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Rating
4.5/5
5/5
Summary
A customisable and free web analytics tool. Get insights into user behavior with an event-based tracking model, and know what drives sales and traffic with extensive attribution methods.
One easy dashboard to see how many visitors are coming to your website, where they come from and what they do once they're there. Without cookies. Without stalking. Still lightweight.
Pirsch is a simple, cookie-free, open-source web analytics solution that integrates easily into your website or backend.
Pros
  • GA4 is free to use
  • Many functionalities
  • The reports are customisable
  • Large community
  • Extensive documentation
  • GA4 is easily scalable
  • Privacy focused
  • Cookieless
  • Lightweight script
  • Good support
  • Easy to use
  • Lightweight, cookie-free and open-source
  • Pirsch's backend integration requires no client-side scripts and delivers the same accurate results without the interference of adblockers
  • Extensive API
  • Fully-fledged access management
  • Comprehensive filtering by any metric including event metadata
Cons
  • Steep learning curve
  • Implementation can be hard
  • Inaccurate data sampling
  • UI is not easy to use
  • Limited features due to cookieless
  • Not very customisable
  • No free version
  • Visitors are only recognized for up to 24 hours to comply with the privacy policy
  • Heatmaps and session recordings are not available

Pricing information

Starting Price
StandardFree
GA4 360$50k+ per year
Starter€15 p/m
Business€40 p/m
EnterpriseOn req.
Free trial period
Free plan
14 days
30 days

Account Management

Trackable Items
100
5-10+ depending on plan
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
1-10+ depending on plan
Unlimited
Account Security
  • Single Sign-on
  • Two-factor Authentication
  • Single Sign-on
  • Two-factor Authentication
  • Single Sign-on
  • Two-factor Authentication

Data Processing

Data Center Locations
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
Software Hosting
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
Data Ownership
Google Analytics 4
You
You
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
Realtime
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
Unlimited
Unlimited
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
GA importer included
Import from Plausible, Fathom or Google Analytics
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
As CSV or via API
via API or CSV
Compliance
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • ePrivacy
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • ePrivacy
  • PECR
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Simple Analytics is cookieless by default.
Pirsch Analytics does not use cookies

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Daily, weekly, monthly
Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly

Reporting

Trend Reporting
Curved and linear trend lines
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device type, OS, Browser, Browser version, Screen size
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Line up goals for simple funnel
Analyze Funnels
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Entry and exit pages
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Filter dashboard with visitor attributes
Extensive filtering by any metric
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Possible with custom events and goals

User Experience Features

Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
A/B Testing
Tag-based A/B testing and segmentation
User Feedback

Customizability

Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
As part of custom events
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
With additional metadata fields (key-value pairs).
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Able to include links in annotations

Support

Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Simple Analytics offers knowledgable support through phone and email.
Email support, public Discord server
Support Options
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community
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