2026-08-11

Matomo on Joomla: the setup you have to do before it records your first visit

Matomo is the one cookieless-capable analytics tool that promises Joomla support. A few community-built plugins exist for it too.

But the plugin is not the real decision. Each of them just adds a script to your page and any of them does that job perfectly well.

The real decision goes deeper: who runs Matomo for you?

Two very different answers

Matomo Cloud. You pay Matomo to run it for you. Prices start around €29 a month and climb from there. You get the full Matomo and the people who built it run it. Only the pricier plans add heatmaps, session recording and A/B testing. That is for teams who genuinely use those.

Self-hosted Matomo. The software itself is free. You run it on your own server, next to your Joomla site. Instead of paying, though, you take on the work:

• The cron jobs, which have to run exactly on time. Otherwise your reports quietly stop after an update.
• The database, which keeps growing and needs maintenance.
• The security patches on a second, public-facing app that holds your visitor data.

None of it is hard. But each one is one more thing you have to watch.

There is one more catch and it has nothing to do with hosting. By default, both versions of Matomo set cookies. You can switch to cookieless mode but you have to find that setting and turn it on. Until you do, you need a consent banner and you lose every visitor who says no to it.

The fix: skip the hosting question

StatJolt does not ask you to pick a side, because there is no server to run and no bill tied to traffic.

There is no cookie setting to find either, because there are no cookies to switch off. Cookieless is the only mode. Nothing runs on your server and nothing needs a cron job. It writes just one settings row to your database. The same row Joomla already stores for every installed plugin.

The Joomla plugin writes the analytics code into every page and it keeps working through Joomla updates. It was built for Joomla, not bolted on afterwards.

How to get started

Four steps and you do not have to set up a server:

• Download the zip package.
• Add that zip file through Joomla's extension installer.
• Paste the analytics code into the field under Plugins.
• Open your site in a private window to see if it works. (If it does not, you may still need to clear the cache.)

The settings screen uses colour to show exactly where you stand. Refresh it if you get stuck! Green means data is coming in. Amber means the code is saved but nobody has loaded a page yet or the cache needs clearing. Red means something is wrong, for example you pasted the code incorrectly.

Self-hosted Matomo has no such feedback. If archiving quietly stops, you find out weeks later, when a report comes up short.

It runs on Joomla 4, 5 and 6. The plugin interface is available in nine languages, including Hungarian, German, French and Spanish. So the editor on your team who does not speak English still understands the settings screen.

StatJolt or Matomo?

StatJolt is cookie-free from the first visit. There is no pop-up and no setting to change. With Matomo you have to switch the cookies off yourself.

StatJolt costs 0 EUR until 11 April 2027 23:59:59 at any traffic level and stays 0 EUR after that for lower-traffic sites. In return we ask you to show a small logo on your site. Later, if you want, you can hide it. The smallest monthly plan is enough for that.

Matomo Cloud starts at €29 a month. With self-hosted Matomo, instead of a bill, the server upkeep is on you.

The visitor identifier is a hash that we regenerate with a new salt every midnight. So no visit can be linked back to an earlier one. The data sits on servers based in the EU.

Here is what else you get, at no extra charge:

• We measure Core Web Vitals directly on your real site, we do not simulate them. So you also see when certain subpages load painfully slowly.
• Conversion funnels form automatically with no setup (if you have enough visitors for it). Or you can build them yourself.
• User journeys draw themselves.
• You can catch broken scripts before your customers complain that something is not working.

One thing does stay honestly Matomo's: heatmaps, session recording and A/B testing are not part of StatJolt. If your team actually uses those, Matomo is worth its price. But if you only want to break away from Google Analytics and see who visits your site, you do not need them. StatJolt gets you there without a server or a subscription.

In short

Matomo's Joomla plugins all do the same small job well. The real decision goes deeper: you pay for hosting, you run it yourself or you skip the question completely. You can try StatJolt instead.

The dashboard is one page and colours every change intelligently. So at a glance you can see whether something moved in a positive or a negative direction. You will get it.

If breaking away from Google is the real goal, install the Joomla plugin built for exactly that and leave the server and the bill out of it.

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