What do you use for static site analytics?
I have a couple of static sites (JAMStack, Jekyll and Gridsome in particular) and wanted to add some analytics plugins or scripts to them. What services would you recommend? Should I use Google analytics as the first answer to that, or are there any less monstrous solutions? (that wouldn't cost me a lot, because the projects are not commercial for now)
What do you prefer if you have a similar experience?
Check out simpleanalytics.com and usefathom.com. Much simpler than Google Analytics, although not free.
Heard a lot of good words about Simple Analytics, though it has a comparatively expensive starter plan. Fathom is the one I like the most these days (by their message and reviews at least) 👍
Also thinking about Netlify's integrated analytics service (I host the sites there). Though I couldn't find any detailed information on that.
I use https://www.goatcounter.com/ for my static site. Pretty basic analytics but does the job and is more privacy respecting than some others.
I know your post is a year old but I happened upon this today and just installed Goat Counter on my personal Jekyll static site...I love it. So simple, 5 second "install", it just works. Plus the creator seems to really respect privacy (https://www.arp242.net/dnt.html).
Thx for the post!!
Interesting, gonna try that, thanks 👍
Although I have very little experience with it https://funnelytics.io/ is quite nice as well. The free version does offer you fewer features but is still helpful.
But why not use Google Analytics? It's easy setup and provides the right information to start with...
I just had to make this decision for myself and I went with Fathom (usefathom.com). So far I'm really liking it -- balances privacy and analytics, sets 0 cookies, is simple to setup, single page dashboard and it's easy way to hook in 'goals' for things like sign-ups/etc.
Why not Google Analytics?
Cookies -- as soon as you turn on Google Analytics you're obligated to get consent for the cookies you're setting and explain the data you're collecting.
Ultimately it collects too much data. I used it years ago but now on the Google Analytics dashboard I don't even know what I'm looking at. It is way more complicated than it needs to be for a bootstrapper.
Unless you lived your past life in Google Analytics I'd recommend against it. There are simpler options that can give your users a better experience and let you move on to do other things
Yeah, I totally agree with @dmw - the same experience with GA (used it with a couple of WordPress sites previously). Also wanted to use something light and basic for static sites. I'll check out funnelytics, thanks. Looks interesting 👍
I built a self-hosted analytics tool ( usertrack.net ) which is like a combination of Google Analytics and Hotjar. It has the most important features you need for basic stats and conversion rate analytics, but I am still working on it and adding new features.
The nice part if you have multiple sites is that you can view a summary for all of them at once:
Looks nice 👍