Have a look at Plausible Analytics, the best privacy focused analytics tool till date and the best Google Analytics alternative there is!
Upon creating this blog, the first thing that came to mind was to add Google Analytics.
Because it's so easy to add, and it is free.
However, what they don't mention straightaway is that the users of Google Analytics must have a Privacy Policy agreement in place and it must disclose that analytics is used, how data is collected, processed and provide notice of the use of cookies.
This kinds of shady tactics is just plain atrocious. If affiliate marketers must say a link is an affiliate link, in the same vicinity. Similarly a product with lots of caveats must mention them before even allowing you to copy a script & not keep it hidden in 10th page of Terms & Conditions which most won't read!! (See: Remove Google Analytics)
Later, I tried out hotjar, and the amount of data it was harvesting is like allowing your predatory neighbour in to your house to do babysitting. The company may not be bad, but the product collecting excessive data is. (Why in the whole wide world do companies need heatmap of user visits, screen recordings and screenshots?)
GDPR restriction, no matter how noble the idea may be, needs website owners to disclose cookie usage in a pop up, which end users hate with passion. (There are extensions that block such pop ups now!)
So why not stop using cookies all together? Why not stop giving business to companies that still use cookies like it's the 90s?
Enter Plausible, the best damn analytics that isn't latently evil like others.
I have been using it for about a month, and the entirety of the trial period has been nothing but a smooth experience.
Prior to using Plausible, I used a different privacy focused analytics. Sadly that tool was riddled with bugs and inefficacies. (The live visitors view was giving wrong data, one day my 4.7k visitors went down to 2.7k out of the blue!)
I had to ditch that tool for Plausible, and I don't want anyone else to fumble trying to find the best analytics tool, when Plausible already has everything we need.
So here you go:
Reasons
1. Privacy Focused
If you don't want to show that pesky little pop up notifying users that you are using services that use cookies, Plausible is the way.
You can get Safari's Privacy Stamp of Approval, if there are no trackers in the website, just like Plausible official site.
I however need a cookie banner because of a social share plugin I use called: "Share This". (I have yet to find a good privacy focused alternative to Social Share, perhaps I will make one!)
To take things up a notch, they serve the service from a server in Germany for maximum security from prying eyes. See: Reasoning behind Plausible moving to Germany & The Prying Eyes that Plausible keeps at Bay!
2. Lightweight
With payload size less than a kb, the script doesn't add to the heft of the website. Software Architects won't be able to find a reason to use server side analytics, citing payload size! (See: Client Side vs Server Side Analytics for a detailed comparison.)
There are a few variations of the script, based on the functionality we want, which will make the script a bit larger.
For instance there's a script for tracking 404, outbound links and custom events, that amounts to 1.5kb in size:
We can even serve the script from our subdomain, so that we can get more accurate stats. Unlike Google Analytics, which can be blocked by many browsers or extensions!
<script async defer data-domain="derpycoder.com" src="https://plausible.derpycoder.com/js/index.outbound-links.js"></script>
<script>window.plausible = window.plausible || function() { (window.plausible.q = window.plausible.q || []).push(arguments) }</script>3. Open Source
We can verify that they are doing, what they are saying and are not secretly evil super villains, behind the facade of "Don't be Evil".
Plausible Analytics is published under AGPL license, so anyone can modify and host it on their own but they have to keep it open source and must give back to the community. (It's the de facto license for any SaaS product, see: Why Plausible has AGPL License?)
plausible
4. Great Tech Choices
Plausible is able to provide live view in realtime, thanks to the right set of technologies used underneath.
Tech Choices:
- Phoenix Framework + Elixir that runs on Erlang VM, which is
a. Best suited for distributed simultaneous socket connections. See: Road to 2 Million Websocket Connections.
b. The tech that powers WhatsApp & Discord.
c. Known for Nine Nines uptime guarantee, i.e. ~32 milliseconds of downtime per year! - ClickHouse - OLAP Database to generate analytical reports using SQL queries in real-time.
