Make your website a black hole to big tech • Hacker News Board

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#51

Post by sdan » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

ibudiallo wrote: post #38

Most people I know with small websites will not pay $15/month for analytics. The privacy part of it is also not really the concern of small website owners. This is not to dismiss Fathom entirely. But there are free alternative (with server setup cost) that keeps your data private: Matomo (formerly Piwik). I've run it in parallel with Google Analytics and it was the closest replacement I could find. But again, small w…

In my experience Matomo is pretty bulky and hard to use. At the same time, Simple Analytics and Fathom are relatively expensive (but at a business standpoint, their pricing is good).

Looking at these as a developer, I'm building https://sdan.io/pingpong, which should be free up to 100k visitors monthly and am expecting to launch in January.

It's cheaper, faster (by a 3-4x margin), and simple.

If you want to stay updated, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/BZA7thD878PbKnSs8 and I'll keep in touch soon.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#52

Post by itake » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:46 PM UTC

JackWritesCode wrote: post #40

ibudiallo wrote: post #38

Most people I know with small websites will not pay $15/month for analytics. The privacy part of it is also not really the concern of small website owners. This is not to dismiss Fathom entirely. But there are free alternative (with server setup cost) that keeps your data private: Matomo (formerly Piwik). I've run it in parallel with Google Analytics and it was the closest replacement I could find. But again, small w…

We have a Lite version too if $14 is too much: https://github.com/usefathom/fathom

$14 is too much.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#53

Post by DrOctagon » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:48 PM UTC

Happy (recent) Fathom customer. I use it on a handful of small side projects.

I hope there is space in the market for a product like this. I did a reasonable amount of research and the $14/month is worth it for the handful of side projects I use it on.

Their marketing can be a little earnest, but for me the product strikes the right balance between the info provided, privacy, and cost.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#54

Post by sdan » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

Hoasi wrote: post #28

I have not used Google Analytics in years. There are so many extraordinary features that I ended up wasting too much time with it without any substantial gain. Now you'd have to pay me to use it. For small sites, it is overkill.

It definitely is. As someone who just made some simple HTML sites on Github Pages, I just want some simple analytics without having to pay much.

That's why, I'm building https://sdan.io/pingpong, which should be free up to 100k visitors monthly and am expecting to launch in January.

It's cheaper, faster (by a 3-4x margin), and simple.

If you want to stay updated, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/BZA7thD878PbKnSs8 and I'll keep in touch soon.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#55

Post by FisDugthop » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

JackWritesCode wrote: post #34

nesyt wrote: post #33

This is just an advertisement for the company. It doesn't really say anything substantive. "Google bad, we better!"

It's most certainly a plug for privacy-focused products. We're as surprised as you that this ended up on the front page.

But you submitted it. You ought to know that submitting an article can cause it to appear on the front page. You also ought to know better than to submit advertisements, yet you did it anyway.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#56

Post by sdan » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

sveingjoby wrote: post #31

I can't imagine to pay $14/m for my personal website

I can't either. As someone who just wants simple, private, and cheap analytics, I wanted a product that could do so (all current products are pretty expensive).

That's why, I'm building https://sdan.io/pingpong, which should be free up to 100k visitors monthly and am expecting to launch in January.

It's cheaper, faster (by a 3-4x margin), and simple.

If you want to stay updated, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/BZA7thD878PbKnSs8 and I'll keep in touch soon.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#57

Post by rpdillon » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

dinkleberg wrote: post #49

coldpie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have a personal website and I just... don't put any analytics on it. Genuinely curious: what do you get out of having analytics on a personal site?

Analytics is useful to understand what content you write people are consuming. If you write a bunch of blog posts that get no traffic but a few articles that get a lot of traffic, you can begin to understand what content others are finding helpful.

I see surprisingly little discussion of web server log analysis. Would that suit your use case while avoiding client-side analytics?

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#58

Post by snickerbockers » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

JackWritesCode wrote: post #34

nesyt wrote: post #33

This is just an advertisement for the company. It doesn't really say anything substantive. "Google bad, we better!"

It's most certainly a plug for privacy-focused products. We're as surprised as you that this ended up on the front page.

>It's most certainly a plug for privacy-focused products.

Their pitch is "we respect your privacy more than the other guy" instead of just "we respect your privacy". User privacy is the antithesis of what they do.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#59

Post by JackWritesCode » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:58 PM UTC

FisDugthop wrote: post #55

JackWritesCode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's most certainly a plug for privacy-focused products. We're as surprised as you that this ended up on the front page.

But you submitted it. You ought to know that submitting an article can cause it to appear on the front page. You also ought to know better than to submit advertisements, yet you did it anyway.

It's got an upsell in it but it's not an advert.

Re: Make your website a black hole to big tech

#60

Post by thinkxl » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:58 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #52

JackWritesCode wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a Lite version too if $14 is too much: https://github.com/usefathom/fathom

$14 is too much.

Not too much at all. But in case your budget is tight, you can move around some services, for example, I canceled my hosting account and moved all my websites to ZEIT Now, and I pay around ~11 USD for 7 sites and 20 API endpoints (serverless functions).

I have two sites in my Fathom Analytics account which I pay $14 USD/month. Keep in mind that you can add multiple sites to your Fathom account, you just need to keep an eye on the page views.