Best Google Analytics Alternatives in the year 2023

Also available in German

Since GDPR blew the lid from the privacy nightmare that is Google Analytics, we have been blessed with alternatives in the Web Analytics space. Today, there are a variety of options available.

Web analytics SaaS and on-premises solutions have their pros and cons. 

Especially when working with SaaS tools, you must be cautious and thoroughly scrutinize compliance with laws and regulations. If you choose incorrectly, you, the Data Controller, will be liable for any violations. Not your vendor, who is only a Data Processor in this situation. 

Let's dive in.

1. Wide Angle Analytics
2. Matomo
3. HotJar
4. Clicky
5. Fatһom

Jump to Summary

Wide Angle Analytics

Wide Angle Analytics offers web analytics solution that is fully compliant and go beyond the basics. It delivers a privacy-first experience, allowing you to easily deploy tracker script without the need for Cookie Banner. 

In strict compliance with the GDPR, all personal data is irreversibly anonymized and obfuscated, making user re-identification impossible, by default. Unlike other tools in this class, Wide Angle Analytics supports Personal Data processing. It's fully and exclusively hosted on European cloud. Data is encrypted in transit and at-rest. 

It provides tracking of page views, unique views, session duration, bounce rate, and various device details. Wide Angle Analytics helps you understand where your site visitors come from, both in terms of geography and traffic source. It supports custom actions, such as click and download, as well as custom events, such as custom JavaScript events.

Multiple purpose-built dashboards allow you to get a quick overview of traffic, find the most engaging content, and compare your goals and metrics.

It supports up to 100 users and has advanced permissions for teams and large enterprises. 

Wide angle analytics allows tracking with a custom domain to improve reliability. It provides highly reliable bypass functionality for unfair ad-blocker.

• Jurisdiction: Germany, European Union
• GDPR Adequacy: Yes, in the EU
• Hosting: European Cloud
• Cloud: yes
• On-Premise: no
• For whom: Founders, growing Team, Businesses, and Digital and Media Agencies
• Support: email and chat; phone coming soon

Matomo

Matomo is one of the oldest and most mature web analytics solutions available today. Originally conceived under the name Piwik, not to be confused with Piwik PRO, it has been around since 2007. 

Matomo is a mature product distributed as on-premise as well as the cloud option. 

Depending on the option you choose, there is different level of feature support. The most complete solution being the Cloud option, covers features such as A/B Testing, Custom Reports, LDAP Integration, Google Analytics Importer, Form Analytics and more.

Supports multiple websites and team members. Although, the number caps at 30 for both, even in top-tier plan. 

Matomo also offers Tag Manager, capable of replacing Google's Tag Manager. 

If you have skills and resources to get familiar with the complete and flexible product like Matomo, you will be hard-pressed to find a missing feature. 

The biggest downside of Matomo is its cost. The price of the Cloud hosted version quickly escalates with the number of events, while the on-premise edition comes with a hefty bill for support. 

• Jurisdiction: Auckland, New Zealand
• GDPR Adequacy: Yes, New Zealand is an Adequate Country
• Hosting: Hosted in Europe
• Cloud: yes
• On-Premise: yes
• For whom: for Small, Medium and Large Enterprises
• Support: email

HotJar

HotJar is a very unique entry on this list. It is web analytics which goes a step further. It allows you to extract key insights about user interactions. The main focus of HotJar is on a user session tracking user behaviour on the website. 

HotJar allows extracting zones on your website which users find interesting by recording user activity and presenting it as an activity heatmap. 

As a result, it focuses more on creating and analysing recording of user interaction with the website or web application.

HotJar allows organizations to focus on user, create use cases and monitor feature adoption. As such, it focuses on collaboration between users and ability to extract actionable insight.

While it shines in user activity tracking, its main focus in not web analytics. Hence, the pricing with large volume of recording is rather steep. 

• Jurisdiction: Malta, EU
• GDPR Adequacy: Yes, in the EU
• Hosting: AWS servers in the EU, SCCs
• Cloud: yes
• On-Premise: no
• For whom: Teams, Designers, UI/UX Researchers
• Support: email, chat

Clicky

Clicky is great, straight to the point web analytics platform. Don't let the simplistic website design deter you. You get plenty of features in a seemingly small packaged. 

Its cloud-based web analytics solution is fast and easy to navigate to. Allows tracking campaign, goals and “spy” on visitors. It gives you view of top visited pages and give you a decent level of flexibility with filters. 

Similar to Wide Angle Analytics, it offers a privacy-first solution by default, and similarly to WAA it also offers the ability to go a step further, by recording Personal Data if you choose to do so. 

An interesting and unique feature of Clicky is the Backlink Analytics. This allows tracking the exact website/address that was the source of traffic.

The downside of using Clicky is that it is incorporated in the US. As the US is an GDPR Inadequate Country, and companies incorporated in the US are subject to US Surveillance laws, the use of such a service is questionable in the context of GDPR. 

• Jurisdiction: Milwaukie, OR, USA
• GDPR Adequacy: No
• Hosting: not disclosed
• Cloud: yes
• On-Premise: no
• For whom: Bloggers, small Teams, individual Researchers
• Support: email

Fatһom Analytics

Fatһom Analytics is simple, no thrills, solutions covering the basics. Fatһom offers users data such as page views and viewers, timezone where the user is located, but only on the country level.

Fatһom employs a similar approach to bypassing Adblocker as does Wide Angle Analytics. It allows for hosting trackers script behind a custom domain. Please note, that both Fatһom and Wide Analytics default script are currently listed and blocked by uBlock Origin. 

The team behind Fatһom focuses on simplicity and clean aesthetics of the dashboard and the application. It offers sharing dashboards with colleagues and in public mode, but each dashboard has to be shared individually and there is no concept of organization or a team. 

Although Fatһom offers EU Isolation, to circumvent syphoning personal data outside of EU, take note that the company behind Fatһom is incorporated in British Columbia, which does not fall under PIPEDA, a basis which determines GDPR Adequacy. 

There is an older, open-source version of Fatһom Analytics, the Fatһom Lite, that can be self-hosted.

• Jurisdiction: British Columbia, Canada
• GDPR Adequacy: Complicated, not under PIPEDA
• Hosting: AWS with EU Isolation via Hetzner
• Cloud: yes
• On-Premise: yes, but different, much older version
• For whom: Bloggers, Founders and small Teams
• Support: email, chat

Summary

If you're looking for a quick summary, here is a table.

Feature	Wide Angle Analytics	Matomo	HotJar	Clicky	Fatһom
GDPR	✅	✅	⚠️	⚠️	⚠️
Hosted in the EU	✅	✅	⚠️	❌	❌
Legal entity in the EU	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
Supports Personal Data	✅	✅	⚠️	✅	❌
Cookie-less mode	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
Cookie-enabled mode	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌
Ad-Block bypass	✅	✅	⚠️	✅	✅
Interaction tracking	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Engagement tracking	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
Heatmaps	❌	✅	✅	✅	❌
Custom Events	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Multiple Users	✅	✅	✅	✅	⚠️
Custom Domains	✅	✅	⚠️	✅	✅
Price for 1m events	€25	€159	n/a	$19.99+	$54