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Ask HN: What’s your startup’s analytics setup? (2023)

37 points by iddan 4y ago

Ten years ago, there was a popular Ask HN: "what's your startup’s analytics setup?” [0]. Like the poster then (malandrew), I have the same problem in 2023: Selecting analytics solutions for the startup I'm working at has proven to be more daunting than I imagined. There are many services to choose from and it's not immediately obvious how you should choose from the many offerings to get not only complete analytics coverage but also do so in a way where you can integrate them all to get a complete picture without any mismatch. There is too much marketing speech copy on the sites of many analytics startups to properly evaluate them without wasting time and effort to signup, configure and use each one long enough to understand the value they provide. Off the top of my head, there are services like Segment [1], Amplitude [2], Mixpanel [3], Trackingplan [4], Avo [5], Posthog [6], Freshpaint [7], etc. So ten years later, what are the must-have analytics solutions for startups? What are the best tools for bringing in all the data from the different analytics tools? How should Engineering, Product and Data work together around analytics? The more details you can provide the better. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4707903 [1]: https://segment.com [2]: https://amplitude.com [3]: https://mixpanel.com [4]: https://www.trackingplan.com [5]: https://www.avo.app [6]: https://posthog.com [7]: https://www.freshpaint.io

besus 4y ago
Matomo for web facing pieces, and OpenSearch for API.
ihucos 4y ago
Ha I can make advertising for my own analytics platform: https://counter.dev https://counter.dev Its google analytics without google and prettier
stevemethiew 4y ago
[dead]
XCSme 4y ago
I built my own self-hosted analytics platform: https://www.uxwizz.com https://www.uxwizz.com Also, working on a simpler WordPress specific version: https://www.wplytic.com https://www.wplytic.com I think that self-hosted is the future for analytics, as it's the best way to control data flow and respect privacy laws.
- derfabianpeter 4y ago
  Glad I found this, thanks for posting it. Looks great.
cdbattags 4y ago
+1 for PostHog currently using for https://tripleaxle.com https://tripleaxle.com
- ensemblehq 4y ago
  Unrelated but really love the problem you're solving at TripleAxle! How have things been going so far?
sumanthvepa 4y ago
Had to address this for one of my clients last week. We decided to go with Google Tag Manager and Google analytics 4. The deciding factor was familiarity.
ushercakes 4y ago
If you use Google Analytics, you can get in a lot of trouble if you don't prompt the user with the cookie policy pop up. GDPR is a MF. I feel like it's bad UX to have that pop up, and I don't want to get in trouble, so I opt to use more bare-bones analytics and do a lot of custom logging myself. The tool I use specifically is https://pirsch.io/ https://pirsch.io/, which is very privacy friendly and doesn't have any of the stalky type stuff that Google Analytics has as default. Using this, you don't need to have the GDPR compliance pop-up.
warrenm 4y ago
What are you "analyzing"? If you don't know what you're "analyzing", then your "analytics setup" doesn't make any sense. I hate buzzword-compliant posts like this that don't even know what they're asking ... it's like the bad old days of reading some half-page "article" in the in-flight magazine and then seeing the CxO deciding to implement whatever it is they thought someone else said they kinda did
shishy 4y ago
Posthog is one of my faves, beats the crap out of GA, especially in terms of usability / reporting! Their support is fantastic too.
leetwito 4y ago
Track with GTM and Segment. Record with HotJar for more qualitative insights. Analyze with Mixpanel (and GA4 if you do marketing)
grepLeigh 4y ago
I'm using PostHog for https://printnanny.ai https://printnanny.ai and love it so far! I've previously used Google Analytics (terrible, requires a tremendous amount of custom code to do basic attribution) and more modern analytics like Segment/MixPanel (great, but expensive). Love that I have the option to self-host if I out-grow the free tier while still figuring out product/market fit. Since I'm not venture backed, I have to be cautious about exploding costs for managed services.
- codegeek 4y ago
  Are you using PostHog in the application or also on the Marketing Website because the website is showing Google Tag Manager in source.
  - grepLeigh 4y ago
    Google Analytics and Posthog are both running on the landing page, mostly because I haven't gotten around to removing GA yet.
dang 4y ago
You could do a poll for this if you wanted - http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll.

37 points by iddan 4y ago

besus 4y ago

Matomo for web facing pieces, and OpenSearch for API.

ihucos 4y ago

Ha I can make advertising for my own analytics platform: https://counter.dev https://counter.dev Its google analytics without google and prettier

stevemethiew 4y ago

[dead]

XCSme 4y ago

I built my own self-hosted analytics platform: https://www.uxwizz.com https://www.uxwizz.com Also, working on a simpler WordPress specific version: https://www.wplytic.com https://www.wplytic.com I think that self-hosted is the future for analytics, as it's the best way to control data flow and respect privacy laws.

derfabianpeter 4y ago
Glad I found this, thanks for posting it. Looks great.

cdbattags 4y ago

+1 for PostHog currently using for https://tripleaxle.com https://tripleaxle.com

ensemblehq 4y ago
Unrelated but really love the problem you're solving at TripleAxle! How have things been going so far?

sumanthvepa 4y ago

Had to address this for one of my clients last week. We decided to go with Google Tag Manager and Google analytics 4. The deciding factor was familiarity.

ushercakes 4y ago

If you use Google Analytics, you can get in a lot of trouble if you don't prompt the user with the cookie policy pop up. GDPR is a MF. I feel like it's bad UX to have that pop up, and I don't want to get in trouble, so I opt to use more bare-bones analytics and do a lot of custom logging myself. The tool I use specifically is https://pirsch.io/ https://pirsch.io/, which is very privacy friendly and doesn't have any of the stalky type stuff that Google Analytics has as default. Using this, you don't need to have the GDPR compliance pop-up.

warrenm 4y ago

What are you "analyzing"? If you don't know what you're "analyzing", then your "analytics setup" doesn't make any sense. I hate buzzword-compliant posts like this that don't even know what they're asking ... it's like the bad old days of reading some half-page "article" in the in-flight magazine and then seeing the CxO deciding to implement whatever it is they thought someone else said they kinda did

shishy 4y ago

Posthog is one of my faves, beats the crap out of GA, especially in terms of usability / reporting! Their support is fantastic too.

leetwito 4y ago

Track with GTM and Segment. Record with HotJar for more qualitative insights. Analyze with Mixpanel (and GA4 if you do marketing)

grepLeigh 4y ago

I'm using PostHog for https://printnanny.ai https://printnanny.ai and love it so far! I've previously used Google Analytics (terrible, requires a tremendous amount of custom code to do basic attribution) and more modern analytics like Segment/MixPanel (great, but expensive). Love that I have the option to self-host if I out-grow the free tier while still figuring out product/market fit. Since I'm not venture backed, I have to be cautious about exploding costs for managed services.

codegeek 4y ago
Are you using PostHog in the application or also on the Marketing Website because the website is showing Google Tag Manager in source.
- grepLeigh 4y ago
  Google Analytics and Posthog are both running on the landing page, mostly because I haven't gotten around to removing GA yet.

dang 4y ago

You could do a poll for this if you wanted - http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll.