Privacy focused web analytics - Google analytics alternatives 2024

Velantina -

Privacy focused web analytics or privacy friendly analytics are based on a cookie-less architecture that provides relief to SaaS and startup businesses of all sizes.

There is no tracking, sharing, or selling of PII (Personal Identifiable Information) data to third-party companies.

As a result, it safeguards users’ privacy.

Furthermore, they adhere to regulations such as

  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
  • California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA),
  • Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), and others.

Furthermore, since these solution providers are mostly software companies rather than advertising firms, they never collect or share your data for advertising or any other purpose.

They will charge you a reasonable fee for their services in order to make a profit and sustain their business, rather than capitalizing on your data.

What Benefits does Privacy focused Web Analytics Provide to Businesses?

  • PII (Personal Identifiable Information) is not tracked at all.
  • It will not track IP addresses, User-Agent string, or any other PII data to demonstrate analytics.
  • It complies with privacy regulations.
  • Certain data is collected confidentially and is never shared for any purpose.
  • Do not use client-side states, such as cookies or local storage to access data.
  • Privacy focused analytics tools are more of a software company than an advertising company.
  • Also, it shows customers their website data as a whole, such as top content or best referrers, rather than data for each individual user.

Does Google Analytics povide privacy focused web analytics?

No, though, Google Analytics is one of the web analytics tools that is literally free and offered by Google.

Google Analytics does not provide privacy focused web analytics, or you can say it as Google analytics is not a privacy friendly analytics.  

It is typically available as a tool within the Google Marketing Platform brand, it records and reports on website traffic.

Google Analytics introduced real-time analytics, which allows users to gain information about visitors who are currently on the site.

A user can have a total of 100 site profiles. In most cases, each profile corresponds to a single website.

Unless the site is linked to a Google Ads campaign, it is limited to sites with fewer than 5 million page views per month.

Google Analytics contains Google Website Optimizer, which has been renamed Google Analytics Content Experiments.

Cohort analysis in Google Analytics aids in understanding the behavior of component groups of users in addition to your user population.

It is useful for marketers and analysts who want to successfully implement a marketing strategy.

Why Find a Better Google Analytics Alternative?

By analyzing visitors with Google Analytics, the website’s business is literally, offering Google all the data about their website visitors for free, which can be suited to other websites’ data from one website, allowing Google’s advertising network to obtain a vast amount of information about each of us who uses the internet.

In fact, by using Google Analytics, people receive free website analytics while trading personal information from their visitors.

It does not appear to be fair trade.

As a result, they are not required to ask a fee for it.

That’s another similar justification. Google offers free browsers, email, maps, and so on.

They want to be a part of the basic infrastructure of the internet, which can then be used to gather everyone’s data as much as they could to drive more advertising revenue.

Features to be Considered to Find the Best Privacy Focused Analytics?

  • It works without accepting cookies.
  • Get past the ad-blocker.
  • They must have the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), E-Privacy.
  • It should meet privacy laws.
  • It must have a user-friendly dashboard.

What are Some Privacy Focused or Privacy Friendly Analytics?

1. Fathom Analytics:

Fathom is an alternative to Google Analytics that does not affect visitor privacy when using data.

They changed them to be simple to use while also upholding privacy laws like GDPR, e-Privacy, PECR, and CCPA compliant.

It does not even allow cookies to be used to collect privacy-sensitive website analytics data for you.

This makes Fathom Analytics, the second-best privacy focused analytics service.

2. 66Analytics:

66Analytics is a better alternative to Google Analytics, which is self-hosted and includes session replays, heatmaps, as well as user journeys, and more.

It has a good-looking dashboard, is automatic, easy to log into, is API ready, and is also customizable.

66Analytics has a con that is more expensive pricing and does not have a free version or free trial.

3. Simple Analytics:

Simple Analytics is a software tool that is specially designed for ad privacy focused web analytics.

As its name says it is totally simple and easy to function and access all its features.

It is totally easy to export data, email reports, and a simple dashboard.

They charge just for the number of page views and the total number of users.

Furthermore, it does not provide session replay, heatmaps, tags, or notes, which are shareable within the group.

4. Plausible Analytics:

Plausible Analytics is lightweight and privacy-friendly analytics that tracks events, goal conversions, and campaigns, a really strong API.

The best feature of Plausible Analytics is that open-source analytics is a viable option.

Their source code is publicly available and accessible on GitHub, so anyone can read, inspect, and review it to ensure that our actions correspond to our words.

5. Matomo:

Matomo (formerly Piwik) is a well-known European privacy focused web analytics tool.

This allows you to work to improve your website, make smarter business decisions, and stand out in a safe and trustworthy manner.

It is said to give security and 100% data ownership to your own data without involving any third party.

Moreover, it is totally free and open-source.

6. Piwik PRO:

Piwik PRO is the first privacy focused Google Analytics alternative.

The Piwik PRO Analytics Suite, allows users’ web, app, product, and intranet behavior to be tracked.

The system complies with stringent data protection laws in the EU, US, China, and Russia, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

From implementation and onboarding to product training and analytics consulting,

Piwik PRO takes a personalized approach to every step of your journey.

7. GoatCounter:

GoatCounter is a free and open-source web analytics platform that can be used as a hosted service or as a self-hosted app.

As a privacy focused, alternative to Google Analytics, it aims to provide easy-to-use and meaningful privacy focused web analytics.

Conclusion:

The more technology is growing, the more our privacy is at risk as if someone is always analyzing our data for their own benefit.

We are happy that there are some privacy focused software tools just like our recommendations.

Free is never the only option whereas they are actually finding income from somewhere else using us. Privacy builds trust.

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