11 Great Alternatives to Google Analytics

Measuring and analyzing traffic is the best way to know how well your site is performing. While most use Google Analytics for this analysis, it is just one of many tools available. In this post, we list 11 software alternatives for traffic and customer journey analysis.

1. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is a platform that lets you analyze user interactions in real-time for both mobile and web applications.

Mixpanel uses an event-based system that connects each interaction with individual users. Their pricing plans are based on what they call “Monthly Tracked Users” (MTUs). Historically, the free plan limit was 1,000 MTUs but in February they increased the limit to 100,000 MTUs, making the platform a suitable and affordable solution for startups. Additionally, eligible early-stage startups get $50,000 in Mixpanel credits via the Startup Program. Eligibility requirements for this program include that the company is less than two years old and has a maximum of $5 million in total funding. More details on this program are available here.

Regarding data protection, Mixpanel is GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA compliant. It maintains a native and active SOC 2 type II attestation, and it is Cloud Star Alliance (CSA) Star Level 1 certified.

• • Website: https://mixpanel.com/
  • Pricing: Monthly pro plans start at $36. Click here for pricing options.
  • Free Plan: Yes.
  • Free Trial: No.

• Compliance: GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.
• Features & Specs:
  • Interactive Reports: You can query data with a few clicks and see visualizations in seconds.
  • Team Dashboards and Alerts: It is easy to customize dashboards that update in real-time and get alerts when metrics change.
  • Integration Tools: You can integrate over 50 of your favorite tools with Mixpanel.
  • Data Integration: You can enable interactive event analysis from Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift.
  • Data Transformation: You can create custom properties to perform sophisticated analysis using Excel-like formulas based on existing or new property values.
• Who uses it?
  • DocuSign
  • Uber
  • Lemonade
  • Expedia
  • Twitter

2. Matomo (formerly Piwik)

Matomo (formerly known as Piwik) is a downloadable and free (yes, free!) web analytics platform that provides detailed data on your website visitors, including information such as the language they speak, the pages they visit, the files they download, keywords they used to find your website, and the referral search engine.

This is open-source software that can be downloaded and easily installed on your own web server. It is even intuitive for users that don’t have developing skills.

Matomo also provides a paid Cloud solution (hosted on their servers) for companies that are not able to host the software by themselves.

• Website: https://matomo.org/
• Pricing: Matomo Cloud costs depend on monthly traffic.
• Free Plan: Yes. Only for Matomo On-Premise.
• Free Trial: Free 21-day trial for Matomo Cloud.
• Demo: https://matomo.org/faq/new-to-piwik/faq_17/
• Compliance: GDPR and CCPA.
• Features & Specs:
  • Visitors: It helps you understand what kind of users visit your page and target similar users.
  • Behavior: You can create easier user pathways for positive impact. It provides heat maps that show where your visitors click and how far they scroll on the page.
  • Google Analytics (GA) Importer: It lets you import your historical GA data.
  • Tag Manager: It allows you to embed tracking codes to websites without prior development experience.
  • Custom Reports: It has over 200 ways to get insights.
  • Cohorts: You can find out how you keep your users engaged.
  • E-commerce: You can get insights into users’ purchasing behaviors.
• Who uses it?
  • United Nations
  • Red Bull
  • Amnesty International
  • Huawei
  • NASA
  • European Commission

3. Piwik PRO

If your main concern is user privacy, then Piwik Pro may be for you. Created in 2013, it was the first privacy-oriented alternative to Google Analytics.

Piwik Pro is generally focused on sensitive customer data, such as healthcare, government, or finance. It offers analytics with additional data protection. The platform aims to be the number one analytics platform in compliance with strict Chinese, EU, US, and Russian data protection laws.

Notably, Piwik Pro does not have any association with present-day Matomo, formerly known as Piwik. Check out this article to learn more about the differences between Piwik PRO and Matomo.

In February 2021, Piwik Pro introduced Piwik Pro Core, a free plan for Piwik PRO Analytics Suite.

