10 Best Google Analytics Alternatives for Privacy & Speed (2023)

Are you on the look out for Google Analytics alternatives?

Google Analytics has dominated the analytics industry for quite some time. It’s free, and many tools, content management systems and WordPress plugins allow you to install it on your website in a few simple clicks.

In this post, we list some of the best Google Analytics alternatives available for websites and mobile apps.

Plus, one of Google Analytics’ most crucial faults is the way it invades the website visitor’s privacy. It even violates new-coming privacy laws and regulations, including the GDPR.

We’ve included a few privacy-focused tools for this reason.

The Best Google Analytics Alternatives

01. Matomo

Matomo is one of the most popular Google Analytics alternatives. It’s used by over 1 million websites, including the websites of the United Nations, Ahrefs, NASA, and the European Commission.

Matomo thrives as a web analytics tool.

You’ll be able to analyze your site’s traffic well enough to discover where in the world most of your traffic is coming from, where on the web it’s coming from, where visitors are spending most of their time and more.

Matomo includes goal tracking, funnels and custom reports, a few features that make it a strong competitor of Google Analytics.

Heatmaps and A/B testing are available as well.

Plus, you can configure the tool in a way that protects your visitor’s privacy, making it GDPR-friendly enough to forgo cookie consent.

Matomo loads its scripts asynchronously and defers them, so you shouldn’t see too much of a drop in page speed.

The developers have even written a performance guide if you do.

Matomo is free for however many hits (pageviews, downloads, onsite searches and content tracking requests) your site receives so long as you host it on your own server.

💲 Hosting it on the company’s cloud servers costs $23/month for 50,000 hits.

This plan also limits certain features, such as having to have your data stored in Europe instead of being able to choose.

02. Fathom

Fathom is a Canadian-based analytics tool built for privacy, speed, and simplicity.

One of its best features involves routing traffic you receive from EU countries through EU-based servers, so your website is always GDPR-compliant.

Plus, Fathom protects your visitors’ digital IDs by creating unique signatures for each via hashing.

This means you can collect analytical data for your website without tracking your visitor’s digital footprint across the web, which also means a cookie consent banner is not required.

Plus, Fathom bypasses adblockers without invading user privacy, so your data is as accurate as possible.

As for the analytics themselves, you can view your data in real time or within a specific date range.

The first thing you’ll see on the dashboard is a snapshot showcasing total number of visitors, pageviews, average time on site, bounce rate, and event completions.

Speaking of, there are events and UTM campaigns you can set up and track.

You can also view all of the data points you’re used to seeing in your analytics: traffic source organized by country, website, browser, and device type as well as top pages.

💲 Pricing starts at $14/month for 100,000 pageviews following a 7-day free trial.

03. Plausible

Plausible is a simple and lightweight web analytics tool built for privacy and GDPR compliance.

It’s an open source Google Analytics alternative that has its own WordPress plugin.

The dashboard is well organized and showcases only the most essential stats for your website.

This includes totals for unique visits, pageviews, bounce rate, and visit duration.

There’s also a graph and breakdowns of how much of your traffic comes from specific websites as well as your top pages.

The tool also includes goals and event tracking as well.

💲 Pricing starts at $9/month for 10,000 pageviews and $19/month for 100,000. A 30-day, free trial is also available.

04. GoSquared Analytics

GoSquared Analytics is a privacy-focused web analytics tool that features many of the functionalities available in Google Analytics.

Its dashboard looks a little messy at first glance, but you can actually edit the layout to appear as you want it to.

You can also switch between daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views or select a timeframe.

This tool collects a lot of data for you, and you can even track events and set up campaigns.

💲 A 7-day, free trial is available. It costs $9/month for 100,000 pageviews after that.

05. Simple Analytics

Simple Analytics is a basic web analytics tool that collects just enough information about your website for you to understand what’s working and what isn’t as far as traffic goes.

The primary focus of the dashboard’s UI is a graph of the data you’re currently viewing from a specified timeframe.

It always showcases total visitors, but you can switch the traffic source to specific referring websites, pages on your website, device types, browsers, and countries.

Simple Analytics is a great option for privacy as it doesn’t use cookies. Plus, it bypasses adblockers.

You can have reports emailed to you or your clients on a weekly or monthly basis.

💲 The tool costs at least $19/month for 100,000 pageviews after a 14-day free trial.

06. StatCounter

StatCounter is a web analytics tool that analyzes your traffic and outputs where it’s coming from.

The tool’s UI contains a few different sections, including a Summary section that showcases the total number of pageviews and unique visits over a given timeframe.

The Reports section features a much more detailed analysis.

This includes stats for where in the world your traffic originates from, a breakdown of which percentage comes from what (direct, search, and referrals), your top pages, exit links, and more.

As far as privacy is concerned, StatCounter does not hash or hide your visitors’ IP addresses, but it does anonymize them.

Plus, they store cookies in your visitors’ browsers, and although they don’t store personal information in them, you’ll still need to display a cookie consent banner on your site and will need to add a section describing your use of StatCounter in your privacy policy.

💲 StatCounter is free for 500 pageviews/month or $7/month for 100,000 pageviews.

07. Piwik PRO

When Piwik rebranded into Matomo, a few of the developers from the original company branched off to develop Piwik PRO.

Piwik PRO is an analytics suite enabling you to analyze web and product-based projects alike.

You can analyze traffic and user behavior plus create and manage tags for more accurate campaign data.

One thing to note is that although Piwik PRO is not privacy focused, they are great for privacy.

You can configure privacy settings, choose from multiple tracking options and enable users to opt out of stored cookie data.

💲 Piwik PRO is free for up to 500,000 actions per month. Premium plans require quotes.

08. Mixpanel

Google Analytics is not just an analytics tool designed solely for websites. You can also use it to generate analytics for mobile apps, including apps created with Google’s Firebase platform.

Mixpanel is a competitor of Google Analytics in this regard and one of the more popular Google Analytics alternatives out there.

It’s a product analytics tool that enables you to track instances of users opening your app for the first time, signing up, logging in, adding payment types and more.

💲 It’s free to track 100,000 users per month. Premium plans start at $25/month and include access to saved reports and additional features.

09. Woopra

Woopra is a customer journey platform in which product analytics are a major component.

The tool’s reports help you understand quite a bit about your product, including whether or not users return, which marketing channels bring in the most signups, whether or not live sales chats increase conversions, and more.

The Trends report feature breaks this information down even more by measuring key app functionalities by usage.

💲 Woopra is free for 500,000 “actions” (tracked events) per month.

Premium pricing starts at $349/month for 1 million actions. A 14-day, free trial is also available for this plan.

10. Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is an advanced analytics tool for larger businesses, especially SaaS and eCommerce businesses.

It records new signups, churn rate, trial to paid user conversion rate, metrics for monthly recurring revenue, data on ad campaigns, and more.

For eCommerce, the tool collects data on total revenue, total sales, new visitors, average revenue per person, conversion rate, and more.

💲 Kissmetrics bills annually. Pricing starts at $3,588/year for 10,000 tracked users per month.

Final Thoughts on Google Analytics Alternatives

Google Analytics has been the web’s leading analytics tool for quite some time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best.

When you look for a Google Analytics alternative, you’ll probably be on the look out for a simpler option that doesn’t invade your users’ privacy or violate privacy laws around the globe.

For simplicity, Matomo, Fathom, Plausible, and Simple Analytics are all great options.

Your best options for analytics tools that don’t violate privacy laws include Fathom, Plausible, GoSquared Analytics, and Simple Analytics.

All of these options are also fantastic for site speed as most of them require no more than a lightweight script that loads quite quickly.