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Compare Analytics Tools
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.
The only digital insights platform that gives you complete understanding of your customers’ digital journeys, so you can quickly improve conversion, retention, and customer delight.
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
- It is easy to implement
- It has data science capabilities
- Reports are easy to build
- Interface is user-friendly
- 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
- Tech support is quite basic
- Difficult to share dasboards
- Onboarding could be improved
- 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
| Standard | Free |
| GA4 360 | $50k+ per year |
| Free | Free |
| Growth | On req. |
| Pro | On req. |
| Premier | On req. |
| FullstoryFree | Free |
| Business | On req. |
| Advanced | On req. |
| Enterprise | On req. |
Free trial period
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
Free plan
Account Management
Trackable Items
100
1
Unlimited
User Seats
Unlimited
Unlimited
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
12 months
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
by means of the REST API
Browser and Server APIs, Segment and Tealium integrations
Data Export
With sheets, BigQuery or API
Via CSV or API
by means of the REST API
Anywhere Warehouse (hourly sync to BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake), add-on
Compliance
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- HIPAA
- GDPR
- CCPA
- GDPR
- CCPA
Cookieless
Google Analytics relies on first-party cookies.
Heap 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
Via Slack or email
Metric, segment and opportunity alerts by email, in-app, Slack, Teams; Advanced and Enterprise
Email Reports
Recurring shared reporting
Schedule regular emails for important charts
Reporting
Trend Reporting
Metric trends
Device Reporting
Device type, browser, OS and more
Device breakdown
Funnel Reporting
Customisable funnel exploration
With quantitative measurement of user friction & step suggestions
Funnels and conversions
User Flow Reporting
Flexible Sankey chart exploration
Sankey chart with path comparison
Journey maps, page flows
Segmentation
Segment creation and overlap exploration
Quickly identify patterns in user behavior
User segments
Cohort Reports
Cohort exploration
Retention Reporting
Combined with CLTV metrics
Advanced and Enterprise
Attribution Reporting
Attribution models comparison
Track UTM parameters or initial referrer sources
Ecommerce Reporting
Extensive e-commerce reports
Easy setup with eCommerce Activation Kit
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
Automatically filters relevant replays
Domstream
Session replay, included in FullstoryFree
A/B Testing
A/B experiments in Guides and Surveys add-on; Optimizely integration
User Feedback
Track NPS score events in 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
Custom calculations
Custom Reports
All reports are customisable
Dashboards, paid plans
Custom Events
25 parameters per event
Annotations
Notes feature added in 2024
Support
Support description
Support is available via chat and the support center.
Heap offers extensive documentation and access to their in-depth collection of Heap University courses to get up and running. Need more help? Join the community or contact their knowledgable support staff through email.
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
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community
- Phone
- Live Chat
- Ticketing system
- Knowledge base
- Community