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Server-side analytics is not a silver bullet, but it's great for the quoted use case. While it has the mentioned disadvantages, so do client-side solutions. Man
by darekkay 8y ago
Server-side analytics is not a silver bullet, but it's great for the quoted use case. While it has the mentioned disadvantages, so do client-side solutions. Many people run adblockers and it's easy - sometimes even a default - to simply block Google Analytics & co. So yes, if you really need exact statistics, you should probably run both client-side and server-side analytics. But for a rough "what's popular?" estimate, there's no need to impose (one more) JS file on your users. I've switched from GA to GoAccess a few years ago (running both for a few months), and while the absolute numbers were off by ~10%, the ratio was almost the same. But then again, I'm just running a blog and not a business.