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Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Analytics
Here in Turkey, some Google services sharing the same IP block with YouTube are banned, including Google Analytics. Classic Analytics code prevents browsers from completely loading, resulting in page load time hell. An alternative is the asynchronous code (http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/asyncTracking.html), but there's no point of using a serviceunable to track page views.
What are the alternative services you recommend? I just installed Clicky but wanted to know my options.
- Concours 16y agohttp://piwik.org/ http://piwik.org/ , you may need to host it on your own servers.
- mootothemax 16y agoSecond vote for Piwik. It's free and open-source, install it on one domain and you can then add multiple sites to it, just like Google Analytics. In fact, I've found it's significantly sped up my page loading times, although need to test this further. In addition there are plugins for every major CMS and blogging system out there. I'm just waiting for the time that the ClickHeat* plugin works :) * ClickHeat is a free heatmap available here: http://www.labsmedia.com/clickheat/index.html http://www.labsmedia.com/clickheat/index.html
- ihodes 16y agohttp://haveamint.com/ http://haveamint.com/ is a nice product by Shaun Inman. It's $30 for a site license, though.
- eliot_sykes 16y agoGood to hear you've installed Clicky, I use them over Google Analytics (and am very happy) as I'm admittedly paranoid but uncomfortable about giving Google precise traffic stats when they know how much you spend on Adwords.
- byoung2 16y agoMake sure you don't have AdSense installed as well!
- ajbatac 16y agoI've used Woopra. There is a free version for small sites. http://www.woopra.com/plans/ http://www.woopra.com/plans/
- bearwithclaws 16y ago+1 for Mixpanel.
- andrewhyde 16y agohttp://chartbeat.com http://chartbeat.com is great for real time views but not sure about for your case.
- Skyline 16y agochartbeat is also great if you're running a Wordpress blog
- eberfreitas 16y agoReinvigorate is doing a great job. It's in beta stage, but you can apply for an invitation: http://reinvigorate.net http://reinvigorate.net
- Freebytes 16y agoDo not forget to voice your opinion with your government about your discontent in them blocking Google while you are at it. (Write a letter or protest.) There is really no reason why Google should be blocked by your country.
- paraschopra 16y agoOpen source: http://piwik.org http://piwik.org Clicky: http://getclicky.com/ http://getclicky.com/ (This is a good one) Woopra: http://woopra.com/ http://woopra.com/
- mitchellhislop 16y ago+1 to clicky. The real time stats are a very nice addition to a solid suite of tools. My one gripe with them is they seem to do more processing of the data, rather than just letting you find the numbers you need. I am a data hound, so YMMV
- schammy 16y agoCould you elaborate on your gripe? (I'm the co-founder/lead dev)
- ApolloRising 16y agoWhy do you say this on your site: * Note: we do not allow any individual sites that receive over 500,000 daily page views.
- schammy 16y agoWell the more traffic a site has, the more resources we need to process that traffic. 500,000 daily page views is currently the max we allow to ensure our service runs smoothly for everyone. This limit is higher than most other analytics services allow, and easily covers 99.9% of the sites on the internet.
- mitchellhislop 16y agoIt just seems like Clicky is more focused on giving "easier" to grok numbers than GA, and makes it a little harder to get some of the more custom numbers.
- schammy 16y ago
- pavs 16y agoYahoo: http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ Sitemeter: http://www.sitemeter.com/ http://www.sitemeter.com/
- Kilimanjaro 16y agoI'd love to see one completely done in html5/css3/svg/canvas
- mitchellhislop 16y agohttp://thenextweb.com/me/2010/06/04/woopra-gets-a-shiny-new-html5-web-version/ http://thenextweb.com/me/2010/06/04/woopra-gets-a-shiny-new-... Looks like Woopra heard you
- dangrossman 16y agoI've run http://www.w3counter.com http://www.w3counter.com for the past 6 years. It's free, though occasionally a bit slow.
- dpezely 16y agoWhat are your criteria for analytics? If you require third-party reporting for vetting your traffic numbers to potential advertisers, there are services such as Quantcast.com. The big fish in the game is Omniture.com, recently acquired by Adobe. It's worth looking at their documentation because they have become (arguably) the de facto standard in many areas of web analytics, particularly marketing analytics for websites. Knowing their jargon and how they bucket data can be useful in those conversations. Many people want free as in zero out-of-pocket expense and freedom to customize. More on that below... The trade-off with completely free techniques is that you lose any demographic or psychographic profiling that a larger service provider might offer. If this subject matters to you, BlueKai.com would be a good starting point, but be prepared to talk about marketing "funnels". (Not sure if they accommodate beyond US, though.) For leveraging this class of data, real-time ad networks such as Adchemy.com use these technique to drive traffic. They'll likely be expanding beyond US soon. [full disclosure: my current employer is a partner of theirs] Back to free: If you simply want to know basic facts about traffic landing on your pages and considering the HN crowd, you could likely get by with a little JavaScript code that generates a URL with query-strings identifying those facts. Then use JS to insert an image into the page, fetching a 1x1 transparent pixel from your own server, thereby logging the facts. Various tools for analyzing HTTP logs are available for bucketing, graphing, etc. The Nginx HTTP server has native support for serving transparent pixels and has a very light load (e.g., an Intel Atom CPU on your DSL line is more than adequate; under US$200 complete). Since it's all under your control, this approach can still work with dynamic IP addressing of the pixel server. Some relevant JS fields and function calls include: navigator.cookieEnabled, screen.height, screen.width, screen.colorDepth, navigator.plugins['Shockwave Flash'], window.ActiveXObject() with "ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash" [but search for caveats regarding known bugs with Flash 6.0.21, .23, .29]. Add your own session ID to the query-string, and you have unique visitor journey tracking as well. Usual caveats apply due to visitors who clear cookies, etc. Again, considering the HN crowd, this minimal treatment should be sufficient.
- bdickason 16y agoThis talk from Mike McDermott of Freshbooks is really great: http://carsonified.com/blog/business/mike-mcderment-of-freshbooks-on-web-app-marketing-metrics/ http://carsonified.com/blog/business/mike-mcderment-of-fresh... Explains exactly what to track and how to code it yourself.
- apphacker 16y agoSite Catalyst: http://www.omniture.com/en/products/online_analytics/sitecatalyst http://www.omniture.com/en/products/online_analytics/sitecat... It's not free though. :/
- brazzy 16y agoAWStats is a tool that generates statistic pages from the server logs. It doesn't even require you to put anything on the pages; all you need is access to the logs. It doesn't offer quite as much information as Google Analytics, but it's pretty good. http://awstats.sourceforge.net/ http://awstats.sourceforge.net/
- l4u 16y agoi use piwik but you need to host it yourself