What’s the best substitute for Google Analytics?
Looking for web analytics tools that are not Google Analytics and are user-friendly, not highly technical like Mixpanel and let you keep track of the basics - How many users? Where do they come from? Etc
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GA4 is powerful but problem is it not user friendly.. But you can transform it to make it clean and user friendly with userflo. app. Connects to your existing GA4 via OAuth in ~10 sec (read only access) and it transform it as a clean dashboard with metrics that matters. It also has ai agent to ask specific questions and you can also set periodic summary sent on mail. Free forever for the core view. Worth a look
I switched away from GA4 a few months ago. The complexity was killing me, I spent more time configuring it than learning from it. I ended up building my own tool (Zenovay) because I wanted heatmaps, session replay, and AI insights all in one dashboard instead of stitching together 3 different services. But Plausible and Fathom are solid choices too if you just need basic pageview tracking.
Look into appmetrix.com
It allows two type of website analytics.
Simple Analytics mode - Privacy friendly web analytics.
Advanced Analytics mode - It is for deep analytics with features like heatmap analytics and session recording while maintaining GDPR privacy at the same time
Nice product. Possibility to record session and heatmap while maintaining privacy and GDPR is great addition.
I use this for my all my blog websites.
I really like Pirsch Analytics
Same here. Especially the possibility to record views and events server side is a rare feature. Less JS to load, works without it and avoids adblockers. And they are on Indiehackers: @m5blum @Motorschpocht
me too
Do check out Litelytics.io - It's a simple dashboard for Google Analytics, I'm sure you will love it.
Thank you, will look into it.
Matomo's been my go-to lately. Easy to use and covers all the basics without getting too technical. Give it a shot!
I’ve been using GoatCounter in most of my projects, it’s basic, but perfect for what I need.
This seems good, thank you
In case you didn't have choice anxiety already, i noticed no one mentioned Posthog - i've heard a lot fo good things, though I haven't used it myself.
Do you need it to be free? I think Amplitude is the simplest, most comprehensive alternative (and boy do you need an alternative, I am NOT a GA guy) but it has a monthly cost.
Amplitude is extremely complicated
In what way? I've installed it in my (mobile) app and found that process quite straightforward. You literally just drop a line or two of code wherever in the app you want an event logged.
Then the analytics / dashboards are certainly straightforward
You must try veonr.com, it's super simple yet super precise. And sometimes that's all you need.
You can checkout Simple Analytics (https://www.simpleanalytics.com/) or Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/)
Also https://plausible.io/
These are great. Are any there any good free alternatives? I was using SplitBee, not sure if it's still good since acquisition.
You could self-host Matomo or Plausible, but you'd still be paying for your own servers and spending your time implementing/maintaining them. The only other analytics tool that I know is free is Cloudflare Analytics, but I don't think it's good enough yet to be a true competitor. In particular, I still think they have an issue with dramatically over-inflated visitor numbers due to counting bots.
Thanks @stevenkkim. Surprisingly few options in the web analytics world...
Fullres.com — it's cheaper and offers way more insights (like Web Vitals) than all the "anti-GA" clones popping up.
I use vercel, and its <Analytics /> tag is easy to use.
Thanks everyone for all these suggestions.
If you're looking for non-technical, Fullstory is really good for truly understanding user sessions. It's very easy to implement (just stick the tag in the <head> of your site)
Thanks, this looks pretty great
I've used Fullstory before, it can be great, but overwhelming ... so a few comments, and suggestions
Watching sessions and looking at heatmaps is great, but sometimes it's hard to actually get insight from them. This is no substitute for actually sitting down with users and talking to them.
Make sure you tag your user behavior so you can surface sessions that matter. (update: their website is showing they are doing retroactive auto-tagging now, like heap, which is good)
No one has time to watch ALL the sessions
It can get expensive
the script can be heavy and use a lot of data for users
Quick trick solution to 3,4,5 - only drop the tag on a small group of users - say if you want ten percent and use numerical ids, user's who's id's end in 1.
