The 9 best GA4 alternatives for apps and websites

Google Analytics 4 is one of the most widely deployed analytics tools in the world – and one of the most complained about too.

The transition from Universal Analytics forced millions of users onto a platform that thinks and behaves very differently.

GA4's event-based model is more powerful than its predecessor in theory, but in practice, many teams find it harder to use, harder to query, and harder to trust. Add in data sampling on large exploration queries, a 14-month retention limit, privacy concerns under GDPR, opaque pricing, and a UI that frustrates marketers and developers alike – and it's easy to understand why so many teams are looking for alternatives.

Whether you're leaving GA4 for privacy reasons, because you've outgrown its free tier limits, or because you simply need more than web analytics, this guide covers the best GA4 alternatives available today.

1. PostHog

• Best for: Startups, engineers, and product teams
• Tracking method: Event-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔ (via self-hosting or EU Cloud)
• GA data import: ✖

PostHog (that's us 👋) is an all-in-one developer platform that includes web analytics, product analytics, session replay, error tracking, experiments, user surveys, and more – pretty much everything you need to track user behavior in an app or website.

This means it's not just a GA4 alternative, but also a replacement for tools like Mixpanel, LaunchDarkly, and FullStory.

Typical PostHog users are engineers and product managers at startups and mid-size companies, such as ElevenLabs, Supabase, and Lovable.

Like GA4, PostHog is an event-based platform. It's priced per event captured, though it offers a generous 1 million events for free each month, so many users can use it for free.

How does PostHog compare to GA4?

PostHog gives you all the web analytics of GA4 and far more on top. Where GA4 is a marketing analytics tool, PostHog is a full product development platform. This means that, in addition to tracking user behavior, you can also use PostHog to run A/B tests, set up feature flags, record user sessions, and even survey users.

GA4 doesn't have any of these features built-in, so you'd need to integrate with other tools to get the same functionality.

Read our PostHog and Google Analytics comparison for an in-depth look at the differences

Bottom line

PostHog is the best GA4 alternative for engineering and product teams who need more than just web analytics. It covers everything GA4 does and adds a full stack of product tools, all with transparent pricing and a generous free tier.

Install PostHog with one command

Paste this into your terminal and make AI do all the work.

npx @posthog/wizard

Learn more

2. Matomo

• Best for: Content, marketing and e-commerce websites
• Tracking method: Session-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✔

Matomo is one of the most popular Google Analytics alternatives around. Like UA, it's based on a session-based tracking model, and it even allows new users to import data from an existing Google Analytics account.

It also shares some weaknesses inherent in Universal Analytics. While Matomo has added more advanced analytics features, it's better suits traditional website analytics than tracking desktop and mobile apps. Like PostHog, it's open source, so can be self-hosted if you prefer.

How does Matomo compare to GA4?

Matomo is session-based like Universal Analytics, making it a more natural migration path for teams who preferred the old Google Analytics model. It gives you full data ownership and GDPR compliance without the complexity of GA4.

Bottom line

Matomo is closest you'll get to a Universal Analytics-style experience. It's session-based and was explicitly conceived as European alternative to Google Analytics. It has plenty of features, too, though some may find the interface a little dated. It's especially well-suited to publishers, privacy-conscious organizations, and teams in regulated industries.

3. Kissmetrics

• Best for: Marketing and e-commerce websites
• Tracking method: Event-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✖

Kissmetrics is all about tracking marketing ROI. As a result, it doesn't track what Kissmetrics deems vanity metrics like bounce rate, time on page, exits, etc. It does, however, track most essential website metrics, and makes it easy to understand the impact of organic and paid marketing activity.

One of its key features is the Populations report, which groups users into key cohorts, such as those who have recently activated trials, or are at risk of churning. You can also create custom funnel reports, and track user paths through your website.

How does Kissmetrics compare to GA4?

Kissmetrics and GA4 serve different masters. GA4 is built for traffic and marketing attribution. Kissmetrics is built for understanding customers and driving revenue – it intentionally excludes "vanity metrics" like bounce rate and time on page, focusing instead on what actually drives growth.

Bottom line

Kissmetrics is a great platform for sophisticated marketing teams who want to track the impact of their work on revenue. It's overkill for basic website analytics use cases, but a good option for mature businesses looking for a robust alternative to Google Analytics.