Uku Taht
Uku Taht5. Strictly Necessary Features
How much data does one need to accumulate to understand what content rocks, which one sucks and how the website is doing?
Google Analytics collects data like NSA did yet failed to prevent any terrorists attacks!
Plus you need training to understand and build custom views to make sense of data with Google Analytics, and you either end up with information overload or not even looking at stats every day.
Plausible does away with all the fluff, and just gives access to what we need. See: All metrics and their definitions.
Marko Saric
They even support UTM Tags which aids in minimizing dark traffic. I even made a tool to help create UTM Tags easily.
Abhijit Kar
And one of my favourite feature is Google Search Console Integration, so you won't have to open a slow, cumbersome site like Search Console, & rather see it all in one place in the Plausible Dashboard.
6. Goal Conversion
The first time I saw Plausible, I was not sold on the idea of a simple analytics tool because it looked bare bones, & this feature was not showcased front and center.
The idea of being able to track outbound clicks, custom events, and even 404 page visits is something I didn't know were so useful!
With custom events we can do product analysis and understand actions of people towards set Goals. (Like user visiting a successful payment or upgrade page!)
We can see 404 pages, which is useful to understand pages visited by people and take actions. Like removing a post from showing in Google Search or Adding a missing page or a redirect. (I added ads.txt to my site after seeing a 404 visit to that route. That file just like robots.txt tells advertisers that I'm not open to advertisements!)
Finally outbound clicks tracking is just plain awesome. Without adding any redirects like Twitter does or using any URL shortener service, I am able to track outside link clicks from my website. (It tells me how many visited my affiliate link, or my recommended sites!)
7. Public Dashboard
You can create as many public url as you want and even protect them with password. I really love this feature, because I wanted to be able to share the stats of my website with everyone.
We can even embed the analytics into our website. See: Embed Dashboard Docs to know how.
Checkout analytics of my blog which I have linked at the very top, or click:
8. On Point UX & UI
I've been merciless 👿 when I was reviewing your designs.
— Victor (@vponamariov)
Now it's time to look at good examples ☺️
Let's start with
Here is my UI/UX review👇 pic.twitter.com/MKrzr2hGHB
Oh the sheer simplicity is just mind blowing. I am able to easily add multiple websites, switch between them and view visitors in different durations with keyboard shortcuts which just adds to the experience.
No extensive training required to understand and make use of the data being shown.
Also, the dashboard has Dark Mode, but the publicly shared dashboard switches to dark mode only if it's the default system setting!
9. Keyboard Shortcuts
Amount of time wasted fumbling around with the UI is drastically reduced, especially when compared to Google Analytics!
This doesn't need any explanation, just visit my public dashboard and start pressing them keys.
I wish this was highlighted in the homepage of Plausible website. Because this is a huge time saver!
10. Stats API
If you are already sold on Plausible, wait till you hear about the APIs.
Sky's the limit when APIs are made public!
I can think of several use cases of the API already, including but not limited to:
- Dynamic Media Kit - So you can showcase total visitors or visitor's country of origin on your Press Kit, so potential advertisers can know the value you provide.
- You can have a daily visitors counter or a total visitors counter on the homepage of your site. By using Flip Counter Plugin by Pqina, or.
- Create a dashboard on your site, that will show only custom events.
And so on and so forth, checkout the documentation for more:
Conclusion
So what if you have to pay some money for the service that Plausible offers, even I can afford it with my third world salary, at least you can rest easy, knowing that you are not paying with your user's data!
The future is bright, checkout the Roadmap to see it, the documentation is on point, unlike Google Products, and the Blog posts are enlightening!
Also they give back to the community, 5% of their gross revenue to environmental causes & open source software. (They also host the server using renewable energy, so they are not damaging first and fixing later!)
Hope I was able to make a convincing argument for Plausible. Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below.
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