SlimStat vs WP Statistics

Why this page exists at all

Two analytics plugins from one company invites an obvious question, and the honest answer is that they were built for different readers and both kept because both readerships are real. SlimStat came to VeronaLabs by acquisition in 2023, with fifteen years of its own history behind it; WP Statistics was VeronaLabs’ own from the start.

Neither is a cut-down version of the other. They overlap in the sense that both record visits into your own WordPress database with no external account, and they diverge on almost everything after that.

The one distinction that decides it

WP Statistics answers questions about your content. Which posts perform, which categories pull, which authors earn attention, which campaigns brought people in. Its reports are organised around WordPress’s own structure — post types, taxonomies, authors — because the reader it imagines is publishing things and wants to know which of them worked.

SlimStat answers questions about the visit. Who came, from where, on what, following which link out, and in what order. Every pageview lands as a row in wp_slim_stats with its referrer, country, browser, screen size and outbound clicks, and the access log lets you read the individual visits rather than a rollup of them.

That is the whole decision. If your question starts “which of my posts…”, the other product is shaped for it. If your question starts “who was that visitor and what did they do…”, this one is.

What each one costs

WP Statistics Premium is $119 a year for a single site, $249 for five and $449 for the unlimited tier — which its own page qualifies as “up to 100 sites under our fair usage policy”. SlimStat Pro is $39, $99 and $199 for the same three shapes.

On renewals, this page declines to give you a number, and the reason is worth stating. WP Statistics’ pricing page carries the footnote “Special introductory pricing, all renewals are at full price”, but never publishes what that full price is; its checkout simultaneously describes the same purchase as recurring at the listed amount. Those two vendor statements are in tension, and we are not going to resolve a sister product’s pricing on its behalf. Check the checkout before you buy. SlimStat’s own renewal terms are on the pricing page.

Compare list price to list price when you do. Both products run promotions, and a discounted price against an undiscounted one is not a comparison.

Can you run both?

You can — they write to separate tables and neither interferes with the other’s tracking — but there is rarely a reason to. Two trackers means two sets of numbers that will not agree, two sets of database rows growing with your traffic, and two consent surfaces to keep straight. If you are genuinely torn, install both for a fortnight, look at which dashboard you open by reflex, and remove the other.

Which one to choose

Choose WP Statistics if you publish content and measure content: if you want author and category reporting, UTM campaign analytics with a link builder, Search Console data beside your traffic, or an unlimited free tier across many sites. It is also the safer default if you are equipping a team rather than yourself.

Choose SlimStat if you want the visit record itself. The full access log, per-visit detail, outbound-link tracking, server-side tracking mode for sites without a page cache, and heatmaps and funnels in Pro at a third of the price. It suits the owner-operator who wants to look at what actually happened rather than at a summary of it — and the free feature list is most of that before you pay anything.

Neither answer is wrong, and neither of us loses if you pick the other one.