They won't tell you what their base price is, which isn't a good sign.
Yeah, the trick is to do the sales call with them, then email a couple of days later saying you're going to try Hotjar because they have a free tier. Then, they'll put you on the Fullstory free tier, which I think is about 1,000 sessions per month. I watch about 5 sessions per day just to get an idea of what's pissing users off.
I also use Mixpanel. I know you said you didn't like the idea of Mixpanel since it's a bit technical. It's really fine though. If you built your site/app yourself, it's super easy to implement (a few hours) and you'll get useful insights for months/years. I've been on Mixpanel ever since starting my startup and still use it as my main dashboard every day
Plausible, Umami, Fathom
I'm using plausible for all of my sites right now and it's great.
Want something simple and privacy-focused? Check out Fathom or Plausible. They're lean, mean, data machines that give you the essentials without the bloat.
Maybe you're a product person obsessed with user behavior. Then Heap or Mixpanel might be your jam.
These guys track every click, swipe, and scroll, giving you a crazy detailed picture of how people navigate your site.
For me, though, I landed on Clicky. It struck a great balance between features and ease of use.
I can see traffic sources, user engagement, and even set up conversion tracking (without feeling like I need a PhD in analytics). Plus, the interface is intuitive. Who knew that was a thing?
My first ChatGPT comment!
Not ChatGPT
I've been self-hosting Umami for our website. You can do a super easy, one-click deploy to railway: https://umami.is/docs/running-on-railway
There are many tools out there to provider analytics. But so many features, etc. are unknown to me and I would probably never invest time in learning them, nor might it be a requirement for me.
Hence, which I saw https://usefathom.com/ - I knew this would be the one. Super simple to implement and use. Nothing complicated. Almost a zero learning curve. Tells me know what I want to know
i self-host an Umami analytics instance and I love it. Super lightweight and easy to setup. All the standard analytics you'd expect, and you can also define custom events to track funnels, etc. Obv if you self-host too you own your own data.
https://umami.is/
We're currently in the process of building an alternative to Google Analytics at GoodMetrics.io. Hoping to have an MVP within the next few months and happy to chat with anyone who might be interested in beta testing.
Accourding to me Clicky is a popular web analytics tool that offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of features, including real-time analytics, heatmaps, and conversion tracking. Clicky also offers a free plan for up to 3,000 daily visits.
Matomo (formerly Piwik): Matomo is an open-source internet analytics platform that gives comparable points to Google Analytics whilst prioritizing statistics privacy. It provides customizable dashboards, real-time facts tracking, and effective reporting capabilities.
Adobe Analytics: Adobe Analytics is a complete analytics answer that presents superior points for monitoring and examining person conduct throughout some channels. It gives deep insights into client journeys and integrates nicely with different Adobe Marketing Cloud products.
Mixpanel: Mixpanel focuses on event-based analytics, permitting you to music consumer interactions and behaviors in real time. It gives superior segmentation, funnel analysis, and A/B trying out competencies to optimize consumer engagement and conversion rates.
Heap: Heap is an easy-to-use analytics platform that robotically captures person interactions except for the want for guide match tracking. It provides retroactive analysis, funnel visualizations, and cohort evaluation to apprehend consumer conduct and enhance internet site performance.
Open Web Analytics (OWA): Open Web Analytics is a free and open-source choice of Google Analytics. It affords simple internet site analytics features, which include web page views, session tracking, and referral sources, with the flexibility to personalize and lengthen performance as needed.
I'd recommend checking out Matomo (formerly Piwik). It offers a similar range of features as Google Analytics but allows you to retain full control of your data since it's self-hosted.
Try Simple Analytics
We've created a Looker Studio Dashboard for the non-technical team.
I recommend umami - self-hosting option, easy & privacy friendly
Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is our next-generation measurement solution, and it has replaced Universal Analytics. Starting on July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing new data, and all customers will lose access to the Universal Analytics interface and API starting on July 1, 2024.