• Website: https://piwik.pro/
• Pricing: You must contact Piwik Pro to get a quote.
• Free Plan: Yes. Their free plan is called Piwik PRO Core.
• Free Trial: No.
• Request a Demo: https://piwik.pro/request-a-demo/
• Compliance: GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.
• Features & Specs:
  • Web+App Analytics: You obtain data to understand user behavior on websites and mobile apps.
  • Product Teams Analytics: It offers optimization of customer experience in every stage of the user lifecycle.
  • SharePoint Analytics: It can help to improve employee engagement and knowledge sharing.
  • Clients: You can learn more about what people do on your site and app by using the audience and behavior reporting features.
  • Dashboards: You can add, remove, and edit analytics sections.
  • Reporting: It provides fast reports with little to no processing issues.
  • User Flow: You can examine user behavior starting from the user’s first or last interaction. You can also observe their flow through specific pages.
  • Funnels: You can build funnels depending on the type of user interaction(s).
• Who uses it?
  • HP
  • Accenture
  • Microsoft
  • Würth
  • European Commission

4. Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud products. Their platform is a robust marketing tool that tracks website and mobile app traffic and real-time user behavior. It uses this data to create product recommendations and customized landing pages.

The platform also enables data across all Adobe Cloud products. Adobe Analytics is generally pricey and requires specialists to use and harness its full potential.

• Website: https://business.adobe.com/products/analytics/adobe-analytics.html
• Pricing: Adobe Analytics has not publicly provided pricing information for this product or service.
• Free Plan: No.
• Free Trial: No.
• Request a Demo: https://business.adobe.com/request-consultation/experience-cloud.html
• Compliance: GDPR and CCPA.
• Features & Specs:
  • Multichannel Data Collection: There are several ways to collect data (web, apps, mobile devices, and most applications that access the internet).
  • Custom Variables: You can capture just the data that matters and achieves your business goals.
  • Processing Rules: You can create real-time segmentation of all online data.
  • Offline Data Integration: You can integrate data from any source of online or offline data.
  • Tag Management: It is easy to manage tags and the platform leverages innovative tools to collect and distribute data across systems.
  • Data Warehouse: It provides extended data storage and reporting capabilities.
• Who uses it?
  • Philips
  • The Home Depot
  • Hostelworld
  • Epson
  • Westjet
  • BMW World

5. Plausible

Plausible is a simple, lightweight, open-source, and privacy-friendly web analytics platform. It doesn’t use cookies and is fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and PECR.

It was created and is hosted in the European Union. In contrast to Google Analytics, which tends to be complex for new users, Plausible is a user-friendly platform that requires no training or prior experience. They offer a free 30-day, unlimited-use trial.

• Website: https://plausible.io/
• Pricing: Monthly plans starting at $6 for 10,000 views per month.
• Free Plan: No.
• Free Trial: Yes. Unlimited 30-day trial.
• Live Demo: https://plausible.io/plausible.io
• Compliance: GDPR, CCPA, and PECR.
• Features & Specs:
  • Simple Metrics: You can visualize all important data on one page.
  • It is a lightweight script (less than 1KB).
  • Privacy-focused: It does not have annoying cookie banners and was built with privacy for your visitors.
  • Open-source: See Github page.
• Who uses it?
  • Elementary
  • Erlang Ecosystem Foundation

6. Fathom

Fathom is a simple, lightweight, privacy-first website analytics alternative. It is a cookie-less platform and compliant with GDPR, ePrivacy, PECR, CCPA, and COPPA.

They offer a free 7-day trial. You can also install Fathom Lite on your server for free, but this solution lacks some functionality. You can check their comparison table to see the differences.

