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Comparison · Analytics
Simple Analytics vs Holistics
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Simple Analytics and Holistics — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Simple Analytics vs Holistics: at a glance
What is Simple Analytics?
Simple Analytics ships weekly small wins — Events Explorer polish, API v6 with intervals, ingestion-side IP blocking.
Cadence is the story: roughly weekly, small, considered improvements rather than headline features. Recent shipping covers Events Explorer ergonomics (column truncation, full-width toggle, collapse on hover), API v6 with proper interval support and version-aware changelogs, IP blocking moved out of bunny.net into the ingestion app for per-site control, plus quality-of-life touches (favicon refresh, open-referral-in-new-tab). The infrastructure upgrade in late February — doubled Elasticsearch cluster, 10K pageviews/sec — is the biggest under-the-hood move.
What is Holistics?
Holistics leans into analytics-as-code with agentic dev workflows and a Power BI migration path
Holistics is a BI platform built around analytics-as-code, where models and dashboards are defined in its AMQL language and version-controlled in Git. Recent releases push on three fronts at once: competitive migration (a one-command Power BI importer), AI-native authoring (Claude Code setup skills and a conversational Ask AI), and steady breadth work like an Oracle connector and org-level GitHub App auth. The throughline is making the code-first workflow easier to adopt and operate.
Simple Analytics vs Holistics: editorial side-by-side
Simple Analytics
1.3ANALYTICS
Simple Analytics ships weekly small wins — Events Explorer polish, API v6 with intervals, ingestion-side IP blocking.
◆ Current state
Cadence is the story: roughly weekly, small, considered improvements rather than headline features. Recent shipping covers Events Explorer ergonomics (column truncation, full-width toggle, collapse on hover), API v6 with proper interval support and version-aware changelogs, IP blocking moved out of bunny.net into the ingestion app for per-site control, plus quality-of-life touches (favicon refresh, open-referral-in-new-tab). The infrastructure upgrade in late February — doubled Elasticsearch cluster, 10K pageviews/sec — is the biggest under-the-hood move.
◆ Where it's heading
Simple Analytics is sticking to the 'simple, EU-hosted, privacy-first' position and competing directly with Fathom and Plausible. Where Fathom is rebuilding its engine and bolting on Search Console, Simple Analytics is iterating in smaller increments and leaning on EU-data-residency and low-friction onboarding as differentiators. Without a comparable engine rebuild or GA4-replacement narrative, the gap to Fathom on feature breadth is widening.
◆ Prediction
Likely next: more API v6 polish, deeper Events Explorer slicing/grouping, and a Search Console-style integration to keep pace with Fathom. Watch for whether the team adds a heavier reporting surface or stays disciplined to the 'simple' brief — the latter is harder to hold as competitors broaden.
Holistics
7.5ANALYTICS
Holistics leans into analytics-as-code with agentic dev workflows and a Power BI migration path
◆ Current state
Holistics is a BI platform built around analytics-as-code, where models and dashboards are defined in its AMQL language and version-controlled in Git. Recent releases push on three fronts at once: competitive migration (a one-command Power BI importer), AI-native authoring (Claude Code setup skills and a conversational Ask AI), and steady breadth work like an Oracle connector and org-level GitHub App auth. The throughline is making the code-first workflow easier to adopt and operate.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is to lower the switching cost from incumbent BI tools while betting that analytics teams will work through agents and code rather than point-and-click. Migration tooling and agentic setup skills both target the same friction: getting a team productive in Holistics fast. Parallel embed and dashboard-runtime polish (auto-run, KPI styling) point to a continued focus on the embedded-analytics use case.
◆ Prediction
Expect the migration story to extend to other incumbents and the agentic-development skills to deepen, given the back-to-back Power BI importer and Claude Code setup releases. Embedded-analytics controls look set to keep maturing.
Alternatives to Simple Analytics and Holistics
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Simple Analytics or Holistics.
Fulcrum
Fulcrum is in steady maintenance mode, polishing its field-mapping and mobile data-capture core.
Lightdash
Lightdash keeps sanding down the edges of self-serve BI, chart by chart.
Apify
Apify is rebuilding the Actor platform as MCP-first agent infrastructure.
Apache Superset
Duplicate Apache Superset row — same Helm-chart packaging feed, no distinct product signal
Apache Superset
Superset's public feed is all Helm-chart packaging — the 6.x product work sits behind release votes
See all Simple Analytics alternatives → · See all Holistics alternatives →
Recent activity from Simple Analytics and Holistics
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 16d agoHolisticsKPI metric styling in dashboard themes
- 17d agoHolisticsAuto-run on changes for embedded dashboards
- 19d agoHolisticsPower BI to Holistics migration in one command ⚡
- 27d agoHolisticsExplore interface redesign
- 1mo agoHolisticsOne-command local agentic development setup ⚡
- 1mo agoHolisticsSelect all fields in a model
- 2mo agoSimple AnalyticsEvents Explorer: column truncation, full-width toggle, collapse
- 2mo agoSimple AnalyticsAPI v6: intervals, bucket helpers, version-aware changelog
- 2mo agoSimple AnalyticsIP blocking moved to ingestion: per-site, custom-domain support
- 2mo agoSimple AnalyticsEvents Explorer improvements
- 2mo agoSimple AnalyticsEvents Explorer improvements (duplicate)
- 2mo agoSimple AnalyticsEvents Explorer improvements (duplicate)
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Simple Analytics and Holistics?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Holistics is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 1.3), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Simple Analytics better than Holistics?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Holistics is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 1.3), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Simple Analytics?
Top Simple Analytics alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Simple Analytics alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/simple-analytics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Holistics?
Top Holistics alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Holistics alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/holistics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.