I'm looking for some recommendations for website analytics for my Next.js site. What tools have you found to be most helpful?

I have used google analytics, but it is too heavy for my small website.

I switched to MS clarity, it’s better but it doesn’t give me day-to-day stats (like number of users, views, etc)

I’m looking for a very light system that gives me basic stats but doesn’t add hundreds of kilobytes to my pagesize.

Do you know any?

I'm relatively new to web analytics and have been looking into the the various options and what might best work for my use case. Specifically, I'm building 3 different types of WordPress websites:

1. a simple corporate site,

2. a blog/info site (with ad sense/affiliate monetization). and

3. an ecommerce site

All three will be in Japanese and target viewers/consumers in Japan. So while I probably don't need to be too concerned about compliance with EU/US privacy laws, I do have plans to create additional sites that will be in English with a global audience..

With that in mind, I'm looking for a future-proof analytics tool that is consistent across all of the website types and languages, clean and easy to use, but also sophisticated enough to cover potential monetization/marketing on the blog/ecommerce sites where necessary.

After looking into several products, my candidates so far are:

• Google Analytics 4 (using Site Kit)

• Plausible Analytics

• ExactMetrics

• MonsterInsights

• Independent Analytics

All of these have pros/cons and I'm not really sure which option would be the way to go.

Some basic questions I have are:

1. Wouldn't it be best to use GA4 alongside one of the other third-party alternatives to get the best of both worlds? GA4 is free and comprehensive (and could serve like a backup option) while one of the third-party tools would be simpler and better for everyday use?

2. Will using GA4 + another analytics tool significantly affect page speed?

3. How long of a data retention is standard or 'enough' these days? I believe GA3/UA used to be unlimited — but now it seems most options have a limit.

4. Obviously we can switch between these tools, but will that create a 'gap' in the analytics when switching between tools? Or are there export/import features where we can transfer data over from one platform to another — how does this work?

5. Is GA4 really that bad for a analytics beginner like myself? Or can most people/clients manage despite all the negativity I see surrounding it.

6. Plausible, ExactMetrics and MonsterInsights all are subscriptions, while Independent has a one-time LTD. I don't mind investing in a one-time fee if its worth it and has growth potential, but what are your thoughts on Independent Analytics over the other ones, especially when it comes to monetized blogs and ecommerce sites?

I also saw that others like Matomo, Fathom, Simple Analytics, AnalyticsWP. etc. are all popular too. But they seemed either a little too complicated (Matomo) or too simple (Simple/AnalyticsWP) for what I wanted, among other impressions I had over their UI/UX. So for now, I've crossed those off my list.

Any thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

Getting into web development and quite enjoy the aspect of analytics. By that I mean data on traffic, and events happening on the site.

Wanted to know what tools/software/solutions are most used in the market and recommendations for someone who might want to specialise in Web Analytics. I'm familiar with Google Analytics and I know it's popular with marketers, but that's about it.

I am about to launch my portfolio website, and wanted to see what are the best analytics tools available. I am aware of Google Analytics and Hotjar for heatmaps. Any other tools that you've used and would recommend checking out?

I just need something lightweight where I can easily monitor some bery basic statistics:

• number of views per page

• unique users

• time on page

Should Google analytics be my go to here? Is there something more lightweight/less intrusive I should look at?

I've recently looked at the Google Analytics dashboard (haven't done this in awhile), and now it looks like a user interface to a space shuttle - way more complicated than what I need.

Also google page speed insights complains that it slows down a website a bit.

I want something very lightweight, simple to install and to use.

I just need to know how many people have visited the landing page lf my website, and how many people clicked through to the next page (even that wouldn't be strictly necessary, if there's a good option that can't do that I'd happily consider it).

Can you recommend me something good?

I find Google Analytics UI&UX frustrating, I'm not a data analyst, and I want to easily see my website stats. What Google Analytics alternatives are you using? Something that is free and gets the job done.

Hi there. I’m looking for suggestions for web analytics services for monitoring internal sites. Something like google analytics feels geared towards e commerce where conversion events and user acquisition are the end goals. I’m interested in getting a better feel for usage patterns for some web applications without putting it through the lens of conversion. Any suggestions are welcome!

Seems like plenty of options out there but keen to hear from you guys what works.

Basically the text above - but I am currently looking to replace my GA4 setup with a different web analytics tool. But at the same time we are trying to find a tool that accumulates our performance marketing channels (Pinterest, Google Ads, TikTok, Meta) data and ease my reporting on Ad Spend, Results etc. - I would love to move away from my Google Sheets.

Have you guys experienced any tools that can fulfill both of those ideas? Any recommendations?

My website receives approximately 55,000 visits each month. I've noticed that GA4 doesn't provide accurate data, so I'm looking for an alternative analytics solution.

Which analytics tools would you recommend for precise website data? Is Bing Analytics a good option?

Thank you

Hi everyone, I recently launched a new website and I’m looking for the best free tool to help me analyze user behavior. I want to track: • How many new users visit the site • Their average time spent on the website • Which pages they visit • Which plan or product they buy • Total signups per week

Basically, I’m looking for a tool that provides detailed visual insights and dashboards for user analytics. I’ve heard of Google Analytics, Plausible, and Matomo — but I’m not sure which one offers the best combination of features and usability for a beginner.

Any recommendations or insights would be greatly appreciated!

I am a non-technical founder of a b2b SaaS. Not a boomer but might as well be for the purposes of this post, because I used to understand basic stats, back when they were simple. Today, Google Analytics 4 is not my friend. Search Console is cool but it's not enough. I have a partner who is technical but I don't want to bother him with this. I really can't stand weird vocabulary words (like "data layer", "core web vitals", "global site tag", or "multi-channel funnel") and I really don't want to learn new words just so I can understand the stats on our website.

We want to see basic stats and not much more, in order to understand user behavior. I'd love an AI that can do this for me (now I'm really starting to sound like a boomer).

We have a wish list, and some questions, below:

Wish list:

• How many unique visitors?

• How many of those unique visitors came back a second time?

• What pages are they visiting?

• What buttons are they clicking on?

• When they get to the site, where do they go next?

• Where are the visitors from (country, at least)?

• What is the bounce rate of the page?

• Did the visitor subscribe/buy something?

• If they subscribed/bought something, what was it?

• If they subscribed/bought something, where did they come from?

• If they subscribed/bought something, how many times did they visit our website before they bought something?

• When someone signs up for our system, we give them a user ID, but I have no idea where that is used in the code (it's probably buried and obscured for privacy but I don't really know). Should I even care about this part?

Questions:

1. What else do we probably want/need to see? I don't know what I don't know.

2. What analytics tool do you think we should use?

3. Do we actually need to be looking for something that does "product analytics" and not "web analytics"?

4. Is there something that does both, and is still dead simple + fast to set up?

5. Maybe we need two tools, one for product analytics and one for web analytics?

I've read that Orbi, Fathom, and Plausible are cool.

We have a place in the admin area of our website that I can paste a snippet of code that will load on every page, at the top. But that's about as technical as I can get.

Thanks in advance for any information you have 🙏

I'm new to analytics and web analytics I was wondering if there are some that you guys think are good. The only two that I have heard of the most are google analytics and facebook analytics and I am wondering if there are more and better products out there that I should start learning about and using.