Google Analytics alternatives are web analytics tools that count visits, traffic sources and conversions without going through Google's servers: Matomo, Plausible, Simple Analytics, Fathom, Umami, Cloudflare Web Analytics and a few others. Some work without cookies, some keep data in Europe, one installs on your own server.
In the UK the rules behind this choice have changed twice since 2023: a UK-US data bridge for transfers, and in February 2026 a new exception for analytics cookies. Of the ten results on the first page of Google UK for "google analytics alternatives" on 10 October 2026, only one was written for UK marketers. Here you'll find where the rules stand in October 2026, a comparison of the tools with prices checked on the vendors' price lists, and a measurement we made ourselves: how much each tool's script actually weighs.
Why people still look for a Google Analytics alternative in 2026
Google Analytics is still the de facto standard. According to W3Techs (survey of 1 October 2026, worldwide sample) it's installed on 47.2% of all websites, which is 82.7% of sites using a recognisable analytics tool. Matomo, the leading open source competitor, is at 1.4%. Microsoft Clarity is at 4.1%, Cloudflare Web Analytics at 2.4%, Plausible at 0.2%.
There are three reasons to switch, and it's worth keeping them apart because they lead to different choices. The first is legal: sending data to the United States and getting consent for cookies. The second is practical: GA4 is complicated if all you need to know is how many people come from the blog and how many fill in the form. We covered this in our guide to what Google Analytics does and what it doesn't show you. The third is performance: Google's script is heavy, and we measure it further down.
What regulators decided and what has changed since
Most of the debate started in the EU. On 9 June 2022 the Italian data protection authority, the Garante, issued a decision against Caffeina Media S.r.l., publisher of an online magazine. The site used Google Analytics and sent data such as IP addresses to the United States. The Garante gave it ninety days to bring the processing into line with Chapter V of the GDPR or stop the flows to Google LLC; its press release of 23 June 2022 spoke of data sent to a "country without an adequate level of protection". Austrian and French regulators reached similar conclusions that year. We found no comparable decision by the ICO.
On 10 July 2023 the European Commission adopted its adequacy decision on the Data Privacy Framework (DPF), the new EU-US agreement on data transfers. The UK followed with the UK-US data bridge, the Data Protection (Adequacy) (United States of America) Regulations 2023, in force from 12 October 2023. It covers US organisations that join the UK Extension to the EU-US DPF. On its page on data transfers Google states that Google LLC and its US subsidiaries are certified under the DPF and that from 16 September 2024 it relies, in certain circumstances, on the UK Extension for transfers from the UK.
On 3 September 2025 the EU General Court dismissed the action for annulment brought against the DPF by French MP Philippe Latombe (case T-553/23). Latombe appealed to the Court of Justice on 31 October 2025 (case C-703/25 P). At the time of writing we haven't found a ruling on that appeal. This matters in the UK too: the UK Extension is built on top of the EU-US DPF, so if the DPF falls, the data bridge would be exposed. Privacy Shield, its predecessor, fell in exactly this way in 2020.
| Date | What happened | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| 9 June 2022 | Italian Garante decision against Caffeina Media over Google Analytics | In the EU, transfers to the US judged to lack adequate safeguards |
| 10 July 2023 | European Commission adopts adequacy for the Data Privacy Framework | Transfers from the EU to certified US companies have a legal basis again |
| 12 October 2023 | UK-US data bridge comes into force | Transfers from the UK to US companies in the UK Extension need no further safeguards |
| 3 September 2025 | EU General Court dismisses the Latombe action (T-553/23) | The DPF survives its first court test |
| 31 October 2025 | Appeal to the Court of Justice (C-703/25 P) | Case pending: the framework could change again, in the EU and indirectly in the UK |
| 5 February 2026 | Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 changes to PECR regulation 6 come into force | New exception: some analytics cookies no longer need opt-in consent |
| 29 April 2026 | ICO publishes final guidance on storage and access technologies | The conditions for the statistical purposes exception are spelled out |
Transfers and consent are two different problems
This is where most guides on the subject go wrong. The data bridge has solved, for as long as it holds, the question of sending data to the United States. It hasn't touched consent, which in the UK falls under PECR, the cookie rules, and not under the rules on transfers.
Since 5 February 2026, regulation 6 of PECR, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, includes a statistical purposes exception: an analytics cookie can be set without asking for permission first. The ICO guidance on the exceptions, finalised on 29 April 2026, sets four conditions:
- the sole purpose must be collecting statistical information about how your service is used, so you can improve it;
- you must give clear and comprehensive information about that purpose and a simple, free way to object;
- the output must be aggregate statistics that can't identify anyone, and individual-level data shouldn't be kept longer than needed to aggregate it;
- a third-party provider must act as your processor, not a joint controller, must not link the data with other information it holds and must not use it for its own purposes.
