It is hard to deny that Google offers one of the best website analytics tools available today – Google Analytics and what’s more it is completely free. But often when websites grow it is risky to trust one source of information especially for e-commerce businesses and such owners found themselves questioning, what other website analytic and tracking tools exist? are there any viable free alternatives to Google Analytics? There are hundreds of various site and user tracking tools and it is really hard to find which of these tools would be the best alternatives to Google Analytics. Here is the list of some tools I came across to consider (I’am talking about both JavaScript based analytics tools and non-JavaScript based ones):
Chartbeat
Really cool website analytics software Chartbeat offers comprehensive website tracking with a focus on real-time results. Just imagine how your business can benefit when during high season in real time you can see your most popular products, this can serve you as a serious competitive advantage against your competitors. Chartbeat offers cool, usable real-time website tracking, what I especially like is that they also have site performance info like user page load times and of course effective data visualization makes it much easier to interpret all the information. Price starts form $9.95/month.
Reinvigorate
Solid website analytics tool focusing on real time website tracking. Reinvigorate provides more detailed information on users visiting the website, allowing you to dig deep into various metrics with real time information appearing instantly. Apart from their cool website interface they also offer a desktop client that helps you stay informed about your website all the time. Another cool feature offered that I especially like is visitor clicks heat map. You will definitely know your customers much better if you’ll use this Google Analytics alternative, for now it is free to sign up, while they are in beta so hurry up.
Mint
Not as powerful as Google Analytics, though Mint website analytics tool developed by Shaun Inman definitely is worth to look at as it tracks some things other analytics tools don’t. Mints’ Bird Feeder provides RSS feed subscription patterns and clickthrough rates for feed items, this is especially important for all the bloggers. Another cool feature that I like is that you can get all the traffic generated by your images with one click, this would be very important for any website that is receiving a decent amount of traffic from image searches. Another cool feature was IP tracking by default; sadly it is no longer available in version 2 due to privacy policy restrictions. Price is $30 onetime fee, minor bug fixes and updates are free, whereas you’ll need to pay for new major versions.
Woopra
Another might be Google Analytics alternative is Woopra with one of the best interfaces I’ve seen so far. It is very important that data is tracked in real-time and available straight from your desktop. Other cool unique feature, that other analytics tools doesn’t offer, is the live chat option where you can remotely initiate sessions with visitors. Deep analytics, extensive search capabilities, custom reports, advanced segmentation options, open API and plugin capabilities shouldn’t be left out of focus. The main drawback might be that the free version is ad supported, no segmentation available and not SSL support, where the paid versions start at $4.95/month ($49.50/year) with the limitation on monthly pageviews limit.
Clicky
Clicky in my opinion is one of the best Google Analytics alternatives that offers real time visitor tracking. I love the clean and simple interface and all the advanced features it has to offer: very detailed visitor information, advanced visitor segmentation, twitter analytics, detailed info on organizations, custom data logs, RSS feed stats and it’s nice to be able to access it on your iPhone (or any other mobile device). Though similar like Woopra the free version is ad supported with most of the advanced features missing and limited to 3,000 pageviews/month. Paid plans start at $4.99/month, the most optimal and the most popular is the pro version for $9.99/month.
Piwik
The best and most popular open source website analytics solution from Piwik offers a viable alternative to Google Analytics as often due, to corporate data security restrictions, Google Analytics is rejected by companies. It is downloadable, and runs on PHP and M ySQL and also offer real time visitor tracking that Google Analytics does not and with the recent updates to the user interface design it really looks better and more solid with each release. The major plus of Piwik against the other website analytics tools is that you actually own your data, though on the other hand you must understand that it will incur extra loads on your servers. If you are looking for a completely free Google Analytics alternative and need to own all the data, then Piwik is for you, if you can spare some money I think Clicky would be a better option.
StatCounter
Another powerful free website analytics tools is StatCounter, the best thing about it that you can use all the advanced features in free version, though it is limited to 250000 pageviews/month and you get a detailed analysis only of your last 500 pageloads. User interface design is far behind other analytics tools we’ve looked at, but the main drawback of using StatCounter on your website might be that it does not offer e-commerce tracking, so it can’t be considered as a fully viable alternative to Google analytics. But I do like some cool features as page load stats, detailed users information and you can view popular navigation paths. Paid versions start from $9/month, though like I’ve mentioned almost all features are available in the free version, so if you have a low traffic that site and don’t need to track any conversions then StatCounter might be for you.
