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An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

plausible.io

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Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is popular, because it's free, relatively easy to implement on any website, requires no self-hosting and powerful, once running Tbh, I disagree. While a lot of the above is true, it's largely popular because it's a recognisable brand, and because the majority of frontend devs are already familiar with it and haven't felt the need to explore an alternative (network effect). While an alternative does really need t…

Photoshop is the defacto-standard in image editing, yet clones which are free and copy the photoshop UI are rapidly catching up for a segment of the userbase, eg. photopea.com If someone set up a Scroogle Analoytics which had a simple code snippet, was free, and had near-identical looking dashboard, I'd use it.

Many people are quite surprised to know that Photoshop has actual competition, even when they don’t really want to pay for the actual thing. It’s often easier to just pay for it than try an alternative which may or many not be right for their needs.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#95
post #55

If you're going to tear down a competitor's product and shill your own you should probably be up front about it.

[flagged]

That industry has existed everywhere for most of civilization. Perhaps even the second oldest profession.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is popular, because it's free, relatively easy to implement on any website, requires no self-hosting and powerful, once running Tbh, I disagree. While a lot of the above is true, it's largely popular because it's a recognisable brand, and because the majority of frontend devs are already familiar with it and haven't felt the need to explore an alternative (network effect). While an alternative does really need t…

Photoshop is the defacto-standard in image editing, yet clones which are free and copy the photoshop UI are rapidly catching up for a segment of the userbase, eg. photopea.com If someone set up a Scroogle Analoytics which had a simple code snippet, was free, and had near-identical looking dashboard, I'd use it.

While GA is free Photoshop has one of the most insanely bloated pricing approaches for casual usage - the fact it's handed out like candy to students (and various institutions allow this instead of familiarizing students with alternatives) is the only reason its kept such a dominant market position.

If your boss asks you for some analytics about site usage the first thing searching the web will turn up is GA and you can have it set up on a test env in less than half an hour including acquiring an API key and reading enough docs to configure it.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#98
post #8

What are good self-hosted alternatives? Something like Webalizer, but a bit more modern.

I have been working on one for many years now as a side-project (not free): https://www.usertrack.net

Since October I started working on it full-time and I'm really excited about the future updates. I want people to start using it not only because it's self-hosted but because it should lead faster to actionable insights than Google Analytics. I am also planning to provide a free version after I manage to earn enough to keep working on it.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#99
post #34
post #28

Take this post with a pinch of salt... Out of the 10 points made, I'd argue only 2 are actually valid and another 2 are "technically correct but..." It’s owned by Google, the largest ad-tech company in the world Yes. Google provides a free service and in return gets a view into your traffic. Very fair point, but not terribly controversial IMHO It’s a bloated script that affects your site speed Um, not really. I'm a b…

If it weren’t controversial nobody would be discussing it.

Not sure how you draw that conclusion. Its made to sound controversial (by a would-be competitor).

My point is that it is really not when you look below the surface.

Re: An alternative to using Google Analytics on your website

#100

If this is your personal website, one option to consider is dropping the analytics completely. Do you really need to know exactly (and it’s not even that exact, since people block or can’t load your analytics) how many people viewed your blog posts? Anecdotally, if you put your email at the bottom of the page you’ll get a pretty good idea just from the number of people who send you one.

If you want high quality blog posts, you need to know which ones are popular and bring in new readers. Without that, you'll loose a really strong signal for self improvement, and your blog might become write-only...

I honestly couldn’t care less which of my blog posts are popular. I write about things interesting to me, which I assume is often too boring or technical for most people. Sometimes people post my stuff to Hacker News and it does well, sometimes it doesn’t, but if I tried to “optimize” this by matching what the site seems to like I wouldn’t write some of my favorite posts.
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