• Website: https://usefathom.com/
• Pricing: Monthly plans starting at $14 for 100,000 views per month. Check the pricing plans.
• Free Plan: No.
• Free Trial: Yes. Free 7-day trial.
• Video Demo: https://usefathom.com/video/hkhKuMYvVtE
• Compliance: GDPR, ePrivacy, PECR, CCPA, and COPPA.
• Features & Specs:
  • Privacy-focused: It doesn’t track personal information. The tool logs that a user visited your website pages, but not the specific details of that user.
  • Easy to Use and Understand: The dashboards are clean and have a minimalistic, intuitive interface.
  • Pricing is based on page views, so you can track unlimited websites.
  • Bypasses ad-blockers.
  • Real-time Data: You can check when people are visiting and where they’re coming from.
  • Data You Own: They let you export your data so you can use it elsewhere.
• Who uses it?
  • GitHub
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Buffer
  • Transistor

7. GoSquared

GoSquared provides analytics and offers a live chat feature to boost sales. You can acquire each of these products separately.

With the analytics platform, you can see the browsing activity that led a user to your website. If the users provide their email addresses, you can dig deeper and review their social activity.

• Website: https://www.gosquared.com/
• Pricing: Starting with an early-stage package for $29 per month and a suite package for $79 per month.
• Free Plan: Yes, but limited. It is excellent for small projects.
• Free Trial: No.
• Live Demo: https://www.gosquared.com/demo/now/tf2
• Compliance: GDPR and ePrivacy.
• Features & Specs:
  • Real-time dashboard with historical reporting.
  • Concurrent Visitors: It provides an accurate measure of users on a website.
  • Device Usage: You can discover how many of your users are on mobile phones, tablets, desktops, etc.
  • Learn More Site Visitors: You can see the language they use, their operating systems, browsers being used, IP address, etc.
  • Timeline Annotations: You can keep track of traffic spikes.
  • PLL Free: You can respect visitors’ privacy by preventing the collection of personal information.
• Who uses it?
  • J.P. Morgan
  • Whole Foods
  • GlobalData
  • DELL
  • Tennessee State Government
  • MacMillan
  • Canon
  • General Electric

8. Woopra

Woopra offers analytics with custom tracking capabilities for product, marketing, sales, and support teams. Woopra also offers real-time features like sending a message to a Slack channel when a user signs up.

They offer a free 14-day trial and a free version that is perfect for learning and experimenting with their platform.

• Website: https://www.woopra.com/
• Pricing: Monthly paid plans starting at $349 for 1 million actions per month. For more details, check their pricing plans page.
• Free Plan: Yes.
• Free Trial: Yes. Free 14-day trial.
• Request a Demo: https://www.woopra.com/demo
• Compliance: GDPR.
• Features & Specs:
  • Trends Reports: You can discover how and why your product evolves to keep it growing.
  • Cohort Reports: You can analyze growth trends and measure patterns throughout the customer lifecycle.
  • Retention Reports: You can make decisions that keep customers coming back.
  • Behavioral Segmentation: You can create dynamic segments of users based on any criteria.
  • No SQL required.
• Who uses it?
  • Duke University
  • Applitools
  • TaxJar
  • Botify
  • HP
  • Vungle
  • Vidyo
  • Hubstaff

9. FoxMetrics

FoxMetrics is another analytics software that operates similarly to Google Analytics, though more robust. You install a library on all your pages and start collecting data. With the collected data, the platform helps you build customer profiles based on visitors’ activity to create unique customer segments for conversion rate optimization.

They also offer this cool “Digital Analytics Glossary” that you should check out. It lists the common terms that you need to know when working with any analytics software.

• Website: https://www.foxmetrics.com/
• Pricing: Monthly paid plans starting at $199. For more information, check their pricing page.
• Free Plan: Yes. They offer free plans for startups, minority-owned businesses, educational institutions, and nonprofits.
• Free Trial: Yes. Free 14-day trial.
• Request a Demo: https://www.foxmetrics.com/request-a-demo/
• Compliance: GDPR.
• Features & Specs:
  • Reporting and Analytics: It helps you generate customer profiles that are based on your visitors’ activity with the intent to help you leverage the data to improve your customer journey.
  • Campaign Personalization: Based on the collected data, you can generate custom campaigns for segmented audiences.
• Who uses it?
  • Data is not available.

10. GoatCounter

GoatCounter is an open-source web analytics platform available as a hosted service or self-hosted app. Its main focus is privacy, and the platform also offers a lightweight script tag and javascript-free tracking pixel option.

