TLDR; I switched to Fathom. You can find a comparison table at the bottom.
As many of you may have read, Google Analytics is illegal in some countries nowadays.
This has to do with GPDR rulings and Google Analytics transmitting personal data outside the EU.
You can check the countries where Google Analytics is illegal here: isgoogleanalyticsillegal.com.
I was a big user of Google Analytics because it works and it's easy, but I knew it wasn't right.
And I was getting more and more annoyed by the fact that Google was benefiting so much from the data of people I was trying to help.
It was not worth having such a useless vanity metric on Google when there are so many great and privacy-focused alternatives.
In this article, I'll go over some alternatives you can use instead of Google Analytics.
No more analytics
You could opt to have no more analytics if you are not using it.
This would even help speed up your website as you don't need to load any of the tracking scripts.
However, many of us like to do analytics on which pages perform well and how people are using our website.
Cloudflare Analytics
I started by using this. However, it quickly turned out to not be ideal as they have only a 30 day retention period.
So your data will only be valid for 30 days, which is not enough for most people.
It does work super well, and if you are hosting on Cloudflare pages, it will even be injected by them to optimize the load.
I won't go into more details for Cloudflare as this is such a deal-breaker for most people.
Matomo
Matomo is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics. They have quite a community behind it.
And a promise to be free forever!
You might know it by its former name, "Piwik, " one of the first open-sourced big analytics systems.
They allow you to self-host it for free. This will, of course, mean you'll need a server of your own.
They offer paid options you can add on, and they have quite a few of them!
Alternatively, you can choose a hosted solution starting at 19EUR per month.
When using the hosted solution, the cool thing is that you get all their plugins included.
And a big win for them is that they provide a Google Analytics data importer.
Or
GoatCounter
Another open-source legend is GoatCounter, a super funny name and simple setup.
It has a super-simple interface, but actually, it works. This interface removes the hassle and confusion you might have had in Google Analytics.
GoatCounter's basic model is also free, but you can only use that on non-commercial projects.
The follow-up plans are not expensive, though, starting at 5EUR a month, and growing to 30EUR, which is not costly.
Or
View GoatCounter demo dashboard
Fair Analytics
This tool is built from a legal/privacy standpoint and has a law firm specializing in data protection to validate all they do.
If you are looking for the best data protection tool, this could be for you.
They only have early-bird pricing, so this might change in the near future.
Pricing starts at 1,99EUR a month.
Or
View Fair Analytics demo dashboard
Simple Analytics
As the name suggests, it's simple analytics. The dashboard is set up super simple.
They focus on making things as anonymous as possible and provide many extra tools.
These extra tools make it attractive, I think, and include a Tweet viewer and an extended API.
Pricing starts at $19 per month. (Or 9$ if you pay for a year)
Or
View Simple Analytics demo dashboard
Unami
Unami is another free and easy-to-use self-hosted alternative. It's used by Hashnode these days.
It looks cool, but the downside for people might be the self-hosting.
If you don't mind that it's a great tool, with a lot of cool options to it.
They offer a lot of configuration when you want to start tracking, which is perfect if you want these options.
Or
Plausible
My choices were narrowed down between Plausible and Fathom, they have a lot of social proof behind them, and both do a lot of things great.
Plausible is open source, and you can even opt to self-host it.
It's a two-person team, and the story behind the product is inspiring.
It's not the cheapest product, but you have to realize you are paying for your data to be respected.
Pricing as low as £90 a year.
Or
Fathom
This ended up being my choice. It was quite a long debate between Fathom and Plausible, but Fathom was the winner.
I can't tell you why. I reached out to 4 of these frameworks, and Fathom was super helpful with their roadmap sharing and generally helping answer my questions.
Like the other tools, it's super simple to set up, and the dashboard is clear and easy to navigate.
Pricing starts at $140 a year.
Fathom is also an indie hacker project, which I love to support.
Check out Fathom (This is a referral link)
Or
Comparison
| Matomo | GoatCounter | Fair | Simple | Unami | Plausible | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price (entry-level) | free | free | 2,2$/M | 9$/M | free | 12$/M | 14$/M |
| Price (1M page-views) | 180$/M | 34$/M | 11$/M | 49$/M | free | 92$/M | 54$/M |
| Current visitors | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unique visitors | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Total pageviews | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Bounce rate | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Bundle size | 22.8 KB | ~3.5KB | ? | ? | ? | <1 KB | <1 KB |
| API | ✅ | ❌ | ? | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Google Analytics Import | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | 📍 | 📍 |
| Custom domain | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Open source | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Goals/Events | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The 📍 represent roadmap tasks and will be added soon.
Thank you for reading, and let's connect!
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Top comments (17)
Remind me to show you one of my side projects next week, analytics, heat maps, scroll and page behaviour and core web vitals monitoring in about 3kb! Got a long way to go on the backend but I think you will like it!
Nice, keen to see that!
It's too bad that Plausible Analytics are building their entire marketing strategy on "Google Analytics is evil and illegal in Europe".
Some of their marketing messages contain misinformation and false facts.
Also, I'm always confused when a tool is open-source, but there's a pricing.
Like, make up your mind, if you really want to build a tool for the community, just make it open source and free.
So useful info! Thank you.
By the way I found this counter.dev and I'm thinking of trying it.
It says it's simple, free, open source and privacy friendly, but we'll see how great it is.
Oh nice, looks great as well
Wow, you really took some time to dive into the whole topic. That's one great overview. Also, about the legal part: even if you are not located in a certain country and don't have users in that country yet, you may be liable if your page is reachable from that country, so better make sure not to put yourself in a hot spot.
I'd rather play safe indeed, you never know who might visit.
And it's just general good to be on the safe side when it comes to anything legal.
Nice work! Will use this for future reference!
Glad you liked it.
You forgot to mention Weblister.co My own creation.
Wonder why Open Web Analytics is overlooked in such a list.
openwebanalytics.com/
Also it is Umami not Unami.
That aside, a top list, a top matrix and great work. Top article.
Never seen this pop up to be honest,
I'll check it out Bernd
Hi ! Matomo can support custom domain because is also Open Source !
Nice! Matomo is a great tool
What a great information, thanks! Good to know that there are alternatives as good as Plausible.
A lot of great tools on the market these days 🙌
It can yes, basically any external load will, but some are super focussed on being as small as possible.