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Rating
4.5/5
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.
Give your teams a self-service digital analytics platform to understand your users, drive conversions, and increase engagement, growth and revenue. Ideal for product or gowth teams.
Open Web Analytics is the free and open source web analytics framework that lets you stay in control of how you instrument and analyze the use of your websites and application
Fullstory is a digital experience analytics platform that combines session replay, product analytics and AI-generated insights, with a permanent free plan.
Pros
  • GA4 is free to use
  • Many functionalities
  • The reports are customisable
  • Large community
  • Extensive documentation
  • GA4 is easily scalable
  • Simple & Intuïtive
  • User segmentation
  • Data visualisations
  • Feature Analytics
  • The software is open source
  • It is very customizable
  • Ecommerce reporting
  • Privacy friendly
  • The script is lightweight
  • Permanent free plan with session replay
  • Choice of EU or US data center
  • SOC 2 and ISO 27001, 27701 and 42001 certifications
  • Warehouse sync to BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift
Cons
  • Steep learning curve
  • Implementation can be hard
  • Inaccurate data sampling
  • UI is not easy to use
  • Dashboard customisation
  • Limited free plan
  • User support access
  • Pricing transparency
  • Limited reporting features
  • Technical skill required
  • Comply with data privacy regulations
  • You need a secure server
  • Paid prices not published
  • Dashboards and StoryAI not in the free plan
  • Alerts and retention reports need an Advanced or Enterprise plan
  • Moving to the EU data center means opening a new account

Pricing information

Starting Price
StandardFree
GA4 360$50k+ per year
StarterFree
Growth$49+ p/m
EnterpriseOn req.
FullstoryFreeFree
BusinessOn req.
AdvancedOn req.
EnterpriseOn req.
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan

Account Management

Trackable Items
100
Unlimited
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited for all plans
Unlimited
10 on FullstoryFree, paid plans not published
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
  • Not applicable
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • United States
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
You
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
12 months on FullstoryFree, paid plans not published
Data Sampling
Explorations might use sampled data
Data Import
Import cost, offline or user/client ID data
Via SDK, API, GCS, AWS & more
by means of the REST API
Browser and Server APIs, Segment and Tealium integrations
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
To GCS, BigQuery, Redshift & more
by means of the REST API
Anywhere Warehouse (hourly sync to BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake), add-on
Compliance
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • ePrivacy
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
  • GDPR
  • CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Amplitude relies on first-party cookies.
Sets first-party cookies (owa_v, owa_c, session). Lifetimes can be shortened or made session-only.
Capture needs the first-party fs_uid cookie

Alerts & Automation

Custom Alerts
Custom insights, in interface or via email
Metric, segment and opportunity alerts by email, in-app, Slack, Teams; Advanced and Enterprise
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Subscribe to dashboard for daily reports

Reporting

Trend Reporting
Metric trends
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device breakdown
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
Flexible funnels to analyse conversion, time to convert & more
Funnels and conversions
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Standard & reverse Sankey charts
Journey maps, page flows
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
User segments
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Retention Analysis and Lifecycle charts
Advanced and Enterprise
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Elaborate Ecommerce reporting
Order Completed and Product Purchased events

User Experience Features

Heatmaps
GA4 does not offer heatmaps
Click and scroll maps
Session Recordings
GA4 does not offer recordings
Session Replay
Domstream
Session replay, included in FullstoryFree
A/B Testing
A/B testing & feature flagging with Amplitude Experiment
A/B experiments in Guides and Surveys add-on; Optimizely integration
User Feedback
Guides and Surveys
Guides and Surveys add-on

Customizability

Custom Properties
25 user-scoped & 50 event-scoped dimensions
Custom event and user properties
Custom Metrics
50 event-scoped metrics
20 custom formulas to create the metric you need
Custom calculations
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Dashboards, paid plans
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Create a custom event from existing events
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024

Support

Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
The support of Amplitude consists of a ticketing system, an extensive knowledge base, a community and email support depending on your plan.
Because Open Web Analytics is open source, all documentation is found on GitHub. Apart from the community, there are no support options available.
Support is by email and support ticket during regional weekday business hours, with a help center and community forum. Free plan tickets have a 2 business day response target, paying customers 1 business day. A Premium Support add-on gives 24/7 critical support. The FullstoryFree help article lists email support as a paid plan feature, while the support hours article lists a response target for free plan customers.
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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