You might have heard that recently several European Data Protection Authorities have declared that using Google Analytics could result in the illegal transfer of European user data. The investigation and decisions of the authorities were based on Google Analytics 3.
Google has since released an updated version of its analytics product – Google Analytics 4 – partly to better address the concerns raised by the authorities.
However, as this situation is still ongoing, some people are now considering privacy-centered or Europe-based alternatives to Google Analytics.
In this post, we’ve listed 7 privacy-conscious Google Analytics alternatives for your website.
Let’s dive in!
Please note that this post is only intended to provide information on available alternatives to Google Analytics. The list below is not ranked in any particular order.
One of the most popular alternatives to Google Analytics is Matomo. Matomo is used by +1,000,000 websites all over the world, and it’s also the analytics tool that noyb and the European Commission have chosen for their websites.
Matomo’s focus is privacy and data ownership. The company states that you get to choose where and how your data is stored, and you can even use Matomo without asking for your users’ consent.
Besides giving you all the useful insights you need, Matomo is open-source software.
So you can either host Matomo on your own servers for free, and use it as you like, or get the paid plan (starting from €19/month) and host on Matomo’s servers instead.
According to Simple Analytics, their product was built from the very beginning, with privacy in mind. It’s an EU-based and hosted solution, that doesn’t install cookies, or collect personal data.
It has a simple and intuitive dashboard that allows you to keep track of essential metrics, such as unique visitors, time-on-page, event tracking, and much more.
Pricing starts at €9/month for the Starter plan, with larger plans also available.
P.S. Did you know? We recently published a post on the history of Data Privacy on Simple Analytics’s blog! Check it out.
In October 2020, TechCrunch mentioned Plausible as the “fastest-growing open-source startup”. Since then, Plausible now counts 7,000+ paying subscribers.
Plausible is another privacy-conscious alternative to Google Analytics. It’s made and hosted in the EU, and also powered by a European-owned cloud infrastructure.
According to Plausible, they made privacy one of their main focuses. For example, their code is available on GitHub, for everybody to review and make sure it’s actually secure. Moreover, their analytics are simple, intuitive, lightweight (< 1 KB) and open-source.
Their pricing starts at €9/month.
This article is a part of our series on the status of Google Analytics in Europe. Read the other articles in this series here:
Wide Angle Analytics is an EU-based analytics that has made of privacy their first focus.
Besides their strict GDPR compliance approach, Wide Angle is a comprehensive analytics that allows you to keep track of all the valuable insights you may need: source of your web traffic, most read content, links and campaigns that drive active users, etc.
They also have a feature that can allow you to bypass ad blockers.
Wide Agle Analytics provides different solutions for different businesses and extensive customer support. Their pricing starts at €9.99/month, but you can save some money if you choose the annual billing.
umami is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics. It’s also self-hosted and claims to focus on data ownership and privacy – meaning that you host and handle all the data you collect.
Besides that, umami is lightweight and really intuitive: all the analytics fit on just one page.
And last but not least, umami is free.
Microanalytics is EU-based analytics built by indie developers who wanted to keep data safe from big corporations.
According to Microanalytics, they do not use cookies nor collect personal information, and are GDPR, PECR, and CCPA compliant.
It gives you full insight into what’s happening on your website with a simple interface, and it’s easy to integrate with WordPress, Squarespace, Ghost, Wix, and Weebly.
Microanalytics is free for all websites that have less than 5,000 pageviews/per month. Their paid plans start from $9/m.
Insights is a “privacy-focused analytics platform for developers” based in Austria (according to their Terms). Their aim is to be powerful and comprehensive while being compliant with privacy laws.
Insights allows you to track custom events, and it does that without cookies. But since it’s built with developers in mind, it could be a little bit more complicated to use than the previous analytics we mentioned – if you don’t have that kind of knowledge.
Insights is free for any website that has less than 3,000 pageviews/month. Their paid plans start from $12/month.
While the conversation is still ongoing regarding the future of Google Analytics in the EU it’s at least comforting to know that there are alternatives available, should you need them.
The French DPA, the CNIL, has also published a list of possible Google Analytics alternatives. We’ve listed them below:
Wizaly | Compass | Eulerian | Analytics Suite Delta | SmartProfile | Wysistat Business | Piwik PRO Analytics Suite | Abla Analytics | BEYABLE Analytics | etracker Analytics | Retency Web Audience | Nonli | Contentsquare CS Digital | Web2Roi Statshop | Thanks Marketing Analytics | eStat Streaming | TrustCommander
The CNIL has also provided configuration guidelines for these tools. You can access the full list here.
