What to use instead of Google Analytics: TOP 8 web analytics tools

Are you looking for alternatives (or add-ons) to Google Analytics? Do you have privacy concerns? If yes, then here are 8 useful website analytics tools. All have free trials and/or plans. We will analyze each of them in more detail, plus we will quickly reveal the topic, what is user analytics and why it is needed. 

An example of an interface with data from GA

What is an analytics system?

Web analytics systems allow you to collect data and analyze user behavior on your website or product. The resulting data is segmented based on personas, use case, user behavior analysis to further improve the product experience of each audience segment. 

What is included in web analytics: 

• User - the subject who visited the site.
• Traffic - the total amount of visits for a specific time period.
• Views - the number of pages opened by visitors.
• Browsing depth is the number of pages opened by a visitor in one visit.
• Event - user actions aimed at contacting the company or placing an order.
• A session is a unique visit to a site.
• A bounce is a visit without performing key actions or with only one page view.
• The goal is the functional work of the visitor (click, call, feedback, article viewing).
• Conversion is the ratio of users who performed functional work to their total number (in percent).
• Traffic source - the paths that the visitor took to the page.
• Return - the return of the client to the site through bookmarks or memorization.
• Stay time is the average amount of time a customer spends on a website page.
• The exit page is the page that the client opened when he left the site.

What web analytics tools are there: below we will look at alternatives to Google Analytics such as Matomo, Woopra, GoSquared, Wide Angle, MixPanel, Heap, StatCounter, Clicky. If GA functionality is enough for you, we still recommend that you familiarize yourself with alternatives that offer various useful features. 

Matomo web analytics system

Matomo allows you to import Google Analytics data and serves as a complete web analytics tool. This system provides you with heatmaps, A/B testing, funnels and goals, session recordings, and many other conversion optimization features. In other words Matomo is complete alternative to Google Analytics.

The tool promises to protect the privacy of webmasters. Webmasters will be able to host Matomo Analytics technology on their own servers if they are concerned about sensitive data, but the company also offers cloud hosting on servers located in Europe. ВPaid advertising integrations are currently available for Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising. Matomo also has no data transfer restrictions.

There is a free trial with pricing for the local hosting product starting at $0/month for lite usage and $23/month for cloud usage. Cloud usage comes with email support. With the local plan, webmasters can choose which features they want beyond the standard ones, which range from $29/year for activity log to $579/year SAML integration, and there are additional paid subscriptions.

Woopra for web analytics

Woopra Tool – provides product, marketing, sales and support information as it tracks the Target Audience throughout their journey on the site.

It has unique custom tracking capabilities and over 30 integrations with products like Salesforce, Google Ads, Zapier, Mailchimp, and more. It can also perform real-time actions such as sending a message to the Slack sales channel as soon as a new user registers. There is a free trial and plan starting at $999 per month.

GoSquared Web Analytics

GoSquared provides web analytics and live chat to help increase sales. You can check the browsing activity that brought the lead to your landing page, and if they provide you with their email address, see more of their social activity.

Prices start at $9 per month for a starter package limited to three projects. The mid-tier packages are $24/month for Standard and $49/month for Pro, while the Scale package is $99/month. Currently, new users can get the web analytics basics e-book for free. 

GoSquared offers users unlimited team sharing, email reporting, unlimited data storage, UTM campaign tracking, and more. It is integrated with Salesforce, Slack, Zapier, Twitter, Shopify and Squarespace, among other companies.

Wide Angle Analytics

Wide Angle Analytics Plugin integrates with Wix, Ghost, Squarespace, WordPress and more. The platform is ready for the processing of personal data - this means that you can process certain personal information with the consent of the Target Audience.

There are three tiers of pricing: Founder plan €9.99/month, Team plan €29.99/month and Business plan €89.99/month. While there is no set free plan, Wide Angle analytics tool is unwilling to charge fees to certain organizations that advance social causes.

Mixpanel Web Analytics

According to the service description, Mixpanel allows you to take a deep dive into your Target Audience's behavior with real-time updates, all without the use of SQL.

Current integrations include Braze, Convert, HubSpot, CallRail and many more. There is a free Starter package, a Growth package starting at $20/month, and an Enterprise package starting at $833/month. For eligible startups under 5 years old, it offers up to $50,000 in Mixpanel loans. 

Heap Analytics

What is Heap platform: the service shows each action of the Target Audience on your site and advises what can be improved. Over 100 integrations available. Heap is a product analytics tool designed to provide data about products and how the Target Audience interacts with them. 

heap example interface

Heap pricing: there is a free trial, a free plan, and individually priced Growth, Pro, and Premier plans.

StatCounter

StatCounter analytics – this is a web analytics tool that can detect fraudulent clicks for paid ads. He also notifies you when an important visitor returns to your site.

With this tool, you can observe the entire journey of the Target Audience through the landing and identify possible problems with navigation, landing structure and flow. It integrates with Google Ads and tracks your landing page's conversion rates. It offers a free trial with a free plan, a $18/month Premium plan, and a $28/month Premium Plus plan.

Clicky Analytics

Clicky — is a free web analytics platform offering a Pro version for $9.99/month, a Pro Plus version for $14.99/month, a Pro Platinum version for $19.99/month, and a custom version that the company will offer you.

Clicky service description: the platform monitors the performance of your landing page and warns you if it is not working. Some premium features (heat maps and uptime monitoring) are not available on lower tier plans. Clicky also offers white label analytics.

Opinion of the editors of AffJournal

For some site owners, it is enough to analyze the audience with a service from Google in order to move in the right direction. For others, it is critical to develop a detailed plan, considering dozens of factors. As in any business, it is better to use free simple tools at the beginning of the journey. And as the business and marketing strategy develop, add specialized services.