12 Google Analytics Alternatives to Help You Track Website Visitors

While Google Analytics is the most popular website analytics platform on the market, marketers often search for Google Analytics alternatives that can help them understand more about their site. Google Analytics is a great option, but it lacks certain features that marketers need to truly understand what their website visitors are up to. In this article, we are going to go over the top 12 Google Analytics alternatives that can help you track your website visitors. First, let’s quickly review Google Analytics and why marketers look for alternatives. 

Google Analytics 101

Google Analytics 4, or GA4, is the most common website analytics platform out there. Mainly, because it’s free and and easy to get started. Plus, it also integrates with other Google products like Search Console and Ads. GA4 tracks user interactions like events, page views, time on page, and more. While GA4 offers advanced features, the leaning curve associated with building custom reports can be daunting for users. And, while GA4 offers some insights into your website visitors, it’s still missing key features like website visitor identification, benchmarking, and heatmaps.

Why Look for Google Analytics Alternatives?

While GA4 has been a staple for digital marketing, there are a few reasons why you may want to look into an alternative. GA4 introduces a more complex interface and new concepts that can be challenging for users familiar with Universal Analytics. With increasing regulations like GDPR and CCPA, businesses are more concerned about data privacy. Some companies may prefer analytics solutions that offer better compliance with these regulations. Additionally, data ownership is another consideration. Google Analytics data is stored on Google’s servers, which can be a concern for companies that prioritize data ownership and control. Customization needs also play a significant role. Keep in mind that some businesses require more customizable and flexible analytics solutions tailored to their specific needs. Now, let’s go over the best Google Analytics Alternatives that you should be using.

Top 12 Best Google Analytics Alternatives

Now that you know everything about GA4, and why people often look for Google Analytics alternatives, let’s jump right into the software.

1. Visitor Queue

Visitor Queue is a website visitor identification software that provides you with an overview of the companies that visit your website. You’ll also be able to see how they were acquired, what pages they viewed, and how long they spent on each page. Plus, you can see contact information of key employees to help you reach out and ensure they found what they were looking for. Other key features include website personalization, benchmarking against competitors, and conversion tracking. Additionally, with an impressive 4.5 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd, Visitor Queue is one of the best Google Analytics alternatives on the market. Start your 14-day free trial today to see for yourself.

2. Matomo Analytics

Mamoto Analytics proclaims that they are the Google Analytics alternative that protects your data and your customer’s privacy. They keep information so secure by hosting either in the cloud or on your own server. Key features include heatmaps, visitor behavior, multi-attribution, custom reports, and more. Additionally, you can import any of your old Google Analytics data to properly measure year over year information. Also, Matomo has 4.2 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

3. Hotjar

Hotjar is most well known for its heatmaps. But, they also have session recordings, general website analytics, survey builders, and website trend predictions. Hotjar is also well known for being very easy to use and understand the information it provides. They proclaim that Hotjar provides everything you ever wanted to know about your website, but analytics never told you about. Additionally, Hotjar has 4.3 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

4. Piwik Pro

Piwik Pro is a flexible analytics suite for marketers and analysis that lets you respect user privacy. This Google Analytics alternative partners with Matomo, but provides even more in-depth information, perfect for enterprise-sized organizations. It also provides full data ownership GDPR and CCPA compliance, a tag manager, and customizable dashboards. Plus, Piwik Pro has 4.6 out of 5 stars on G2 crowd.

5. Clicky

Clicky proclaims that they are a “Web 2.0” analytics tool that makes it easy to discover how people are using your website. They provide real-time web analytics with a focus on simplicity and ease of use. Its real-time data, heatmaps, uptime monitoring, and customizable dashboard make it ideal for small to medium-sized businesses looking for real-time insights without complexity. They have 4.5 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

6. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is a simple and powerful product analytics that helps your team make better, data-driven decisions. SQL. Set up your metrics to measure growth and retention. Slice and dice data to uncover trends and see live updates on how people are using your website. In addition, its event-based tracking, user segmentation, funnel analysis, and A/B testing capabilities make it a valuable tool for your team to better understand user behavior. Also, they have a 4.6 out of 5 star rating on G2 Crowd.

7. Heap

Heap proclaims that they are the only digital insights platform that gives you a complete understanding of your customer’s digital journey. Then, you can use this insight to improve conversion, retention, and customer delight. A few key features include heatmaps session replay, customer journey visualization, custom dashboards, and integrations. Heap’s automatic event tracking, user behavior analysis, and retroactive data tracking are great for businesses that want to save time on event tracking setup. They have a 4.4 out of 5 star rating on G2 Crowd.

8. Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics offers product and marketing analytics focused on tracking individual user behavior. Its funnel analysis, customer segmentation, and email campaign tracking make it best for SaaS and eCommerce businesses needing detailed customer journey analytics. They remark that Kissmetrics is super simple, making is easy to track behavior, find bottlenecks, reduce customer churn, and increase revenue. Additionally, a few key features include multi-channel attribution, A/B testing, and funnel visualization. Kissmetrics has 4.1 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

9. Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics reports that they give actionable insights, not just canned reports. This Google Analytics alternative lets you mix, match, and analyze data from any point in your customer journey. With in-depth analysis, versatile reporting, and predictive analytics, you can get the information you need to build better customer experiences. Because Adobe Analytics offers a lot of in-depth reporting, it is very expensive. Because of this, it’s best suited for enterprise-sized companies looking to learn more about their audience. They also have a 4.1 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

10. Woopra

Woopra offers real-time analytics with a focus on customer journey analytics. Its real-time analytics, journey mapping, user segmentation, and CRM integration are great for businesses wanting to integrate analytics with their CRM and understand the entire customer journey. With the help of Woopra, your team can seamlessly track and unify data across product, marketing, sales, and support touchpoints with custom tracking capabilities. In addition, they have an impressive 4.5 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd.

11. Plausible

Plausible is an intuitive, lightweight, and open source website analytics platform. It doesn’t use any cookies, and is compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and PECR. Plausible is built with usability in mind, without layers of menus that you have to search through to find what you’re looking for. Rather than tracking every metric imaginable, many of them that you will never find a use for, Plausible focuses on the most essential website stats only. They currently have a perfect rating on G2 Crowd, but they only have two reviews at the time of writing, so take it with a grain of salt.

12. Fathom Analytics

With Fathom Analytics, experience ease of use, forever data retention, and compliance-friendly tracking. Unlike Google Analytics, Fathom protects your visitors digital privacy, is easier to use and guarantees perpetual data retention. A few key features include real-time metrics, instant filters, event tracing, bot filtering, campaign monitoring, and dashboard sharing. Additionally, they currently have a 4.6 out of 5 star rating on G2 Crowd.

What’s Next?

Choosing the right analytics tool depends on your specific business needs, the level of customization required, and your budget. While Google Analytics offers good features, it lacks a number of features that can help you take your marketing efforts to the next level. Each of the tools listed above offers unique features making them good options for Google Analytics alternatives. As always, if you have any questions about how to use Visitor Queue to better understand and identify your website visitors, do not hesitate to contact us.