Given that it’s free and already very popular, Google Analytics currently dominates the web analytics market. But there are many reasons why you’d want to search for an alternative - privacy, and ease-of-use being the most common ones.
Why You Should Consider Using Google Analytics Alternatives
Before we dive into looking at Google Analytics alternatives, it’s important to consider why this is even something you should consider.
Top reasons to consider using a Google Analytics alternative:
- Privacy
Google collects enough data on everyone. They have your browser history, your search history, your location history, your emails. Google probably knows more about you & your habits then you do.
So if you really want to take that into consideration for your website visitors, switching away to a self-hosted alternative where you don’t share data with anyone is the way to go.
- Data ownership
As mentioned above, when using Google Analytics, you don’t really own any of the data that they collect for you. They limit what you can see, and for those who are privacy-aware not letting Google Analytics collect & potentially take advantage of their customer/visitor data is an important consideration.
- Control
There are significant limitations to what is possible in Google Analytics while other web analytics software can be more flexible if you’re a developer and know how to extend it further.
- Ease-of-use
Let’s face it Google Analytics also isn’t that easy to use. A lot of the alternatives we cover in this article actually make it far easier to find the data that truly matters to you so you can use it to make data-driven decisions.
Alright, now that we know why we’re looking at alternatives to Google Analytics – let’s dive right into it.
Fathom Analytics
Fathom Analytics vs. Google Analytics – How Do They Compare?
First up on our list is Fathom Analytics, a strong and simple alternative to Google Analytics. Its dashboard is where you’ll find all your data, and even goals, in a clearly visible manner. In Google Analytics, this seemingly simple insight will take you a bit more time to dig up, forcing you to customize your dashboard for each site in order to do so.
If you run multiple websites or apps, Fathom Analytics makes it easy for you to switch between them. It’s much more simple than using the Views function of your Properties in Google Analytics.
With Google Analytics, you might often need their events feature, but this feature can be difficult to get the hang of. With, Fathom, on the other hand, it’s way easier to set your site goals. To do so, you only need to follow two simple steps: create a goal by giving it a name, and then add the click handler to a link.
Fathom is also more friendly for ad blockers than Google Analytics, as the latter gets blocked by most of them. In turn, most ad blockers don’t block Fathom because:
- it’s more light-weight, and as such, harder to get noticed by ad blockers;
- it doesn’t use cookies, so you won’t have to set up a cookie message on your site;
- it strongly cares about user privacy, which is not the case with Google Analytics.
Our Thoughts on Fathom Analytics
All in all, Fathom Analytics is a privacy-friendly and more user-friendly alternative to Google Analytics. It tracks your site’s users but doesn’t collect user data, whereas, with Google Analytics, privacy will likely be a real concern for you.
Fathom gives you easily understandable insights into your top content and top referrers. Its pricing plans start at $14/month.
Learn more about how to install Fathom Analytics here...
Matomo
Matomo vs. Google Analytics – How Do They Compare?
Matomo aims to provide a full analytics experience, while at the same time letting you own your data completely. Both Matomo and Google Analytics give you reports on your website’s users and how they interact with it, but, much like Fathom, Matomo actually focuses on protecting your users’ privacy.
Matomo Cloud’s tracking abilities depend on your subscription, which is, in fact, one of its downsides. Unlimited tracking is reserved for enterprise-level users only, whereas Google Analytics doesn’t put a limit on the number of users, goals, segments, and custom dimensions, plus it’s completely
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