The Best Google Analytics Alternative in 2026 (I Tried Them All)

If you’re a developer or content creator looking for the best Google Analytics alternative, this is the post I wish I’d had a year ago.

Why I Left Google Analytics (And Why You Should Too)

Let me paint you a picture. It’s 2023. Google decides to sunset Universal Analytics and force everyone onto GA4. Overnight, the analytics tool you’ve been using for years gets replaced by something that feels like it was designed by a committee that has never actually used a website before.

GA4 is kind of a mess. And I don’t say that lightly. After using it for years it was not only completely overkill for my needs, but was overly complicated and itrusive.

Here are some issues I ran into:

• The UI is baffling. Where did my simple pageview reports go? Why do I need to build custom explorations just to see basic traffic data?
• Event-based everything. Yes, I understand the concept. No, I don’t want to configure custom events just to track page views in a way that makes sense.
• Data sampling and thresholds. GA4 aggressively samples data and applies “thresholds” that hide information. You’re literally not seeing your own data.
• Cookie consent headaches. GDPR means you need cookie banners, and users who decline cookies are invisible to GA4. Some sites lose 30-50% of their traffic data.
• Google owns your data. Let’s be honest — GA4 is free because you are the product. Google uses your site’s data for its advertising ecosystem. Enough said.
• Bot traffic gets counted. Multiple reports have confirmed that GA4 records bot traffic as real visits. So those numbers you’re looking at? Some of them aren’t even real people.
• Ad blockers make your data useless. Studies show that 15-25% of visitors block Google Analytics entirely. For tech-savvy audiences, it’s worse — Plausible found that 58% of Hacker News and Reddit users block GA. You’re making decisions based on incomplete data.

I’m not alone in this frustration.

Reddit threads about GA4 are filled with developers and marketers saying the same thing: “Why is this so complicated?”

So after years of using Google Analytics I went looking for a simple website analytics tool that respected privacy and didn’t require a PhD to understand.

My Plausible Phase (And Why It Wasn’t Enough)

My first stop was Plausible Analytics. And honestly? It’s a solid tool. Lightweight script, no cookies, clean dashboard, GDPR compliant out of the box.

For a while, I was very happy.

But over time, I started hitting limitations.

The Pricing Problem

Plausible has no free tier. Their plans start around $9/month for 10,000 monthly pageviews. That’s fine for a single small site, but if you’re running multiple projects or your traffic grows, costs add up fast. At 100K pageviews, you’re looking at $19/month. At 1M, it’s $69/month.

For developers running side projects, blogs, and client sites, this gets expensive quickly.

Missing Features I Actually Needed

Plausible is intentionally simple, and that’s both its strength and weakness. Here’s what I found myself either wanting or would be a “nice to have”:

• No session replays. I couldn’t watch how users actually interacted with my site.
• No user journeys. I wanted to see the path users take from landing to conversion.
• No retention analysis. Are users coming back? Plausible couldn’t tell me.
• Limited custom events. The custom event system felt restrictive compared to what I needed.
• No web vitals tracking. I had to use a separate tool to monitor Core Web Vitals.
• No error tracking. JavaScript errors on my site? I’d never know from Plausible.
• No funnels on lower tiers. Funnel analysis is only available on paid plans.

The Self-Hosting Catch

Plausible is open source, which is great. But their self-hosted Community Edition has significantly fewer features than the cloud version. As one Reddit user put it: “Plausible has very limited features, especially when self-hosting: no stats API, no server-side-tracking, no reports builder.” You’re basically getting a stripped-down version if you self-host.

Plausible’s Pricing is Getting Painful

I’m not the only one feeling this. There’s a whole Reddit thread of a WordPress user who wrote “I love Plausible and there is no match for it but I am in no condition to continue the subscription of $22.42 a month” after their traffic dropped. When your analytics tool costs more than some of your hosting, something’s off.

Don’t get me wrong, Plausible is a great privacy-friendly analytics tool and leagues better than GA4 for most use cases. But I knew there had to be something better.

Enter Rybbit: The Analytics Tool I’ve Been Waiting For

Then I found Rybbit. And everything clicked.

