Google Analytics is an excellent tool for tracking website traffic and understanding user behavior.
However, it’s NOT GDPR compliant.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a law passed by the EU, and anyone who collects data from EU residents must comply with the GDPR laws.
This article discusses five privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternatives that are GDPR compliant. These alternatives offer many of the same features as Google Analytics but with added privacy protections for your users so that you’re compliant.
Why is Google Analytics Not GDPR Compliant?
By default, Google Analytics is not GDPR-compliant. To be GDPR compliant, you need to obtain the explicit content of users to activate the Google Analytics cookies and describe how you process the personal data in the website process.
And, even if you would, for example, get a cookie-disclosing pop-up, it still would not be GDPR compliant because Google Analytics transfers some of the user’s data to Google headquarters within the US.
This violates Article 44 of the GDPR rules.
5 GDPR-Compliant Google Analytics Alternatives
1. PostHog
PostHog is an open-source, self-hosted product analytics tool. It’s GDPR compliant because it doesn’t track any personally identifiable information by default.
PostHog gives you the ability to see how people are using your product and also provides valuable insights that can help you improve your UX over time:
- Trends
- Funnels
- Cohorts
- Retention
- Paths
- Person histories
Feature-wise, PostHog is arguably the strongest on this list, as it gives you so much data you can work with and use to analyze your audience.
PostHog Features:
- Self-hosted analytics
- Trends
- Event auto-capture
- Session-recording
- Open-source development & plugins
It’s also one of the only GDPR-compliant analytics tools with info on your funnels, retention, and paths of your users.
The data is stored on your own server, making it GDPR compliant. However, they are also launching EU-hosting toward the end of Q4, and they have a waitlist that you can join here:
PostHog Pricing:
PostHog is free to use if you have under 1m/events per month, which makes it perfect for most small businesses.
The pricing afterward depends on how many events you trigger and whether you are hosting yourself vs. using the PostHog cloud solution.
2. Plausible
Plausible is an open-source and lightweight analytics tool that gives you all the essential insights about your website traffic without tracking any personally identifiable information. By default, Plausible is GDPR compliant because it hosts cookies on its own server and in the EU, depending on your settings.
Meaning it fits our criteria.
Besides being GDPR compliant, it’s also incredibly user-friendly and has a clean interface, which is why we think it would be an excellent fit for most businesses.
Plausible’s goal is to make analytics simple for business owners, and they’ve done a great job in doing that since we all know so many people don’t like Google analytics or find it confusing.
Some of the features offered by Plausible include:
- Simple and clean interface
- Easy to install
- Fast loading
- No data limits
- Open-source
Plausible Pricing:
Plausible’s pricing depends on how many monthly pageviews you have and starts at $11/month when billed annually (for 10k pageviews).
If you want to check out their pricing, you can head to their pricing page to see how much it would cost for the pageviews you need.
Overall, it’s relatively affordable, so it should be a good fit for most small businesses, especially since its simplicity.
3. Fathom Analytics
Fathom Analytics is an open-source and lightweight web analytics tool that is GDPR compliant because:
- All data is stored on your own server or in the EU, depending on your settings
- Collects aggregate, not personally identifiable information (i.e., no cookies)
Yes, it does NOT collect cookies.
Fathom Features
Some of its features include:
- Open-source
- Event tracking
- Clean interface
- Export your data
- See Analytics in real time
- Easy to install and configure
- Fast loading times for users (under 30KB)
- Import existing Google analytics to easy switch
- The data is stored on your host for 6-7 months or more, depending on your settings
Fathom Pricing:
Fathom Analytics has a monthly subscription fee of:
- $14/month for 100,000-page visits
- $24/month for 200,000-page visits
- $44 month for up to 500,000-page visits
They also have a separate high-traffic pricing starting at $124 per month.
Fathom is a decent solution if you want something lightweight and easy to install. However, its features are slightly more limited than the other tools on this list.
4. Matomo
Next on our list of GDPR-compliant Google Analytics alternatives is Matomo.
Matomo is an open-source product that’s been around for a while, is highly configurable, and gives you a lot of data to work with.
Like the other tools on this list, it’s GDPR compliant because it allows you to either host the data yourself or have it hosted in the EU.
matomo Features:
Some of its features include:
- Custom alerts
- Tag managers
- Media Analytics
- Supports multiple languages
- Over 200 plugins to choose from
- A wide range of integrations (including popular CMSs like WordPress and Drupal)
- Customizable interface and dashboard
- Advanced features for eCommerce tracking, goal conversion tracking, etc.
Matomo Pricing:
Matomo’s pricing starts at $19/month for their “Start” plan, which gives you 50k pageviews/month and all the essential features. This plan is free when hosted on your server.
However, for the more advanced features, you need to pay per feature when you host the Analytics on your own server, but most of them are built in when hosting on their server via the monthly plan.
If you need more pageviews or want to unlock some of their more advanced features, you can opt for one of their paid plans.
Overall, Matomo is an excellent solution if you’re looking for an advanced Google Analytics alternative that’s still GDPR compliant. However, its pricing can be steep for some businesses on the self-hosted plan for most of the best features.
5. Mouseflow
Mouseflow is a session replay and heatmap valuable tool for understanding how users interact with your website. In addition, Mouseflow is GDPR compliant because it allows you to store the data yourself or have it stored in their EU-based data center.
mouseflow Features:
Some of its features include:
- Session recordings
- Heatmaps
- Form Analytics
- Feedbacks
- Conversion funnel tracking
It has the most focus on visualization, and seeing how your user behaves through the recordings is its USP. But in terms of traditional analytics, it loses out to some of the others on this list.
mouseflow Pricing:
Mouseflow has a free plan that gives you 100 recordings/month, and paid plans start at $24/month (billed annually) for their “Starter” plan, which provides you with 500 recordings/month.
Mouseflow is an excellent solution if you’re looking for a tool to help you understand how users interact with your website. However, its features in terms of pure analytics are somewhat limited compared to others on this list.
Final Thoughts
We hope you have enjoyed this article. As you can see, there are a few different GDPR-compliant Google Analytics alternatives that you can choose from, depending on your needs.
Want us to help you with your digital marketing strategy? You can book a call with us here.
Related: What is Google Analytics 4 and Why You Should Migrate Right Now
