4 ms·

I have no love for Google Analytics, but as a small-scale publisher, I have serious questions about what tools can replace it: 1) Which analytics can a website

I have no love for Google Analytics, but as a small-scale publisher, I have serious questions about what tools can replace it: 1) Which analytics can a website employ that is not geared toward enriching the analytics platform developer by violating site visitor privacy? 2) Do those analytics mechanisms have any kind of aftermarket, such that third-party developers integrate it into publishing platforms that publishers use. 3) What do those analytics mechanisms and the associated tooling cost?

simcop2387 6y ago
I'm not sure about all of your questions but there's platforms like matomo out there, that seem to be able to handle some of the use cases for ga. Matomo: #1 Secure Open Web Analytics Platform https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/
justinclift 6y ago
Goat Counter (yeah, weird name) seems to be getting popular, and it's Open Source: https://www.goatcounter.com https://www.goatcounter.com
kall 6y ago
I think collecting analytics from the server logs is going to get more popular again, though a problem for SPAs? We could call it Edge Analytics this time around and run it on cloudflare. For publishing systems, couldn't wordpress report back analytics data to itself, on its own domain? Something like that existed but i'm not sure if it was using Jetpack servers or not. If this isn't already possible, it seems like an obvious thing for someone privacy concious to build.
- m90 6y ago
  This exists over here: https://github.com/ibericode/koko-analytics https://github.com/ibericode/koko-analytics - never used it myself though.
jbob2000 6y ago
For small-scale anything, the best analytics are simply talking to your customers.
m90 6y ago
There's been a recent thread with lot of options discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23560823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23560823, also https://lobste.rs/s/lvdj3w/lightweight_alternatives_google https://lobste.rs/s/lvdj3w/lightweight_alternatives_google
bad_user 6y ago
I use a self-hosted Matomo instance, in a Docker setup on my own server. Low maintenance, works great: https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/ You can turn off the cookies too, anonymize IPs (the default actually) and if you do that you don't even need GDPR consent or cookie banners.
GeneralMaximus 6y ago
I've been very happy with Plausible.io for my dinky little blog. It has all the information I need, and isn't as intrusive as GA.

simcop2387 6y ago

I'm not sure about all of your questions but there's platforms like matomo out there, that seem to be able to handle some of the use cases for ga. Matomo: #1 Secure Open Web Analytics Platform https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/

justinclift 6y ago

Goat Counter (yeah, weird name) seems to be getting popular, and it's Open Source: https://www.goatcounter.com https://www.goatcounter.com

kall 6y ago

I think collecting analytics from the server logs is going to get more popular again, though a problem for SPAs? We could call it Edge Analytics this time around and run it on cloudflare. For publishing systems, couldn't wordpress report back analytics data to itself, on its own domain? Something like that existed but i'm not sure if it was using Jetpack servers or not. If this isn't already possible, it seems like an obvious thing for someone privacy concious to build.

m90 6y ago
This exists over here: https://github.com/ibericode/koko-analytics https://github.com/ibericode/koko-analytics - never used it myself though.

jbob2000 6y ago

For small-scale anything, the best analytics are simply talking to your customers.

m90 6y ago

There's been a recent thread with lot of options discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23560823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23560823, also https://lobste.rs/s/lvdj3w/lightweight_alternatives_google https://lobste.rs/s/lvdj3w/lightweight_alternatives_google

bad_user 6y ago

I use a self-hosted Matomo instance, in a Docker setup on my own server. Low maintenance, works great: https://matomo.org/ https://matomo.org/ You can turn off the cookies too, anonymize IPs (the default actually) and if you do that you don't even need GDPR consent or cookie banners.

GeneralMaximus 6y ago

I've been very happy with Plausible.io for my dinky little blog. It has all the information I need, and isn't as intrusive as GA.