The Best Fathom Alternative for Indie Developers (2026)
Fathom is a solid privacy-first analytics option. Trackaton is for founders who want less monthly overhead and more direction from their data.
TL;DR
The switching reason in one minute
If you’re tired of paying for “quiet months,” start here.
Trackaton
- Credits never expire; buy once, use at your pace
- $0 during idle time (no events → no burn)
- AI insights that suggest next marketing moves
Fathom
- Straightforward privacy analytics
- Works well for teams that budget subscriptions
- Subscription pricing (recurring cost)
The cost of idle time
When “pause the project” still costs money
Indie projects pause. Launches miss. Side projects go quiet. A recurring subscription keeps billing anyway.
Subscription model
Fixed monthly fee regardless of whether you shipped this month.
Idle month cost: your plan price (recurring)
Trackaton credits
Credits burn only when your analytics captures events. No events → no spend.
Idle month cost: $0
Deep feature dive
What changes in day-to-day usage
Script footprint
Speed matters.
Trackaton’s script is <1kb, built to stay lightweight.
Privacy compliance
Cookie-free by design.
Trackaton focuses on cookie-free analytics with a GDPR/CCPA-friendly posture.
AI “growth engine”
Actionable suggestions.
Trackaton aims to tell you what to try next (channels, landing pages, messages) based on your traffic—not just show graphs.
Who should choose what
Clear trade-offs
Choose Fathom if…
- you want a mature privacy analytics product with a subscription budget,
- you mainly need reporting and simple dashboards, and
- you’re okay paying the same during slow months.
Choose Trackaton if…
- you’re building multiple products and want shared credits across unlimited sites,
- you want $0 spend when traffic is $0, and
- you want guidance on what to do next, not just what happened.