Everything on this page is about usage data specifically, and is checkable against Lago's own documentation. We use no logos or marks, and nothing here is presented as an endorsement.
Compare · Open-source billingPixel Data
Pixel Data
vs Lago
You want to own the billing stack outright — read the source, run it yourself, fork it if you need to. That is a legitimate and increasingly popular choice, and if control matters more to you than time-to-first-invoice, Lago is the better fit. We are the opposite trade: you give up that control and get a working dashboard in fifteen minutes.
What Lago is genuinely good at
- Genuinely open source, so you can read the rating logic that decides your invoices rather than trusting a black box.
- Self-hostable, which settles data-residency and vendor-risk questions in one move.
- A serious, well-documented billing engine with an active community behind it.
Choose them if
You want to own the billing stack outright — read the source, run it yourself, fork it if you need to. That is a legitimate and increasingly popular choice, and if control matters more to you than time-to-first-invoice, Lago is the better fit. We are the opposite trade: you give up that control and get a working dashboard in fifteen minutes.
- How usage gets in
- Push only — your code sends events to their API or SDKs.
- How it is sold
- Open source and self-hostable at no licence cost; the hosted edition is sold commercially. The real cost of the self-hosted route is the infrastructure and the person who keeps it running.
With Lago, you
- Your engineers instrument every billable action before anything appears, because ingest is push-only.
- You run it, upgrade it, back it up and secure it — or pay for the hosted edition instead.
- You add a separate analytics layer if anyone wants to see what a route or a customer actually earns.
- Nothing checks what your suppliers charge you. Every product in this category meters what you sell; none audits what you are billed.
With Pixel Data, you
- You install an agent on the machine that already has your usage, or push, or sync from your warehouse — three ways in, not one.
- You get hosting, upgrades and access control included, with UK residency stated plainly.
- You get the usage analytics in the same product, not as a second system to stand up.
- You get supplier invoice reconciliation, which finds money rather than only charging it.
What it means for you
You get to a first correct invoice this week rather than after an instrumentation project, and you find out what your carriers are overcharging you.
Side by side
For usage data. Nothing else is claimed.
| For your usage data | Pixel Data | Lago |
|---|---|---|
| Open source, readable and forkable | No | Yes |
| Run it entirely on your own infrastructure | No | Yes |
| Meters usage and rates it into moneyThe core job. Both do it — this is a comparison of everything around it. | Yes | Yes |
| Versioned price plans and an audit trail | Yes | Yes |
| Agent that reads usage off your infrastructureOne command on the machine that already has your CDRs. No code written. | Yes | No |
| Plain HTTPS API for events | Yes | Yes |
| Sync from your data warehouse | On the roadmap | No |
| How usage gets in | Agent, API or warehouse sync | Push only |
| Warehouse-grade analytics over raw eventsNot billing reports — every event kept, queryable, and clickable from any amount. | Yes | No |
| Supplier invoice reconciliationUpload what a carrier charged you; every line is checked against what you recorded. | Yes | No |
| Self-serve signup, no sales call | Yes | No |
| Pricing modelHow the product is sold, not what it costs — figures change and ours are on the website. | Published flat tiers | Open source, or hosted commercially |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes |
| Hosting, upgrades and access control included | Yes | Cloud edition only |
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Pixel Data is not affiliated with or endorsed by any company mentioned.
However you get here, you get these three
The same on every comparison, because they are the same three things none of these tools does.
Be live before the kettle boils
You run one line on the machine that already has your usage on it. No schema workshop, no engineering sprint, no project plan.
Defend any figure on any invoice
You click any amount through to its events, and any event through to the arithmetic — increment, minimum, matched prefix, plan version.
Get back what your carrier over-charged
You upload a carrier invoice and get a line-by-line verdict against what your own events say actually happened.
When Lago is the right choice
If owning and reading the billing code matters to you — regulated environments, unusual data-residency constraints, or simply a strong preference for open source — Lago is a good answer and we will not pretend otherwise.
Moving from one of these
Coming at launchThe Switch Kit is our migration path: import your existing price plans, run both systems in parallel for a month against the same traffic, and get a daily match report showing where the two disagree — before you move anyone's invoicing. Nothing is switched until the numbers agree.
Checked against public documentation in 2026-07. Products change — if anything here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
See your own usage on a dashboard today.
Install takes one command. If you would rather look first, the sandbox is open — sample data, no card, no signup.