Web Analytics Comparison Table
Tags: webdev, privacy
Published: 2020-06-15 11:40:44



|Name                |Payment                 |Min Monthly Payment|Script Size|Session Tracking                 |Open Source|Claims "GDPR Compliant"|Comment                                              |
|--------------------|------------------------|-------------------|-----------|---------------------------------|-----------|-----------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|
|[Google Analytics](https://analytics.google.com)|Free                    |-                  |73kb       |Cookie based session             |           |                       |The most used.                                       |
|[Simple Web Analytics](https://simple-web-analytics.com/)|Free                    |-                  |0kb        |HTTP Cache based                 |  X         |                       |Fastest setup. No external script.                   |
|[GoatCounter](https://goatcounter.com)|Freemium|-                  |2.5kb      |Elaborate hashed IP based session|X          |X                      |Detailed per page access.                            |
|[StatCounter](https://gs.statcounter.com/)|Freemium                |-                  |35kb       |Cookie based session             |           |                       |Your data is statistically evaluated.                |
|[Splitbee](https://splitbee.io)|Freemium (Steep pricing)                |-                  |8kb       |Cookie based session             |           |                       |Specialized in A/B testing with all common features.                |
|[Kindmetrics](https://kindmetrics.io/)|Paid but currently free Beta                    |6€                 |2kb        |Hashed IP based session    |X          |X                      |Straightforward Interface. Still Beta.                                     |
|[Plausible](https://plausible.io/)|Paid                    |6$                 |4kb        |Hashed IP based session    |X          |X                      |Clean Interface.                                     |
|[Gauges](https://get.gaug.es/)|Paid                    |6$                 |4kb        |Cookie based session             |           |                       |Seems alrighty. But I got daily unsubscribable mails.|
|[Fathom](https://usefathom.com/)|Paid                    |14$                |7kb        |Hashed IP based session          |X          |X                      |Good overview with bad color contrast.               |
|[Matamo](https://matomo.org/)|Paid                    |19$                |84kb       |Cookie based session             |X          |                       |Most advanced open source solution.                  |
|[Simple Analytics](https://simpleanalytics.com/)|Paid                    |19$                |4kb        |Inspects the referrer            |           |X                      |Best overview, I like the clean interface.           |



|Left Out            |Reason.                 |
|--------------------|------------------------|
|Clicky              |Not able to use the user interface.|
|AWStats             |Log based.              |
|W3Perl              |Log based.              |
|GoAccess            |Log based (and looks nice).|
|Yandex Metrica      |[...] we process huge amount of anonymous data on users' behavior [...]|
|Open Web Analytics  |Only self hosting is supported, no service offering.|
|KISSmetrics         |For enterprise cosumters.|
|Etracker            |Webdesign does not awaken my trust (personal opinion).|
|Adobe Analytics     |I belive enterprise focused. User Interface looks convoluted.|
|Mint                |Officially discountinued.|
|Woopra              |Looks like it's for an enterprise audience.|
|Chiffre              |Not launched yet.|


# Notes
If I forgot something, write it in the comments so I can update it. The sorting is by ascending price, with free services on top. This listing was carefully researched by me and it took quite some time actually. Being the author of Simple Web Analytics I wanted to get an overview of the market, especially on free of charge services, here there are really only a handful of alternatives. Although the comparison table does track if services claim to be "GDPR Compatible", that information has to be taken with some grains of salts. In my personal opinion services that do not use any kind of session at all (Simple Analytics and Simple Web Analytics) are the more privacy friendly. Next comes - in my opinion - GoatCounter, which puts a lot of effort in making something session based [being more privacy friendly](https://github.com/zgoat/goatcounter/blob/master/docs/sessions.markdown#goatcounters-solution). A service that I actually do want to highlight due to a great overview with only one glance is Simple Analytics. Although strictly comparing features it is quite expensive and tracking unique users [by inspecting the referrer](https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/uniques#how-it-works) I find very elegant also from a privacy perspective, I'd love to know which accuracy can be achieved with this method. I hope this gives an overview of existing Web Analytics services, let me know in the comments if I forgot something.