From google analytics to Plausible

This is the next step in creating a better website experience for visitors.
(Reminder, the first step was adding Script free social media sharing buttons for this blog)

I removed google analytics and use now Plausible to see if anyone ever visits what I put on the web:-)

Why did I use google analytics at all?

Actually, I do not have a lot of need for analytics at all.

All I would like to see is if someone visits a website I created, that’s all. Because if a site like the BitBake guide has no visitors anymore, I do not need to maintain it. Time for such site projects is heavily limited, and I need to know how to invest my spare time.

When I created this site I had no idea how to get a simple visitor counter. Remember, I am not a web developer.

So I used what the first search result recommended. That was google analytics. Maybe not a surprise since I used google to search for a solution ;-)

Why change to something different

I never was happy with google analytics. It is way too complicated for what I need.

It is for sure a good tool for people with a website that should generate revenue, but for me putting something online is just a hobby that costs time and money.

Managing and administrating google analytics is a whole job for its own. And maybe ga tracks a little bit more than I would like it to track.

So I started looking for alternatives and found out there are some.

Why Plausible?

I will not go into all the details about which solutions I compared. It has been quite some over some time, whenever I had some time to invest in that topic. So I focus on why I decided to go with Plausible

To start with, I can only quote whats on the Plausible homepage because this is all true

  • Simple metrics

  • Lightweight script

  • Privacy focused

  • Open source

But there is more:

  • It has a backend written in Elixir

  • There is a self hosting option

  • Good community maintenance and support

  • Made and hosted in the EU

  • GDPR, CCPA and cookie law compliant site analytics

  • 100% self-funded and independent

  • It feels right to me

The dashboard is super simple to use and shows me at first glance exactly what I want to see on the dashboard. No more clicking around and searching for what I am looking for on a page that changes randomly every few months (as ga does)

screen

Plausible hosting service

I am now a Plausible customer. Because I think there is no free analytics service that seriously values privacy.
There is always a price and you need to choose:

  • pay with the data of my visitors

  • pay with money for someone doing the work

  • pay with time running and hosting my own backend

I can either invest my own time to run an analytics service and pay with my time. Or I pay with money for someone doing that for me. In this case, I choose money.

Plausible is affordable without surprises and I can use it on all the web pages I have. So I can easily see the stats from this site and SwedenCpp and find out that those sites have some visitors, and my freelancer page has no visitors at all since there is no content ;-)

And if I ever have to decide that it’s a better deal to do the work myself instead of paying for it, I can do that. This feels just right.