15 low-cost alternatives to GA4

One of the attractions of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is getting a sophisticated web analytics tool free. However, there are a lot of other analytics tools that can compete with it in both features and price. Here’s a list of the best known.

• Matomo is an open-source analytics platform that provides similar features to Google Analytics. It offers real-time analytics, customizable dashboards and detailed reports. Matomo also provides users with complete control over their data and offers a range of privacy features. It is one of the most popular Google Analytics alternatives. It is free if hosted on your servers.
• Piwik PRO is a commercial spinoff of Matomo. The main differences are enterprise-level support and the integration of a customer data platform. Like Matomo, it has an integrated privacy consent manager. It has free and paid plans.
• Clicky is a flash-free, real-time analytical platform that is easy to use and records and tracks user actions in detail. It offers features like heat mapping, backlink analysis, and mobile compatibility. Clicky has a free option and four paid options.
• Heap is best suited for online products and lets you measure every interaction on your website, including swipes, clicks, tabs, form submissions and page views. It also offers retroactive analytics, which allows you to examine the impact of changes to your website or app. Heap offers both free and paid plans.
• Clarity from Microsoft focuses on users interacting with your website. It summarizes information in a convenient dashboard and provides data like rage clicks and excessive scrolling, which could indicate user frustration. Clarity also offers session recording features, which can help you get insight into user behavior. Clarity is free.
• Woopra provides website analytics based on four data types: people, journey, trends, and retention. It analyzes user actions based on their journey through different touchpoints like customer reactions after introductory emails. Woopra tracks usage through your website and apps with real-time analytics and data. It also offers customized live reports that can help you use data to improve your customer retention and engagement. Woopra offers free and paid plans.
• Countly is an open-source analytics tool that prides itself on being a GDPR-friendly alternative to Google Analytics. It offers real-time analysis across websites and apps, as well as a unique user ID feature that allows the same user to be identified more easily across multiple browsers and devices. It has free and paid options.
• Smartlook is an analytics solution tool for websites, iOS/Android apps and various app frameworks. It helps users understand how customers interact with their website or app by providing features such as session recordings, heatmaps, automatic tracked events, and conversion funnels. It has free and paid options.
• GoSquared is a web analytics platform designed for ease of use. Its features include heatmaps, session recordings and funnel analysis. It is also privacy-focused, with features like IP anonymization and consent management. Plans start at $9.
• Kissmetrics tracks and analyzes user behavior based on first-party data it collects from your website or app. Features include heatmaps, session recordings and funnel analysis. Kissmetrics helps personalize the user experience by showing different content to different users based on their behavior. Plans start at $299.
• Cabin Analytics is designed to have a very small carbon footprint. It is similar to Kissmetrics in that it is based on first-party data and can personalize user experience. It has free and paid plans. 
• PostHog is an all-in-one product analytics platform that includes session recording, A/B testing and other features to track user behavior in your app or website. It is an event-based platform, which means you only pay for the events you track. PostHog offers a generous 1 million events per month for free, so most smaller users can use it for free.
• Plausible is a leader in the trend of lightweight, privacy-oriented analytics tools. It is easy to use and does not collect any personally identifiable information, making it ideal for complying with the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This comes at the cost of functionality. Plausible, and tools like it, only track very basic website metrics like pageviews, session duration and referrer information. It is a good option for content and marketing teams who just want easy-to-use, basic website analytics. Plans start at $9.
• Fathom is another privacy-focused analytics tool like Plausible. It doesn’t have the deeper features of GA4, but it’s a solid choice if you want a lightweight website analytics tool. Plans start at $14.
• Counter is an open-source analytics tool that uses a “pay what you want” model. As with Plausible and Fathom, it is privacy focused and has very basic features and measurements. The big difference between it and the previous two entries is you can’t drill down deeply into individual page performance. However, it is free.