8 Best Google Analytics Alternatives (for Simplicity & Privacy) in 2025

Last Updated May 2, 2025

8 Best Google Analytics Alternatives (for Simplicity & Privacy) in 2025

If you’re interested in learning about Google Analytics alternatives, you’ve come to the right place today. I wrote this article for a few reasons:

Firstly, Google replaced Universal Analytics with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) last year. And if you found Universal Analytics already a bit complex, you probably hate GA4 (as do I, with passion).

Secondly, I care about my website visitors’ privacy. Yes, I’d like to know how they enter my site, what pages they click, and how my content is performing, but I don’t intend to resell their data for Google to print money (this basically what Google does and why Google Analytics is free).

Still, Google Analytics has an 81.6% market share, making it the biggest player, but alternatives are emerging. Let’s explore what the market has to offer.

1. Simple Analytics

If you hate GA4 and its complexity, you’ll love Simple Analytics. As the name suggests, it’s super simple and easy to install. Like Google Analytics, you’ll need to add their script to your website (or use Google Tag Manager). Within minutes, your dashboard starts filling with data and looks like this:

Simple Analytics is privacy-first and doesn’t collect personal data from your website visitors, while providing necessary insights. You can create events to count button clicks and website checkouts and setup conversions.

It’s free. You can set up Simple Analytics for free and use it forever. Only if you want to retain your data longer or need more features, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan starting at $15 per month.

Features:

Privacy-first: No cookies or personal data collection.
Clean dashboard: Essential metrics only.
Event tracking: Custom events for clicks, checkouts, etc.
Adblocker bypass: bypass adblockers for accurate website visits
Google Analytics importer: Preserve historical data
Email reports: Scheduled summaries.

2. Matomo

Of all the alternatives, Matomo might come closest to resemble Google Analytics. It bears most of the complexities, but is privacy-friendly. They still track and collect personal data, but do this in a more secure way (according to their website).

You retain 100% data ownership and your data isn’t sold to third parties. With Matomo, you get the complexity and functions of Google Analytics but in a privacy-friendly way.

Matomo starts at $22/month for 50K pageviews. There’s no free plan, but you can self-host Matomo.

Features:

Full-featured: Ecommerce, heatmaps, A/B testing, etc.
100% data ownership: No third-party access.
GDPR compliant: Privacy-focused.
Self-hosted or cloud: Flexible deployment options.
Google Analytics importer: Migrate existing data

3. Fathom Analytics

Fathom analytics is again a ‘simple’ analytics tool. They focus on user experience with a simple dashboard showing all the needed metrics. No heatmaps, segments, or customization options. Just straightforward analytics.

You can self-host Fathom Analytics. The self-hosted version is called Fathom Lite. Comparing it to our first alternative, Simple Analytics, it’s probably a matter of taste. They are both privacy-friendly and easy to use. One thing to note is that Fathom still collects personal data (securely), whereas Simple Analytics doesn’t.

Features:

Simple UI: Real-time metrics on a single page.
Event tracking: Custom events for user interactions.
Email reports: Scheduled summaries.
Google Analytics importer: Preserve historical data.
No cookies: GDPR compliant without banners.

4. Plausible

Plausible is similar to Fathom and Simple Analytics. It’s a straightforward and easy-to-use analytics tool. It’s open-source and can be self-hosted. A notable difference is how Plausible collects data. Instead of collecting only non-personal data, it collects, stores and processes IP-address (in a hashed way).

Pricing starts at $9 per month for the basic plan. There’s a 14-day free trial, but no free offering (or you must use the open-source version). In their business offering, Plausible offers a richer feature set that includes funnels and custom properties.

Features:

Lightweight script: Fast loading, minimal impact.
No cookies: Fully GDPR, CCPA, and PECR compliant.
Open-source: Self-host or use hosted version.
Goal tracking: Conversions, revenue, campaigns.

5. Clicky

Clicky is an OG analytics tool (and you can tell). It’s barebones and looks like a product build in 2006. However, it does the job and is the cheapest.

If you need a simple analytics tool with insights in one dashboard (just not very slick), this might be an interesting shout. Clicky starts free for 3k daily pageviews.

There’s a 21-day free trial for premium features like heatmaps, uptime monitoring, segments, and Goals & Revenue.

Features:

Real-time analytics: Immediate data updates.
Heatmaps: Visualize user interactions.
Uptime monitoring: Track site availability.
Custom dashboards: Tailor reports to your needs.

6. Piwik

Piwik used to be part of Matomo (number two on this list). However, after disagreements in vision it split off into Piwik. They share the same premise: A privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative.

Piwik is more commercially focused than Matomo and lacks an open-source version. Last year Piwik was acquired by Cookie Information, but still operates as an independent analytics vendor.

Piwik matches Google Analytics 4 in features and customization. However, for a straightforward option, better alternatives exist. Pricing is enterprise-y.

