Alternatives to Google Analytics

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Talking about alternatives to Google Analytics Let's perhaps get into a somewhat technical topic that may not be of direct interest to everyone. We say directly because the only ones who can ensure that theGoogle Analytics hegemony really ends with webmasters and in general i owners and/or developers of the Web sites (why should I remove Google Analytics?). One of the ways they do this is to choose for their own website a any alternatives to Google Analytics. There are some free, Open source or even a payment and with this article we will try to shed some light.

In reality each of us can, indirectly, avoid tracking by Google Analytics following the our guide on alternatives to Google Chrome. With Firefox and uBlock installed in fact, without any extra settings, you will block automatically the domain of Google Analytics and consequently you will not be tracked.

Why look for alternatives to Google Analytics?

But why, as users, should you block Google Analytics tracking? Meanwhile, in order not to give theyet another free piece of information on our Google habits. We have already talked about the alternatives available to Android, Gmail, Google Search, Google Calendar and the Google keyboard. Google Analytics is theyet another piece that Google uses to keep track of you and the sites you visit. Take a look, for example, at how many sites have Google Analytics installed and just try to imagine the amount of data that Google has.

Did you know, for example, that the 86% of sites that use Google Analytics do notn does nothing to hide your IP address ¹?

Google Analytics is everywhere, even on porn sites

For example you know that the most famous porn sites in the world such as YouPorn, PornHub, Xtube or RedTube (which are then part everyone of the same company called Mindgeek) is present Google Analytics tracking code? How hard do you think it is for Google to do 2+2 and understand, even if you are in incognito mode, knowing that it is you ² that you are watching that video even if you can analyze all searches, how long did you stay watching a video and so on?

For this reason we strongly recommend everyone to use it Firefox with at least uBlock installed or, alternatively, Brave. For who runs a website Instead we suggest some alternatives to Google Analytics really interesting. We will give priority, as always, to the platforms that are simplest to use.

GoatCounter

🇩🇪 server in Germany
🔓 Open source

The first alternative to Google Analytics we want to talk to you about is called GoatCounter. It's a project Open source ³ really interesting, it's been online since the beginning of 2020 ⁴ and we have adopted it in the past as our reference statistics. It is privacy-friendly ⁵ and the servers are in Germany, therefore within the EU. The developer ⁶ he is very active and his life choice is also interesting as he has decided to dedicate himself entirely to this try to live with a project Open source ⁷. The interesting thing about this project is that for those who do not have a commercial site the license is totally free under 100k pageviews per month. To be able to install them on your WordPress site you will only have to add a simple line to the header.php file, is also recently available a plugin to do it automatically.

This in our opinion is, among other things, the spearhead of this project. In fact one of the reasons that drives people to use Google Analytics, especially small projects, is the fact that it is totally free And simple to use. With GoatCounter Obviously you can't hope to get the same tools as Google Analytics. First of all, why it's a new project And much smaller. But above all because to have the full potential of Google Analytics you need to turn a little blind eye to privacy. If, however, you care about the privacy of your users and also want to know how many visits your site/blog has GoatCounter it's the one for you. You also have the option of giving the public link to your statistics, such as we did it in the past. Plus, if you are capable, you can also install one Instance for free for your business without relying on their servers.

Matomo

💽 data saved locally
🔓 Open source

It's the statistics Most famous alternatives to Google Analytics. As GoatCounter they are too Open source ⁸ and it is possible install them independently on your server. More if you have WordPress you can install it for free with a practical plugin. They are quite complete, in our opinion even too much. In fact, they currently collect a little more data from their users than GoatCounter ⁹. Despite this all information comes somehow anonymized and it is also possible to offer theopt-out to its users. If you need more complex but free statistics and you have a WordPress site this is definitely the option for you. If you don't have WordPress you may want to use their cloud but at a price that is not accessible to everyone: off we go from €19 per month.

