Google Analytics is perhaps the analytics platform of our time. But should it be? It’s many features and the free plan is what made it popular, but its invasion of user privacy should not be overlooked. Here are some good alternatives for 2020.
First, I want to mention privacy-oriented self-hosted solutions. Their Open Source nature provides you an option to host them yourself instead of sending the data to someone else. Second, we look at some of the viable closed-source alternatives.
Open Source
Plausible
I learned about Plausible just recently, but they deserve to be on top of this list for me. Their platform is completely Open Source on GitHub under the MIT license. I personally also like that it’s written in Elixir.
As they say themselves:
Google Analytics collects a lot of personal data and it is a potential liability for your site. Many website owners fail to do this, but you should and must disclose to your visitors your use of Google Analytics to track them.
Plausible gets you cover if you need to comply with GDPR, CCPA, and PECR.
Their cheapest plan starts at $6 a month (just $4 if paid yearly) and for $12 a month you get 100k pageviews across unlimited sites. They also publish a roadmap to keep you up-to-date with what’s coming.
If I needed a JavaScript-based analytics today, Plausible would be my first choice.
Update: I switched to hosted Plausible. It’s the cheapest open source solution giving me what I need.
GoatCounter
GoatCounter is another great option for privacy-oriented analytics not tracking users personal data. As Plausible is fully Open Source licensed under EUPL. The platform is written in Go.
A nice touch is a free plan with 100k pageviews/month for non-commercial use. A commercial plan with unlimited sites, custom domain, and 500k pageviews limit sets you back by $15.
Open Web Analytics
Open Web Analytics is an Open Source PHP-based web analytics software licensed under GPL. OWA has one strong advantage that puts it ahead of the others. Apart from implementing simple analytics, it does give you heatmaps as well.
On the other hand, the author does not offer a hosted variant, so you are on your own. If you are serving your static sites from platforms such as GitHub Pages, you probably won’t be setting up a separate server just to run OWA.
Offen
Offen brands themselves as “fair web analytics” and unlike the rest of the services on this list users themselves are in complete control of their data with their “opt-in only data collection”.
With Offen your users can see all the data that you have about them. All user data is also only stored for 6 months and then automatically deleted. This design probably led to no option for exporting any of this data.
Offen is only available as self-hosted with code on GitHub. Written in Go.
Matomo
Matomo, known to many as Piwik (original project name), is probably the closest self-hosted Google Analytics alternative. Unlike the alternatives mentioned above Matomo comes packed with features like heatmaps, session recordings, A/B testing, visitor profiles, and more. If you cannot live without these advanced features, Matomo is a good choice.
Matomo is a PHP-based analytics platform with a hosted cloud offering starting at €19 a month for 50k pageviews and 3 websites. Some advanced features such as search engine keywords performance are available for self-hosted variant at additional cost. WordPress integration will be plus for many.
Countly
Countly is an open-source Node.js privacy-focused and 360-degree analytics platform using MongoDB for a database. It features a plugin architecture that allows you to extend the basic functions of Countly.
The hosted version unfortunatelly only target enterprise with the starting price of $750/month.
Kindmetrics
Kindmetrics is another new addition on the self-hosted analytics list, currenctly in beta and bit off radar. Interestingly enough written in Crystal language on the backend and with Stimulus.js framework on the front-end. The main differentiator is to keep all 3rd-party services EU-based.
Kindmetrics is free during beta but will later offer a 14-day free trial and plans starting at €6 a month for 50k pageviews.
Update: Kindmetrics is now out of beta.
Hosted
Fathom Analytics
Fathom started as an Open Source project and the original v1 version is still available on GitHub as Fathom Lite. The main issue of the Fathom lite is the use of cookies which requires a user consent under GDPR Fathom Lite is actually GDPR compliant. This most likely leaves you to look into hosted Fathom v2.
With starting price of $14 a month you not only get web analytics for 100k pageviews but also recently added uptime monitoring with SMS, email, Telegram and Slack notifications. All plans include unlimited websites.
Another specialty of Fathom is a very generous affiliate program. You’ll get a 25% lifetime commission of all payments of the customers you bring. I paid for Fathom before switching to Plausible and can recommend it.
Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics was my original second contender for the analytics of this blog. The $19 a month starting plan with 100k pageviews is on the more expensive side, but their yearly deal gets you a better price than Fathom at just $9 a month.
What I also really liked about Simple Analytics is the non-aggressive “fair use” policy. They would only upgrade your plan if you overreach your monthly limit for 2 months in the row.
Beampipe
Beampipe is the only one on the list that will give you 10k pageviews completely for free for 5 domains. Beampipe tracking is compliant with GDPR, PECR, and CCPA.
The cheapest paid plan starts at $10 a month for 100k page views for 20 domains and Slack integration. There is GraphQL API for data access as well as opportunity to track goals and conversions.
Usermaven
Usermaven is another Google Analytics alternative with an easy set-up and built-in reports of actionable insights. Interesting features are a holisitc view of the complete user journey called 360 Profile View and Autocapture Events where Usermaven captures all front-end events automatically.
Usermaven’s forever free plan provides web and product analysis and lets you track up to 1 million events per month. Pro plan starts at $14/month.
Metrical
Metrical is one of the latest players in the space of simple privacy-oriented analytics. Interestingly it’s also built by two makers as Plausible.
Metrical has a two-week trial and starts at $7/month (or $50/year) which their only plan up to 50.000 pageviews.
Beam
Beam is a GDPR-compliant Google Analytics alternative that is everything you need to understand your web traffic and user behavior. Apart from web analytics it features user funnels and cohorts retention for a more complete overview of your visitors behaviour.
Beam starts with a generous free plan of 100k pageviews per month and charges $11/month for the Commercial plan if you need more.