Features:

Enterprise-focused: Advanced analytics suite.
Consent manager: Handle user permissions.
Tag manager: Manage tracking scripts.
Customer data platform: Integrate user data.
Flexible hosting: Cloud, on-premise, or private cloud.

7. Posthog

Posthog is a great tool. Their product is well organized and looks clean. Their branding is on point. Users love Posthog but it has a learning curve. Posthog is primarily a product analytics tool that also provides website analytics.

If you need an all-in-one solution to replace Google Analytics and are willing to get your hands dirty, this might be a good try. It’s open source with a generous free plan. The only downside is that it’s overkill if you just want website stats.

All-in-one platform: Analytics, session replay, feature flags.
Open-source: Self-host or use cloud version.
Product analytics: Funnels, cohorts, retention.
A/B testing: Run experiments easily.
Surveys: Collect user feedback.

8. Umami

Lastly, Umami is one of the newest analytics tools. They’ve focused on their open-source offering, but recently started offering a hosted solution as well.

Umami offers basic analytics but gets the job done. It’s a straightforward, easy-to-use tool with a generous free plan for up to 100K pageviews (6 months data retention) and is the cheapest option (along with Clicky).

Features:

Privacy-focused: No cookies or personal data collection.
Open-source: Self-hosted solution.
Real-time data: Immediate insights.
Custom events: Track specific user actions.
Intuitive dashboard: Clean and simple interface.

Is a Google Analytics Alternative Right for You?

There are plenty of analytics tools available. Don’t worry about finding the right replacement for Google Analytics; surely there’s one that fits your use case.

For a one-to-one GA4 replacement: Check out Matomo, Piwik, or Posthog for product analytics
For privacy-friendly and simple: Try Simple Analytics or Fathom
For a cheap option: Take Umami or Clicky for a spin

If you want to explore simpler analytics but wonder if you’d miss something in GA4, Simple Analytics wrote a great deep dive blog post about the differences in metrics, features, and overall comparison with Google Analytics.

Let me know if you have any questions or recommendations. Happy to help!

Which Google Analytics alternative is best if I just want simple website stats?

If you want simple, clear stats, tools like Simple Analytics, Fathom, Plausible, and Umami are your best bet. They focus on clean dashboards that show pageviews, top pages, referrers, and basic events without extra clutter.

Simple Analytics and Fathom are “simplicity first” and work well if you never liked GA4. Plausible and Umami are also easy to use, but offer a bit more flexibility if you want to grow into funnels or custom events later.

These tools are great if you mainly want to answer questions like “Which posts get the most traffic?” or “Where do my visitors come from?” without learning a complex tool. You can then use those insights to guide your content plan and SEO.

Once you see which posts perform best, you can plug those topics into the RightBlogger AI Article Writer to create more related posts and grow your traffic faster.

What is the most privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics?

If privacy is your top concern, Simple Analytics and Umami stand out because they do not collect personal data or use cookies. This makes them easier to use without showing annoying cookie banners in many regions.

Other tools like Fathom and Plausible also focus on privacy, but they still touch some personal data, such as IP addresses, even if they hash or secure them. For many site owners this is still a big improvement over Google Analytics.

Choosing a privacy-first tool can help you build more trust with your audience. It also makes it simpler to stay aligned with rules like GDPR while still seeing what content and traffic sources work.

If you want to pair privacy-friendly analytics with smarter SEO, you can track content results and then use RightBlogger’s guide to content performance analysis to improve your existing posts instead of guessing.

How do I choose between Matomo, Piwik, and Posthog if I need a full GA4 replacement?

Matomo, Piwik, and Posthog are better choices if you need an advanced GA4 style setup with many features. They support detailed tracking such as events, funnels, user journeys, and in some cases session replay and experiments.

Matomo and Piwik are closest to a “Google Analytics but more private” experience. They are good if you are used to reports like ecommerce tracking, goals, and detailed segments.

Posthog is more of a full product analytics platform. It is strong if you run a SaaS or app and want to understand in-depth behavior across features and user lifecycles, not just pageviews.

All three have a learning curve, so it helps to be clear on what you really need before switching. List your must-have reports from GA4, then compare which of these tools supports them without adding features you will never use.

How can I use a Google Analytics alternative to improve my SEO and content strategy with RightBlogger?

First, use your chosen analytics tool to find your top traffic pages and best traffic sources. Look at which blog posts bring in the most visitors and which keywords or referrers send that traffic.

Next, use those insights to plan more content around what already works. You can plug winning topics or keywords into the RightBlogger SEO reports workflow to spot gaps and quick wins for higher rankings.

Then, create or update posts based on this data. RightBlogger’s Auto SEO optimize content with AI workflows can help you refresh existing articles so they better match search intent and improve click-through rates.

Finally, add UTM tags to your main links using the RightBlogger UTM builder tool. Your analytics tool will then show exactly which emails, social posts, or campaigns drive the most traffic, so you can double down on what works.