Counter

🔓 Open source

An alternative Open source ¹⁰ rather recent, it's called Counter and it is very simple to use. Furthermore, it is also completely free, in fact it lives only thanks to donations. According to the author this is possible precisely because of the intrinsic quality of Counter which requires very few resources.
To install Counter on your site, as we said, it's really simple. After registering, simply enter the script that will be assigned to you in the and you will immediately see the results.
Counter does not track users across i Cookies nor through the Fingerprinting: It is safe and private. However, nowhere is it mentioned GDPR so we can't be sure at 100% that it is GDPR compliant but the way it is structured it really seems to be so.

A feature that we really like is the possibility of having a link to show your statistics to external visitors.

Jetpack

🔓 Open source

Anyone who has a blog or site WordPress you almost certainly know the Jetpack package. Jetpacks it's a official WordPress suite which contains many modules that allows you to do the most disparate things ¹¹. Among these there are precisely the Jetpack statistics.
Some even consider it Bloatware, that is, a heavy program and excessive for what he has to do. In short, above all if you only need it for statistics maybe it is really a bit exaggerated. Keep one thing in mind: initially we used the Jetpack package, since we removed it we have gone through all the available speed tests, from 84/85 up to current 96/100 thanks also to having removed Jetpack. Beyond this, keep in mind that it is free for non-commercial sites and is Open source ¹².

Koko Analytics

💽 data saved locally
🔓 Open source

Also Koko Analytics was born with an eye to privacy ¹³. It's a project Open source ¹⁴ and try to keep as little track of users as possible. It is available in many languages and above all it is totally plug and play with WordPress thanks to a practical plugin. The interesting thing is that nothing will come out of your server.

Statify

💽 data saved locally
🔓 Open source

Another excellent one alternative Open source ¹⁵ to Google Analytics. Statify in fact he uses neither Cookies nor third parties of any kind. Furthermore, it can be easily installed on your WordPress site thanks to a practical, well-updated plugin.

Alternatives to Google Analytics are excellent but less practical to use

The ones we have listed are some alternatives to Google Analytics easy to use for anyone who doesn't chew nothing about computers. With GoatCounter Indeed you just need to add a line of text into a file, with Matomo And Jetpacks you will simply have WordPress do everything with a plugin. The ones we are going to list are all of them non-free alternatives unless you are able to install them on your server.

So let's talk about OpenWebAnalytics, a project Open source ¹⁶ installable for free on your server. Unfortunately there isn't even a paid version so either you know what to do or you won't be able to use it. Then there are options like Count.ly And Plausible.io. Both Open source ^{17 18} but with no free plan. The costs of the first are not very clear, but with the second they are starts from 6$ per month for 10k monthly pageviews.

Another example of statistics Open source ¹⁹ can be installed for free on your server Umami, graphically very attractive (thanks for letting us know).

Last, in order of suggestion, is a project Open source ²⁰ Italian called Aurora.

If you are a webmaster, we hope to have convinced you to stop using Google Analytics but one of his valid alternatives.
If you want to come visit us on Reddit to tell us your experience!

1. 86% of websites using Google Analytics are not anonymizing their users' full IP addresses[↩]
2. Google and Facebook know if you're looking at a porn site, even if you use incognito mode[↩]
3. GoatCounter on GitHub[↩]
4. GoatCounter 1.0 release[↩]
5. GoatCounter privacy policy[↩]
6. Martin Tournoij[↩]
7. Launching GoatCounter[↩]
8. Matomo code[↩]
9. Matomo – Privacy Policy[↩]
10. Counter on GitHub[↩]
11. Jetpack features[↩]
12. Jetpack on GitHub[↩]
13. Does this respect my visitor's privacy?[↩]
14. Koko Analytics on GitHub[↩]
15. Statify on GitHub[↩]
16. OpenWebAnalytics on GitHub[↩]
17. Countly on GitHub[↩]
18. Plausible on GitHub[↩]
19. Umami on GitHub[↩]
20. source code of Aurora[↩]

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