use Case: Teams refactoring onboarding flows based on session replays and conversion data from multi-step funnels.
2. Plausible Analytics (With Custom Events)
Plausible, like Umami, is another privacy-focused lightweight analytics tool. But unlike Umami, Plausible supports custom event tracking without sacrificing its clean simplicity. When extended with its custom goals, Plausible becomes a surprisingly capable conversion tool for small and medium SaaS teams.
Key features:
- Simple dashboard with real-time updates
- Tracks goals like form submissions or button clicks
- Lightweight (< 1KB script) and fast
- No cookies or personal data needed
- Self-hosted or hosted version available
While it won’t match the depth of PostHog, with custom events defined via JavaScript, Plausible can power well-optimized SaaS funnels with lower engineering overhead.
3. RudderStack: Customer Data Pipelines for Analytics & Beyond
RudderStack isn’t analytics software in and of itself—it’s a customer data infrastructure platform, comparable to Segment, that allows you to collect, transform, and route event data to multiple destinations like Snowflake, BigQuery, or your favorite visualization tool.
For product-savvy teams with a developer focus, RudderStack is a powerful backend facilitator for advanced analytics and conversions. It integrates tightly with existing event schemes and gives full control over where data lives.
Key features:
- Write once, forward events to many tools
- Complete user profiles and identity resolution
- Auditable data rights capabilities for GDPR
- SDKs for web, mobile, servers, and cloud
Use this if your stack already uses self-hosted BI tools, and you need fine-grained control over the event lifecycle.
4. Matomo (Formerly Piwik): Mature Analytics with Respect for Privacy
Matomo is a long-respected name in the analytics space. It serves as a direct replacement to Google Analytics, offering features like goal tracking, custom dimensions, ecommerce analytics, and more—all self-hosted within your secure environment.
Key features:
- Custom dashboards with conversion goals
- Out-of-the-box marketing campaign tracking
- Heatmaps and session recordings via plugin
- Advanced segmentation by cohorts, behaviors, traffic source
- Federally compliant, especially for healthcare and education SaaS
Matomo is ideal for teams that require long-term analytics logs and legally sound storage—think GDPR, HIPAA, or internal compliance standards.
5. OpenTelemetry + Grafana: Build Your Own Analytics Observability Stack
For teams seeking total observability and willing to invest in building custom dashboards, OpenTelemetry alongside Grafana offers a powerful toolkit for real-time event measurement. While not a plug-and-play solution, the modularity it offers means every event, log, and metric can be visualized exactly how your team wants.
Key features:
- Collects traces, logs, metrics from multiple sources
- Open-source and vendor-neutral
- Native integration with Prometheus and Grafana
- Ideal for DevOps and backend-heavy SaaS teams
If your conversion goals intersect with system-level performance (e.g., API latency affecting UX), this option provides unparalleled visibility.
It’s not a direct alternative to Umami, but for teams building serious infrastructure, it unlocks use cases beyond what most analytics tools consider.
Final Thoughts: Choosing the Right Tool for the Job
Umami is a great starting point for respecting privacy, but it simply doesn’t match the feature depth needed for conversion-focused teams. Whether you’re a seed-stage SaaS building your first growth MVP or a scaling platform optimizing a multi-touch product journey, one of the tools above can be tailored to fit your goals.
Here’s a quick breakdown by use case:
- For product-led growth and behavior analytics: PostHog
- For clean dashboards and custom goals: Plausible
- For pipeline control and integrations: RudderStack
- For enterprise and legal compliance: Matomo
- For infrastructure-level observability: OpenTelemetry + Grafana
The key is selecting a tool that harmonizes with your team’s tech stack, privacy priorities, and product objectives. By moving beyond Umami’s basic funnels, you can unlock actionable data that drives real growth—without handing over your users’ information to third parties.