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Compare Analytics Tools

Rating
4.5/5
4/5
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.
Powerful, self-serve product analytics to help you convert, engage, and retain more users. Build funnels, see top user flows, create cohorts, and more with just a few clicks.
An open-source product analytics for developers. It helps engineers understand their product usage, automate events, and user data collection.
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
  • Interface is easy to understand
  • Great support options
  • Reporting is in realtime
  • Good community
  • Easy to set up
  • Great interface design
  • Reasonable pricing
  • Good session recordings
  • 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
  • Event setup requires tech skills
  • Contains hard to discover features
  • Has a steep learning curve
  • Feature flags are limited
  • Limited amount of graph types
  • Filtering could be improved
  • 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
FreeFree
EnterpriseOn req.
Cloud LiteFree
Cloud€0.005 per event / recording
Enterprise Cloud€450 p/m minimum
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
30 days

Account Management

Trackable Items
100
1
Unlimited
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Account Security
  • Single Sign-on
  • Two-factor Authentication
  • 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)
  • United States
  • United States
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
Software Hosting
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
  • Public Cloud
  • Private Cloud
  • On-Premise
Data Ownership
Google Analytics 4
Mixpanel
You
You
Data Freshness
4-8 hours (most reports), up to 24-48 hours
Realtime
Realtime
Realtime
Data Retention
Customizable up to 14 months
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Via one-off script or Ingestion API
Historical data ingestion
Import from Plausible, Fathom or Google Analytics
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
Via raw data export API
via API or CSV
Compliance
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • HIPAA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • HIPAA
  • PECR
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • ePrivacy
  • PECR
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Mixpanel relies on first-party cookies
Posthog has the option to be used without cookies
Pirsch Analytics does not use cookies

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Hourly, daily, or weekly base on event threshold
Receive alerts via Slack or email
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Same as custom alerts
Subscribe to an Insight or dashboard
Daily, Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly

Reporting

Trend Reporting
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device type, OS, Browser, Browser version, Screen size
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Funnel trend, time to convert & frequency visualisations
Analyze Funnels
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Sankey chart with selected, immediate & drop off events
Entry and exit pages
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Automatically find interesting segments & receive per email
Extensive filtering by any metric
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
User cohorts of users to filter reports
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Retention curves, trends & user cohort buckets
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Simple UTM tracking with "first touch" attribution
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Option to track purchases but no special reporting
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
Experiments
Feature flags and A/B testing
Tag-based A/B testing and segmentation
User Feedback
Surveys

Customizability

Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
As part of custom events
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
Max 255 properties per event
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Unlimited custom dahboards & reports
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Combine events into a custom event
With additional metadata fields (key-value pairs).
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Directly on the linechart in Insights

Support

Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Mixpanel offer extensive documentation and knowledgable support through a ticketing system. They have a support email address but regular support requests are directed to the ticketing system. Join their Slack group for community access.
Posthogs' support consists of an extensive knowledge base and community on their website. For enterprise users, support is also available trough a dedicated Slack channel and via e-mail.
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
  • Phone
  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Ticketing system
  • Knowledge base
  • Community

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