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Care to back up your claims with some links?

by vdaniuk 11y ago

Silhouette 11y ago
The most obvious alternative is probably Piwik[1], which offers similar basic functionality to regular Google Analytics out of the box, but is also Open Source and highly customisable/extensible via a plugin model. Among the features threeseed mentioned, funnel visualisation is probably the weakest area in the baseline version right now. There have been various plug-ins available to do it for a long time, but it's not built-in yet. That said, this area is underpowered in GA as well, and at least with Piwik you can do something about it (and people actually do). Piwik has been in development for nearly a decade, has been downloaded millions of times, and is in active use by high-profile, high-volume sites. It's every bit as production-ready as Google Analytics. [1] http://piwik.org/ http://piwik.org/
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  Piwik is fine open-source software, I won't argue with that. However, it isn't really comparable in advanced features with GA: * advanced funnel analysis, such as multi-channel funnels * attribution models and analysis * advanced visualization and analysis tools * age/gender demographic and interest reports * custom dimension and custom metrics * mobile android/iphone SDK for apps and many other features including content experiments, webmaster tools integration, social data hub(though this one is mostly useless) etc.
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    Could you give more specifics about what you're looking for here? It's hard to compare meaningfully with only broad terms like "advanced visualization and analysis tools". It's true that GA claims to offer demographic reporting. The reliability and usefulness of that reporting is a different matter, of course. Other than that, Piwik might be less capable if you just install a standard baseline and never customize it, but when integrated with a little custom logic it can do some pretty impressive (and, in particular, tailored) analysis and visualization. GA is more the other way around. You have more tools available as standard, but then it has limited scope for useful customisation beyond its built-in toolset (edit: without resorting to building completely bespoke systems via APIs, that is). For example, I've seen quite simple situations that seem enough to confuse GA's funnel tools. A common one is a non-linear sign-up funnel where some steps may be skipped or changed, or where a visitor may come in part-way through the process. These often happen in practice because of something that visitor has already done before starting to sign up, where they are located, how they choose to pay, or other factors. My experience has been that anything remotely unusual like that immediately seems to confuse GA's entire funnel toolset, rendering it all but useless. With a more flexible tool like Piwik you can generate a custom visualization of the whole process you actually use with a reasonable amount of effort.

Care to back up your claims with some links?

by vdaniuk 11y ago

Care to back up your claims with some links?

The most obvious alternative is probably Piwik[1], which offers similar basic functionality to regular Google Analytics out of the box, but is also Open Source and highly customisable/extensible via a plugin model. Among the features threeseed mentioned, funnel visualisation is probably the weakest area in the baseline version right now. There have been various plug-ins available to do it for a long time, but it's not built-in yet. That said, this area is underpowered in GA as well, and at least with Piwik you can do something about it (and people actually do). Piwik has been in development for nearly a decade, has been downloaded millions of times, and is in active use by high-profile, high-volume sites. It's every bit as production-ready as Google Analytics. [1] http://piwik.org/ http://piwik.org/

vdaniuk 11y ago
Piwik is fine open-source software, I won't argue with that. However, it isn't really comparable in advanced features with GA: * advanced funnel analysis, such as multi-channel funnels * attribution models and analysis * advanced visualization and analysis tools * age/gender demographic and interest reports * custom dimension and custom metrics * mobile android/iphone SDK for apps and many other features including content experiments, webmaster tools integration, social data hub(though this one is mostly useless) etc.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  Could you give more specifics about what you're looking for here? It's hard to compare meaningfully with only broad terms like "advanced visualization and analysis tools". It's true that GA claims to offer demographic reporting. The reliability and usefulness of that reporting is a different matter, of course. Other than that, Piwik might be less capable if you just install a standard baseline and never customize it, but when integrated with a little custom logic it can do some pretty impressive (and, in particular, tailored) analysis and visualization. GA is more the other way around. You have more tools available as standard, but then it has limited scope for useful customisation beyond its built-in toolset (edit: without resorting to building completely bespoke systems via APIs, that is). For example, I've seen quite simple situations that seem enough to confuse GA's funnel tools. A common one is a non-linear sign-up funnel where some steps may be skipped or changed, or where a visitor may come in part-way through the process. These often happen in practice because of something that visitor has already done before starting to sign up, where they are located, how they choose to pay, or other factors. My experience has been that anything remotely unusual like that immediately seems to confuse GA's entire funnel toolset, rendering it all but useless. With a more flexible tool like Piwik you can generate a custom visualization of the whole process you actually use with a reasonable amount of effort.