4. TelemetryDeck

• Best for: Mobile apps
• Tracking method: Event-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✖

While it can be used on websites, TelemetryDeck is primarily a privacy-minded analytics tool for mobile apps. As such, it uses an event-based tracking model – TelemetryDeck calls them signals. It has first-party SDKs for Swift (iOS, macOS etc. apps), Kotlin (Android and Java apps), and Javascript (Node and web apps).

TelemetryDeck makes it easy for app developers to track things like active users, OS version, app version, and basic user metadata like user location. It also supports basic retention and conversion funnel insights. TelemetryDeck doesn't collect any personally identifiable metadata, so you don't need tracking consent banners.

How does TelemetryDeck compare to GA4?

TelemetryDeck does far less than GA4 by design. It's intentionally lean – no user profiles, no revenue tracking, no ad attribution. What it offers is privacy-safe app analytics with zero compliance overhead, which is a compelling tradeoff for many indie developers and privacy-focused teams.

Bottom line

TelemetryDeck is a good option for those who want basic app analytics, but it falls short of feature parity with GA4. It's not a full GA4 replacement for teams that need revenue tracking, ad attribution, or user profiles – but it's a great fit for indie developers and privacy-first teams.

5. Plausible

• Best for: Content and marketing websites
• Tracking method: Session-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✔

Plausible is a leader in the trend of lightweight, privacy-orientated analytics tools. It's easy to use and doesn't collect any personally identifiable information. This makes it ideal for complying with GDPR, but this comes at the cost of functionality.

Plausible can only track very basic website metrics like pageviews, session duration, and referrer information. This makes it useless for apps, and significantly less powerful than Google Analytics and other alternatives in this list.

But, if you just want basic website analytics, it gets the job done, and won't adversely impact the performance of your website thanks to its lightweight tracking script.

How does Plausible compare to GA4?

Plausible covers the basics of web analytics without the complexity. It's not a like-for-like GA4 replacement – it lacks user profiles, advanced segmentation, and the depth of reporting GA4 offers. But for teams who just want simple, trustworthy traffic data without GDPR headaches, it's hard to beat.

Bottom line

While it lacks many of the advanced features of GA4, Plausible is a good option for content and marketing teams who just want easy to use, basic website analytics.

6. Vercel Web Analytics

• Best for: Content and marketing websites
• Tracking method: Event-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✖

Vercel Web Analytics is a privacy-friendly analytics tool included in all Vercel plans. Like Plausible, it tracks basic website metrics like pageviews, unique users, time on page, and referrers. It doesn't collect personally identifiable information, so can be used without cookie banners.

Other useful features include a Speed Insights tool for keeping track of your website's Core Web Vitals. You can also set up custom events to track conversions.

How does Vercel Web Analytics compare to GA4?

Vercel Web Analytics is a convenience product, not a GA4 replacement. If you're already on Vercel, it's worth enabling for basic traffic data. If you need more depth – funnels, user paths, retention, ad attribution – you'll need a dedicated analytics tool.

Bottom line

Vercel Web Analytics is a nice value-add for any front-end dev using Vercel's frontend-as-a-service. There's certainly no need to deploy another privacy-first analytics tool (e.g. Plausible, Fathom) if you're already using Vercel, though it falls a long way short of a genuine Google Analytics alternative. If you need more than what it offers, consider deploying PostHog or Matomo.

7. Piwik PRO

• Best for: Content, marketing and e-commerce websites
• Tracking method: Session-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✖

Piwik PRO is a commercial spinoff of Matomo – Matomo used be called Piwik. As such, there are some similarities between the two, such as session-based tracking and superficial UX similarities.

Piwik PRO's main differentiators are enterprise level support and the integration of a customer data platform (CDP). Like Matomo, it also puts an emphasis on privacy compliance by integrating a consent manager.

How does Piwik PRO compare to GA4?

Piwik PRO is particularly strong for regulated industries and enterprise teams that need GDPR compliance, consent management, and EU data residency in a single package. It's less self-serve than GA4 but offers more control.

Bottom line

Unsurprisingly, Piwik PRO's roots in Matomo make it a popular choice for users who are familiar with Universal Analytics. It's less feature-rich than Matomo in some respects, but may be a better choice for larger organizations who require more support and scale.

