Do I need a cookie banner for analytics?

juuna gives you no cookies to declare. It does keep one random identifier in localStorage, and some regulators read device storage broadly, so whether your configuration needs consent is a question for your counsel and your jurisdiction. What we can promise is that the list of facts they will need is short, and it is all on this page.

Is cookieless analytics accurate?

The stored identifier makes repeat visits, funnels and retention exact rather than estimated. Where a browser blocks storage entirely, each pageview reads as a fresh visitor: those browsers overstate visitor counts slightly and understate loyalty. No probabilistic matching is used to paper over that.

Does juuna use fingerprinting instead of cookies?

No. The identifier is a random UUID, not a hash of device traits, and it is stored openly in localStorage where a visitor can see and clear it. Erase the id and the link to past activity is gone.

How is this different from Plausible or Fathom?

They store nothing on the device and count in aggregate, which is the right tool when visit counts are the whole question. juuna stores one random id, which is what makes funnels, retention and per-visitor timelines possible. The comparison pages state the trade both ways.

Last updated · 2026-08-31

04 · In practice

Count the visitors.Skip the cookies.

juuna measures your website without setting a single cookie: each visitor is counted with a random first-party identifier that never crosses sites, and every event goes to a dedicated instance that only you rent.

The mechanism

How do you count visitors without cookies?

The juuna script sets no cookies at all, first-party or third-party. On a visitor’s first pageview it mints a random identifier, a plain UUID, and keeps it in the browser’s localStorage under your domain. The id is random rather than derived: nothing about the device or the person is hashed into it, and it means nothing anywhere but on your site.

That one identifier is what keeps the numbers honest. Repeat visits resolve to one visitor, funnels and retention hold together across days, and an erasure request has something concrete to erase. Aggregate-only tools must estimate these things or decline to answer; juuna can simply count.

What reaches your instance is the event itself: page, referrer, screen size, language, timestamp. The visitor’s IP is read on arrival for coarse geography, country, region and city, and then ages out with the raw events; it never appears in a rollup or a recording.

The banner question

Do I still need a cookie banner?

There are no cookies to declare, which is most of what cookie banners exist to declare. But the honest answer does not stop there: juuna stores one random identifier in localStorage, and some jurisdictions treat anything stored on a device the way they treat a cookie. Whether your setup needs consent depends on your configuration, your jurisdiction and your counsel’s reading. This page describes a mechanism; it is not legal advice.

What the mechanism gives that conversation is a short list of parties. No third-party cookies, no advertising identifiers, no cross-site tracking, no data brokered onward: whoever reviews your site finds you, a server you rent, and nobody else.

III

The short list

What never touches your visitors?

No third party sits in the path. The script loads from your instance, events post to your instance, and even the IP-to-geo lookup is a local GeoLite2 database on the instance rather than a call to a geolocation API. There is no one else in the room.

The trade to understand before choosing: juuna is not an aggregate-only counter. Plausible and Fathom store no identifier at all, which is the strongest possible storage position and also why they cannot show retention cohorts or a single visitor’s path. juuna keeps one random id so that it can. Pick by the questions you need answered.

The numbers stay clean either way: automated browsers are ignored by the SDK entirely, requests from declared bots are refused at ingest, and any visitor can silence the script in their own browser with a single localStorage flag.

On the record

What is stored, and where?

Dimension	The answer
Cookies	None, first-party or third-party
Visitor identifier	A random UUID in localStorage, meaningful only on your site
Cross-site tracking	None; the identifier never crosses sites
Fingerprinting	None; the identifier is random, not derived from the device
IP address	Used for geography at ingest, aged out with raw events, never in rollups or recordings
Third parties in the path	None; script and events touch only your instance
Visitor opt-out	One localStorage flag silences the SDK in that browser

Cookies: None, first-party or third-party
Visitor identifier: A random UUID in localStorage, meaningful only on your site
Cross-site tracking: None; the identifier never crosses sites
Fingerprinting: None; the identifier is random, not derived from the device
IP address: Used for geography at ingest, aged out with raw events, never in rollups or recordings
Third parties in the path: None; script and events touch only your instance
Visitor opt-out: One localStorage flag silences the SDK in that browser

Asked and answered

Do I need a cookie banner for analytics?: juuna gives you no cookies to declare. It does keep one random identifier in localStorage, and some regulators read device storage broadly, so whether your configuration needs consent is a question for your counsel and your jurisdiction. What we can promise is that the list of facts they will need is short, and it is all on this page.
Is cookieless analytics accurate?: The stored identifier makes repeat visits, funnels and retention exact rather than estimated. Where a browser blocks storage entirely, each pageview reads as a fresh visitor: those browsers overstate visitor counts slightly and understate loyalty. No probabilistic matching is used to paper over that.
Does juuna use fingerprinting instead of cookies?: No. The identifier is a random UUID, not a hash of device traits, and it is stored openly in localStorage where a visitor can see and clear it. Erase the id and the link to past activity is gone.
How is this different from Plausible or Fathom?: They store nothing on the device and count in aggregate, which is the right tool when visit counts are the whole question. juuna stores one random id, which is what makes funnels, retention and per-visitor timelines possible. The comparison pages state the trade both ways.

Keep reading

GDPR analytics · Session replay · juuna vs Plausible · juuna vs Fathom · juuna vs Umami · The integration docs · Pricing

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