Documentation

Privatrak and Amplitude compared

Last checked: 17 October 2026.

Cookies and identified users

Amplitude’s Browser SDK 2 stores its identifiers in cookies by default, with an expiry of 365 days. Amplitude’s documentation says it may create cookies as soon as the SDK starts, whatever the visitor’s opt-out, and advises starting it only after consent if no cookie may exist before. You can store the data in localStorage or sessionStorage instead, or not at all. Then a visitor gets a new device ID on each visit unless they log in.

In the EU, storing or reading such a cookie for analytics needs consent, as for any analytics cookie. Amplitude’s documentation says you are responsible for getting it.

Privatrak sets no cookies and recognises a visitor for one day only. Instead of following one person over weeks, you compare groups of visitors with traits, such as everyone on your Pro plan. In many countries you need no cookie banner for Privatrak.

This is general information, not legal advice. Privacy lists exactly what Privatrak stores.

Where Privatrak is stronger

• Complete numbers without a cookie banner. Every visitor who declines a banner is missing from your funnels and conversion rates, so the numbers you decide on are smaller than reality. Privatrak needs no cookie, so in many countries it needs no banner, and those visitors are counted too.
• Answers product questions without an analyst. You name a feature by clicking the button on your own site with the Element Picker. Features then shows how often it is used, including clicks from before you named it. This takes no code and no query language, so the people who ask the questions can answer them themselves.
• Click problems as a ready report. You don’t need to know what to look for. Click Problems finds the buttons and links where clicks fail, and you open each one on your own site in the Click Map. If you mark one resolved and clicks on it have no effect or cause an error again, it comes back as Happened again, so a fix that didn’t work doesn’t go unnoticed.
• An AI assistant that sets it up for you. You sign in from Claude, Codex or Cursor, without copying a key. If you allow it, your assistant names the buttons and links that matter, creates funnels and builds a starter dashboard. Everything it changed is listed under AI assistant changes in Settings, and you undo a whole set of changes in one step.
• Privacy by design, not by setting. Privatrak never stores IP addresses and deletes each day’s key and visitor codes once the day is counted. After that nobody, Privatrak included, can link two days. Your data is on servers in the EU on every plan, with nothing to choose.

When Amplitude fits better

Amplitude is the better choice in these cases:

• You follow identified users across devices and sessions, for example in behavioral cohorts by user.
• You need session replay or heatmaps.
• You want experiments and feature flags in the same tool.
• Your team is large and needs single sign-on and permissions per project.
• You need data older than 180 days. Privatrak keeps data longer only on Enterprise, by agreement.

Switch from Amplitude to Privatrak

1. Create a free account and a project, as shown in Getting started.
2. Add the Privatrak script tag to your site. Leave Amplitude in place for now.
3. Create the funnels you care about. A funnel counts from the day you create it.
4. Compare both for a few weeks. When Privatrak covers what you need, remove Amplitude.

Your Amplitude data stays in Amplitude. Privatrak counts from the day you add it.

If you used Amplitude with its cookies and nothing else on your site needs consent, your cookie banner may be able to go as well. Read Do you need a cookie banner? on the Privacy page before you remove it.