Company Overview
Matomo (formerly Piwik) was founded by Matthieu Aubry in 2007, headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand (with an additional office in Paris). It is the world's leading open-source web analytics platform. Matomo rebranded from Piwik in 2018, emphasizing 100% data ownership and privacy compliance.
Used by over 1 million websites worldwide, Matomo is the largest open-source alternative to Google Analytics. The platform is GDPR-compliant by default and supports two deployment modes: self-hosted (On-Premise) and cloud-hosted, giving users complete control over their data.
Core Products
| Product | Description |
|---|---|
| Matomo On-Premise (Self-hosted) | Open-source self-deployed version with full data and server control, unlimited websites and pageviews |
| Matomo Cloud (Hosted) | Managed Matomo without infrastructure management, pay-as-you-go, automatic updates and security |
| Matomo Tag Manager | Built-in tag manager for managing analytics, marketing, and tracking codes without extra tools |
| Matomo SEO | SEO tool module for keyword rank tracking, site audits, and search engine visibility |
| Heatmaps & Session Recording | Visualize user clicks, scrolling, and behavior paths with heatmaps and session replays |
| A/B Testing | Built-in A/B testing tool for experiments and optimization without third-party integration |
| Funnels & Goals | Funnel analysis and goal tracking to understand user conversion paths and drop-off points |
Key Milestones
| Year | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Piwik project started | Matthieu Aubry created the Piwik open-source analytics platform in New Zealand |
| 2008 | Piwik 1.0 released | First stable release, became the first open-source Google Analytics alternative |
| 2010+ | Rapid community growth | Piwik adopted by thousands of websites, plugin ecosystem established |
| 2018 | Rebranded to Matomo | Brand upgrade to Matomo, emphasizing "Data is yours" ownership |
| 2020 | Heatmaps & Session Recording launched | In-house built heatmap and session recording features |
| 2021 | A/B Testing launched | Built-in A/B testing tool went live |
| 2023+ | Continued expansion | Enhanced tag manager, SEO tools, privacy compliance features |
Market Position & Competitors
Matomo holds a leading position in the open-source web analytics and privacy-first analytics market:
- Google Analytics: The largest web analytics platform globally, but with privacy and data ownership concerns
- Plausible: Lightweight privacy-first open-source analytics with a simple dashboard
- Fathom Analytics: Simple privacy-focused analytics emphasizing ease of use and compliance
- Adobe Analytics: Enterprise-grade analytics platform, powerful but costly
- Mixpanel: Platform focused on product and user behavior analytics
- Countly: Open-source product analytics platform supporting mobile and web
Core Strengths
100% Data Ownership: Self-hosted mode ensures data stays fully under your control, never leaves your server
Privacy Compliant: GDPR-compliant by default, analytics can run without cookie consent banners
Full Feature Set: Heatmaps, A/B testing, funnel analysis, tag manager — enterprise features included
Open Source & Transparent: Fully open-source code, data processing logic is transparent and auditable
Flexible Deployment: Supports both self-hosted and cloud options for different scales and needs
No Data Limits: Self-hosted version has no pageview limits and no additional usage fees