8. Fathom

• Best for: Content and marketing websites
• Tracking method: Session-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✔

Fathom is another leading privacy-focused analytics tool that's similar in scope to Plausible. It's ideal for small and medium-size marketing websites, but it lacks the deeper features typical Google Analytics users will demand.

For a deep dive, check out PostHog vs Fathom Analytics too.

How does Fathom compare to GA4?

Like Plausible, Fathom is intentionally simple. It provides clean, unsampled web analytics data without the privacy concerns or interface complexity of GA4. It's not for teams that need advanced segmentation, user-level data, or ad attribution – but it's excellent for what it does.

Bottom line

There isn't much to choose between Fathom and Plausible. Again, if you want lightweight website analytics without the feature bloat of Google, you can't go wrong with Fathom.

9. Counter

• Best for: Content and personal websites
• Tracking method: Session-based
• GDPR compliance: ✔
• GA data import: ✖

Counter is a free and open source analytics tool that operates a "pay what you want" model. It's by no means a feature-complete alternative to GA4, but it's ideal if you want to track basic website activity like visits, referral data, and user properties (device, platform, browser etc.).

Counter's creators can offer it for free because it only collects aggregated data, reducing the complexity and load on the server, while also improving data privacy. To count unique users, Counter uses a combination of techniques including the browser's cache, sessionStorage, and referrer inspection.

How does Counter compare to GA4?

Counter is about as minimal as analytics gets. It does just enough to answer "how many people visited my site and where did they come from?" For personal projects, blogs, and indie developers who don't need anything more, it's a compelling free alternative.

Bottom line

Counter is a great choice if you have basic needs. It does most of the things the popular privacy-first analytics tools offer, but does so for free. The simple interface is easy to understand, though it doesn't allow you to drill down deeply into individual page performance like Fathom or Plausible.

Which GA4 alternative should you choose?

Here's a quick guide based on what you need:

For engineering and product teams who need more than web analytics:

• PostHog – Web analytics, product analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, error tracking, surveys, and more in one developer platform. Best if you want to replace GA4 and several other tools with transparent pricing.

For a familiar Universal Analytics-style replacement:

• Matomo – Session-based analytics with GA data import and self-hosting. Best for teams migrating from Universal Analytics who want full data ownership.
• Piwik PRO – Best for enterprise teams in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government) who need a CDP and consent manager alongside analytics.

For revenue and marketing analytics:

• Kissmetrics – Person-based analytics tied to revenue and LTV. Best for e-commerce and SaaS teams who want to understand which channels and features drive revenue.

For privacy-first lightweight web analytics:

• Plausible – Clean, GDPR-compliant web analytics with no cookies or consent banners. Best for content sites and marketing websites that want simple, trustworthy data.
• Fathom – Very similar to Plausible, with EU-owned infrastructure and uptime monitoring. Best for privacy-conscious teams willing to pay slightly more.
• Counter – Free, minimal web analytics. Best for personal projects and indie developers who just need basic traffic data.

For app developers:

• TelemetryDeck – Privacy-safe analytics for iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native apps with no consent banners required.
• PostHog – Full-featured analytics for iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter with session replay, feature flags, and error tracking. Best if you need more than privacy-safe event counts.

For teams already on Vercel:

• Vercel Web Analytics – Easiest to implement with zero configuration. Not a full GA4 replacement but good enough for basic traffic data.

For early-stage startups:

• PostHog – A generous free tier (1M events, 5,000 web and 2,500 mobile replays, 1M feature flag requests) plus up to $50k in credits for eligible startups. One platform that scales from first users to product-market fit.

Is PostHog right for you?

Here's the (short) sales pitch.

We're biased, obviously, but we think PostHog is the best GA4 replacement if:

• You need more than web analytics – session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, and error tracking all in one place.
• You want transparent, usage-based pricing without a sales call.
• You're an engineering or product team who wants SQL access, open-source code, and APIs.
• You want to try before you buy (we're self-serve with a generous free tier).

It's completely free to get started – no credit card required. Our AI setup wizard handles configuration in minutes, or check out our docs to do it yourself.

Install PostHog with one command

Paste this into your terminal and make AI do all the work.

npx @posthog/wizard

Learn more

Frequently asked questions