Rybbit is an open-source, privacy-first web analytics platform that somehow manages to be both simpler than GA4 and more powerful than Plausible. It’s trusted by over 4,000 organizations, has over 11,000 GitHub stars, and was built by indie developer Bill Yang who was frustrated by the exact same problems I was. Founded in January 2025, it went from zero to 10,000 GitHub stars in under a year, which tells you something about how badly people wanted this.

Here’s what sold me.

Actually Free to Start

Rybbit has a generous free tier: 3,000 pageviews per month, no credit card required. That’s perfect for side projects, personal blogs, and testing things out. Plausible? Zero free options.

Features That Actually Matter

This is where Rybbit pulls ahead of every other GA4 alternative I’ve tried:

• Session replays — Watch real users navigate your site. Find UX issues you’d never catch otherwise.
• Conversion funnels — Visualize where users drop off in your signup or purchase flow.
• User journeys — Map how visitors move from landing page to conversion.
• Web vitals monitoring — Track Core Web Vitals directly in your analytics dashboard. No more juggling separate tools.
• Retention analysis — See if users are actually coming back.
• Error tracking — Catch JavaScript errors without needing a separate service.
• Custom events with JSON properties — Full flexibility for tracking any interaction.
• Advanced map visualizations — 3D globe views and 3-level location tracking (country → region → city).
• Real-time dashboard — See what’s happening on your site right now.
• User profiles and session details — Understand individual user behavior.

And yes, it’s still cookieless, GDPR compliant, and privacy-friendly. No consent banners needed.

Open Source Done Right

Rybbit is 100% open source under AGPL-3. You can self-host it on your own VPS for complete control — and unlike Plausible’s Community Edition, the self-hosted version isn’t a stripped-down afterthought.

Want the cloud version instead? The hosted service starts at $13/month for 100,000 pageviews on the Standard plan, which includes up to 5 websites and 3 team members. The Pro plan at $26/month gets you unlimited websites, unlimited team members, session replays, and 5-year data retention.

Lightweight and Fast

Like Plausible, Rybbit uses a lightweight tracking script. Your site stays fast, your visitors get a better experience, and you’re not loading a bloated analytics library that tanks your page speed.

Head-to-Head: Rybbit vs GA4 vs Plausible

Let’s put them side by side. This is the comparison I wish I’d found when I was searching for the best Google Analytics alternative:

Pricing Breakdown

Let’s talk money, because it matters — especially for indie developers and small teams:

Rybbit’s pricing is remarkably competitive, and the free tier makes it a no-brainer for getting started. For growing sites, it’s significantly cheaper than Plausible while offering more features.

*GA4 is “free” but you pay with your data, your users’ privacy, and your sanity.

Setting Up Rybbit (It Takes 2 Minutes)

One of my favorite things about Rybbit: setup is dead simple. Add one line of code to your site:

<script src="https://app.rybbit.com/api/script.js" data-site-id="YOUR_SITE_ID" defer></script>

That’s it. Data starts flowing in real-time. No tag manager configuration. No event setup wizards. No 30-page documentation just to track pageviews.

Compare that to GA4’s setup process, where you need to configure data streams, set up Google Tag Manager, define custom events, create custom reports… you get the idea.

Who Is Rybbit For?

Based on my experience, Rybbit is the best Google Analytics alternative for:

• Developers who want powerful analytics without the complexity
• Indie hackers and solopreneurs who need a free tier and affordable scaling
• Privacy-conscious site owners who don’t want to deal with cookie banners
• Agencies managing multiple client sites (unlimited sites on Pro)
• Anyone frustrated with GA4 who wants to actually understand their data
• Plausible users who’ve outgrown its feature set or are tired of the pricing

Ready to Switch?

I’ve tried the big players and the indie alternatives. Rybbit is the one that stuck. It’s powerful enough to replace GA4, simple enough to replace Plausible, and priced fairly enough that you don’t need to think twice.

👉 Try Rybbit free — no credit card required

The first 3,000 pageviews per month are free. Set it up in 2 minutes and see what you’ve been missing.