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Ask HN: What are the best alternatives to Google Analytics?

56 points by kevmo 8y ago

mtmail 8y ago
We switched to https://usefathom.com/ https://usefathom.com/ last week, happy so far.
pieterhg 8y ago
https://simpleanalytics.io https://simpleanalytics.io just launched and is exactly that!
- harianus 8y ago
  Hi, founder here. I just created a tool that does exactly that: Simple Analytics. I’m very happy this gets more attention in the analytics space. I’m not saying I’m the best but I’m trying to start a movement toward a change in the analytics world. If there is anything I should do better, please let me know.
  - kevmo 8y ago
    Nice work! How's it going so far?
    - harianus 8y ago
      Pretty good. It’s my first official launch, so very new for me. But I do get a few customers every day. I will write about it soon and announce that on my Twitter @harianus.
rcach001 8y ago
There aren't many out there that do similar stuff, but if you're looking to try something new https://simpleanalytics.io https://simpleanalytics.io is working pretty well thus far.
javipas 8y ago
Matomo, formerly Piwik https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/
- mgiannopoulos 8y ago
  Concur, pretty much can track everything GA does, with a much more straightforward interface
- dorelljames 8y ago
  This won me over with their extensive API though not so modern but does the job. You can most definitely get the same data like GA.
- dirktheman 8y ago
  Yes, Matomo! Easy to use, and I love the fact that it's a self hosted solution.
- ThePhysicist 8y ago
  They also offer a solution that analyzes access logs, which is useful to capture traffic from ad-blocking users from your web server. As far as I understand it's not part of the open-source version though. We run Matomo on a self-hosted server for all our websites and it works very well, there's a large discrepancy between the traffic / visitor count shown by Cloudflare and Matomo though: Matomo will show 50-80 % less unique visitors than Cloudflare, which seems a lot even when accounting for ad-blocking users. It might be due to our very user-friendly cookie script though, which only loads Matomo after the user explicitly clicks on OK (and he/she can click on "Decline" as well). Guess we should investigate how many people actually click on "Decline".
dabockster 8y ago
Anything I can run server side to reduce the amount of JS that has to be injected?
- harianus 8y ago
  Good question though. I think I want to implement server side, as long as it does not track user though. Note: I’m the creator of Simple Analytics.
- shreyas-satish 8y ago
  There's goaccess[0] which you might find useful. [0] https://goaccess.io/ https://goaccess.io/
- pacuna 8y ago
  Snowplow Analytics has server side trackers among several others.
ArtWomb 8y ago
MixPanel is the biggie for user tracking during entire app lifecycle. But it can be $$$$. And you can miss out on collecting your own valuable data. If you are writing your own web servers and request handlers at the outset. Then you can structure your log file data as required. And use the ELK stack to process very powerful queries, business analytics, predictive machine learning, sentiment analysis, etc. https://www.elastic.co/products https://www.elastic.co/products
minton 8y ago
I’ve used gaug.es for years. Their API is great and they’re affordable. https://get.gaug.es https://get.gaug.es
dangrossman 8y ago
I run https://www.improvely.com https://www.improvely.com and https://www.w3counter.com https://www.w3counter.com. Been doing this since before Google Analytics existed.
gorkemcetin 8y ago
If you are into web but also want to expand to mobile and desktop in the future, check Countly. Open source and can be deployed on prem, too.
kgwxd 8y ago
No analytics.
cpburns2009 8y ago
I've heard Snowplow is good. I think it's self-hosted so it's likely more complicated to setup than a complete solution like Google Analytics. But then Google doesn't get the data. https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker
- jackgolding 8y ago
  Snowplow is really hard to set up and manage but I'd say its the best tool in this space if you want to self manage.
- pacuna 8y ago
  +1. Not easy to setup if you have little cloud experience, but once you have it running, it works really well. I have a fast setup for the ones who like containers and Kubernetes: https://github.com/pacuna/snowplow-pipeline https://github.com/pacuna/snowplow-pipeline
nojvek 8y ago
Depends what you want to do. With MixPanel you get a much deeper insight into your product and your users. The analysis you can do like retention, funnels etc exceeds the capabilities of GA. Note: I am biased, I work at Mixpanel.