Histats
Similar to StatCounter Histats offer a large set of analytics features for websites for free, and it offers the detailed stats for the last 20000 visits vs. 500 that Statcounter offers. User interface is much better and the information is easier to navigate and find. And unlike StatCounter it offers ways to track various conversions and some other interesting and valuable features: real time visitor data and real time website traffic forecast, detailed visitor statistics by IP, use patterns, cumulative geolocation stats. Of course Histats isn’t as nearly powerful as Google Analytics, but it could be used to compliment or supplement it to fill some gaps GA misses on.
Sitemeter
Sitemeter focuses on tracking website visitors in real time and it really offers sophisticated data and reports about your visitors. Really it can’t be considered a real Google Analytics alternative as it lacks a lot important features, also there are rumors that a free version sometime leaves third party cookies and the performance leaves to wish for the best. Paid version starts from $6.95 and then enables you to see visitor path, advanced reporting features and is ad-free.
W3Counter
W3Counter offers free, hosted website analytics, eventhough the free version allows to track only one website. W3Counter is hosted on its own servers; this can be a good and a bad thing: the good – you don’t need to host it yourself ; the bad – sometimes it is slow, so it is not clear how reliable it is. Also it has some features that Google Analytics lack: it is truly real-time, you can follow your visitors as they browse the website; real-time reporting; see who is online now; explicit individual visitor details; FeedBurner RSS stats; tracking without JavaScript. Some of the mentioned features are available only in the paid version that starts from $9.95/month.
Advanced Web Stats
Advanced Web Stats offers sophisticated tools for tracking user behavior, website performance and conversions. This one of the best Google Analytics alternatives I discovered, though not all the advanced features are included in the free version it is definitely worth $395 to be able to track your marketing campaigns effectively, be able to export reports and track individual sessions. Also feel free to enjoy all the cool and powerful features with the free version like advanced visitor segmentation, conversion rate tracking, site performance analytics, сollecting information using server log files and JavaScript and much more.
Also there some really cool tracking tools that do only one part of website tracking, but do it very well, e.g. if you have a lot flash content, you simply must use mochibot, as it allows to easily and effectively track who is sharing your flash content across the web and how it performs.
CrazyEgg in my opinion is one of the best tools to visualize your website visitors. Heatmaps provide a great depth on user behavior and opens new opportunities on improving your website design and user experience. You might as well take a look at Quantcast that provides great statistics on your website demographics and geolocation information.
So the first question would be: are there any viable free Google Analytics alternatives? Shortly – No. Let me explain it a little, tools like Advanced WebStats, Clicky, Woopra might well be a good alternatives, but definitely not the free versions that are offered. If you really can’t or don’t want to use Google Analytics I am afraid you’ll have to open up your wallet to receive something as good as Google Analytics. What analytics software are you using? know of some cool Google Analytics alternatives I forgot to mention? feel free to let me know in the comments below.
Really great post. Willing to try other tools than GAnalytis for awhile. Thanks!
Reinvigorate Looks sooo great, but there’s no sign up, you have to register your interest and then they may invite you. Great post.
website analytics is so important if you want to monitor the status of your website.:“
Indeed, it is very important, actually I really believe it should the first thing you configure after you launch your website.
[...] Web Analytics – Its role can be hardly underestimated as Web Analytics is an essential measure for continually improving web business performance, advertising campaigns, organic search engine results, ranking positions and others. Generally, Web Analytics deals with the traffic already generated at the previous stages. Its primary goal is to improve traffic quality and enhance conversion. You might also be interested to take a look at my earlier post on google analytics alternatives. [...]
You should also give Open Web Analytics (http://www.openwebanalytics.com) a look. It’s a free open source alternative to these commercial solutions. It tracks site usage, campaigns, e-commerce, and conversion goals. It also delivers usability analytics with it’s funnel reports, click heatmaps, and mouse movement recording/playback.
Peter, thanks for your suggestion, I will definitely take a look at it. How ecommerce tracking works? similar to GA?
[...] and create sales funnels. Of course you are not limited to Google Analytics, there are quite a few Google analytics alternatives available out [...]
I’m looking for an alternative and I’m not sure which one to choose between stuffed tracker or piwi, any ideas??
Stuffed tracker isn’t in your list has this a reason?
Haven’t heard about stuffed tracker, will take a look at it. It depends on your needs, piwik is quite powerful and free, but don’t forget that you’ll need to host itself.