They offer a free plan for personal use (non-commercial). If you are unsure whether your website is considered personal, you can get in touch with the developer to ask.

• Website: https://www.goatcounter.com/
• Pricing: This product is free as a self-hosted app (running it on your own server). If you opt for their premium service, the subscription plan starts at €5/month up to €30/month. Pricing appears to only be publicly available in euros.
• Free Plan: Yes. Free hosted service plan for non-commercial use.
• Free Trial: No.
• Live Demo: https://stats.arp242.net/
• Compliance: Doesn’t track users with unique identifiers and does not need a GDPR notice.
• Features & Specs:
  • Offers both self-hosted and hosted options.
  • Privacy-aware: It won’t track users with unique identifiers, so it doesn’t require a GDPR consent notice.
  • Easy to Use and Understand: You can check the live demo for a peek of the options they offer.
  • Open-source: See GitHub page.
  • Committed to Accessibility: Their platform integrates well with assistive technologies.
  • Multiple Ways to Collect Data: js tracker, no-js tracker, backend middleware, or log file parser.
• Who uses it?
  • Data is not available.

11. Fair Analytics

Fair Analytics is a new alternative to Google Analytics. Similar to GoatCounter, privacy is the platform’s main feature. It is easy to install, a very lightweight script (only 4 kb), and DSGVO/GDPR/RGPD compliant. Once the tracker is set up, the analytics dashboard is very intuitive and allows you to locate important data with ease.

• Website: https://www.fairanalytics.de/
• Pricing: Free to register and use.
• Free Plan: Yes
• Live Demo: https://www.fairanalytics.de/demo/
• Compliance: DSGVO/GDPR/RGPD
• Features & Specs:
  • User-friendly: Easy to install and integrate with any website. The platform also offers a WordPress plugin, if needed.
  • Streamlined: Includes an intuitive administration panel within a single page.
  • Data-sharing: Allows you to readily share statistics with a secure link.
  • Privacy-focused: Platform doesn’t use cookies.
• Who uses it?
  • Data is not available.

Summary

	Free Plan	Trial	Price	Compliance
MixPanel	The free plan was recently updated for the data limits.		Monthly plans starting at $25 per month (if paid annually), or $36 if paid monthly.	GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA.
Matomo (formerly Piwik)	Only for on-premise.	Free 21-day trial.	Monthly plans starting at €29 (Euros) for 50K pageviews/mo.	GDPR and CCPA.
Piwik PRO			Contact the vendor to get a quote.	GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.
Adobe Analytics			Contact the vendor to get a quote.	GDPR and CCPA.
Plausible		Free 30-day, unlimited-use trial.	Monthly plans starting at $6 for 10K views/mo.	GDPR, CCPA, and PECR.
Fathom		Free 7-day trial.	Monthly plans starting at $14 for 100K pageviews/mo.	GDPR, ePrivacy, PECR, CCPA, and COPPA.
GoSquared	With some limitations like 1,000 pageviews/mo.		Monthly plans starting at $29 for 100K pageviews/mo.	GDPR and ePrivacy.
Woopra	With some limitations like 500K actions/mo.	Free 14-day trial.	Monthly plans starting at $349 for 1 million actions/mo.	GDPR.
FoxMetrics		Free 14-day trial.	Monthly plans starting at $199 for a single application.	GDPR.
GoatCounter	For non-commercial use or self-hosted applications.		Monthly plans starting at €5 (Euros) for 100K pageviews/mo.	Doesn’t track users with unique identifiers and does not need a GDPR notice.
Fair Analytics			100% Free	DSGVO/GDPR/RGPD compliant.

Conclusion

For most websites, Google Analytics is more than enough to analyze traffic and plan marketing strategies. However, depending on your needs, there are several alternatives to Google Analytics. If you need more control, are on a budget, and can self-host an analytics platform, try out Matomo or GoatCounter (or one of the other options with a free trial).

You could also use more than one of these web traffic analytics tools for your website, but you must consider that the extra load could affect site performance.

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