56 points by kevmo 8y ago

mtmail 8y ago

We switched to https://usefathom.com/ https://usefathom.com/ last week, happy so far.

pieterhg 8y ago

https://simpleanalytics.io https://simpleanalytics.io just launched and is exactly that!

harianus 8y ago
Hi, founder here. I just created a tool that does exactly that: Simple Analytics. I’m very happy this gets more attention in the analytics space. I’m not saying I’m the best but I’m trying to start a movement toward a change in the analytics world. If there is anything I should do better, please let me know.
- kevmo 8y ago
  Nice work! How's it going so far?
  - harianus 8y ago
    Pretty good. It’s my first official launch, so very new for me. But I do get a few customers every day. I will write about it soon and announce that on my Twitter @harianus.

rcach001 8y ago

There aren't many out there that do similar stuff, but if you're looking to try something new https://simpleanalytics.io https://simpleanalytics.io is working pretty well thus far.

javipas 8y ago

Matomo, formerly Piwik https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/

mgiannopoulos 8y ago
Concur, pretty much can track everything GA does, with a much more straightforward interface
dorelljames 8y ago
This won me over with their extensive API though not so modern but does the job. You can most definitely get the same data like GA.
dirktheman 8y ago
Yes, Matomo! Easy to use, and I love the fact that it's a self hosted solution.
ThePhysicist 8y ago
They also offer a solution that analyzes access logs, which is useful to capture traffic from ad-blocking users from your web server. As far as I understand it's not part of the open-source version though. We run Matomo on a self-hosted server for all our websites and it works very well, there's a large discrepancy between the traffic / visitor count shown by Cloudflare and Matomo though: Matomo will show 50-80 % less unique visitors than Cloudflare, which seems a lot even when accounting for ad-blocking users. It might be due to our very user-friendly cookie script though, which only loads Matomo after the user explicitly clicks on OK (and he/she can click on "Decline" as well). Guess we should investigate how many people actually click on "Decline".

dabockster 8y ago

Anything I can run server side to reduce the amount of JS that has to be injected?

harianus 8y ago
Good question though. I think I want to implement server side, as long as it does not track user though. Note: I’m the creator of Simple Analytics.
shreyas-satish 8y ago
There's goaccess[0] which you might find useful. [0] https://goaccess.io/ https://goaccess.io/
pacuna 8y ago
Snowplow Analytics has server side trackers among several others.

ArtWomb 8y ago

MixPanel is the biggie for user tracking during entire app lifecycle. But it can be $$$$. And you can miss out on collecting your own valuable data. If you are writing your own web servers and request handlers at the outset. Then you can structure your log file data as required. And use the ELK stack to process very powerful queries, business analytics, predictive machine learning, sentiment analysis, etc. https://www.elastic.co/products https://www.elastic.co/products

minton 8y ago

I’ve used gaug.es for years. Their API is great and they’re affordable. https://get.gaug.es https://get.gaug.es

dangrossman 8y ago

I run https://www.improvely.com https://www.improvely.com and https://www.w3counter.com https://www.w3counter.com. Been doing this since before Google Analytics existed.

gorkemcetin 8y ago

If you are into web but also want to expand to mobile and desktop in the future, check Countly. Open source and can be deployed on prem, too.

kgwxd 8y ago

No analytics.

cpburns2009 8y ago

I've heard Snowplow is good. I think it's self-hosted so it's likely more complicated to setup than a complete solution like Google Analytics. But then Google doesn't get the data. https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker

jackgolding 8y ago
Snowplow is really hard to set up and manage but I'd say its the best tool in this space if you want to self manage.
pacuna 8y ago
+1. Not easy to setup if you have little cloud experience, but once you have it running, it works really well. I have a fast setup for the ones who like containers and Kubernetes: https://github.com/pacuna/snowplow-pipeline https://github.com/pacuna/snowplow-pipeline

nojvek 8y ago

Depends what you want to do. With MixPanel you get a much deeper insight into your product and your users. The analysis you can do like retention, funnels etc exceeds the capabilities of GA. Note: I am biased, I work at Mixpanel.