The ICO adds that if the provider uses the data for anything else, such as linking activity to advertising, you need consent. The difference from the EU is real: in the UK the exception works on an opt-out basis, while EU guidance such as the CNIL's sheet no. 16 still says most large audience-measurement offers can't be exempt. Whether GA4 can fit the UK exception depends on how it's set up, starting with the link to Google Ads. GOV.UK, for one, still asks before loading Google Analytics: its cookie page lists it under the optional "cookies that measure website use". Cookieless tools and carefully configured self-hosted ones are the easiest to fit within the exception.
One caveat: this is a summary of the rules, not legal advice. The final assessment of your own set-up is for the data controller and, if there is one, its DPO.
How much you lose with GA4 when users reject cookies
Google's Consent Mode has two settings. In basic mode the tags stay blocked until the user accepts: anyone who declines sends no data at all to Google Analytics. In advanced mode cookieless pings are sent anyway, and Google uses them to estimate the missing traffic through modelling.
Modelling has thresholds, though. According to the official documentation, the property must collect at least 1,000 events a day with consent denied for at least 7 days, and have at least 1,000 daily users with consent granted for at least 7 of the previous 28 days. Even when the thresholds are met, eligibility isn't guaranteed.
A small business website with a few hundred visits a day never gets near those thresholds. For sites like this GA4 only shows the people who clicked "Accept", and visits from people who declined are missing from the reports. It's one of the reasons Analytics and Search Console numbers never match, as we explain in our guide to the SEO dashboard.
There's also a retention limit. In standard GA4 properties, user-level and event-level data is kept for 2 or 14 months; 26, 38 or 50 months are reserved for GA4 360, which is paid and priced on request.
The alternatives compared: where the data goes and what it costs
The table covers the tools that come up most often in comparisons, including the ten results on the first page of Google UK. Prices are the entry prices published on the official price lists on 1 October 2026, in the currency the vendor shows them in: none of these vendors publishes a sterling price list, so we haven't converted them. Almost all of them rise with the number of pageviews or events, so compare them on your own volume, not on the starting price.
| Tool | Company and data | Cookies | Entry price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 | Google LLC (USA), DPF and UK Extension | Yes | No charge; 360 priced on request |
| Matomo | Cloud on servers in Germany; On-Premise on your own server | Yes by default, can be switched off | On-Premise at no cost; Cloud from €29 a month (50,000 hits) |
| Plausible | Estonian company, data in the EU | No | $9 a month (10,000 pageviews) |
| Simple Analytics | Based in Amsterdam, data in the EU | No | Free plan (5 sites, 30 days of history); then $20 a month |
| Fathom | Canadian company, EU traffic processed in the EU | No | $15 a month (100,000 pageviews) |
| Umami | Open source; Cloud or self-hosted | No | Self-hosted at no cost; Cloud Hobby plan at no cost |
| Cloudflare Web Analytics | Cloudflare (USA) | No | No charge |
| Piwik PRO | European enterprise suite | Yes | Core free plan closed in February 2026; from about €35-36 a month |
| Microsoft Clarity | Microsoft (USA) | Yes | No charge, no traffic limits |
Price sources: Matomo, Plausible, Simple Analytics, Fathom, Umami, Cloudflare, Piwik PRO, Clarity. One detail: several guides on the first page still list Piwik PRO's free plan, which no longer exists.
How much the script weighs: our measurement
Lightweight analytics vendors quote a size ratio against Google, but each one gives a different number: guides mention 45, 54 and 75 times. We downloaded the tracking files ourselves on 1 October 2026, from the visilay.com server, and weighed them before and after gzip compression.
| Script | Uncompressed size | Compressed size (gzip) |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics 4 (gtag.js) | 439 KB | 152 KB |
| Matomo (matomo.js, standard tracker) | 68 KB | 22 KB |
| Cloudflare Web Analytics (beacon.min.js) | 30 KB | 10.1 KB |
| Simple Analytics (latest.js) | 7.5 KB | 3.8 KB |
| Umami (script.js) | 4.8 KB | 2.3 KB |
| Fathom (script.js) | 7.0 KB | 2.1 KB |
| Plausible (script.js) | 2.8 KB | 1.3 KB |
In our measurement GA4 is about 119 times bigger than Plausible on the compressed file and 155 times on the uncompressed one. That's higher than the ratios quoted in other guides. Take the figure for what it is: 152 KB on a two-megabyte page won't decide a site's fate on its own. On light pages, though, and especially on mobile, it adds to everything else that weighs on Core Web Vitals. We cover this in our guide to page speed.
The alternatives one by one
Matomo: the most complete replacement
Matomo is the only one that comes close to GA4 on features: goals, ecommerce, segments and importing your Google Analytics history. You can install it at no cost on your own server (On-Premise, unlimited users and hits) or use it in the Cloud, on servers in Germany according to the vendor, from €29 a month. The CNIL, the French regulator, hosts a configuration guide for running it in consent-exempt mode. Public bodies use it too: in Italy, Web Analytics Italia, the government agency AgID's platform based on Matomo, has 4,505 registered public administrations and 9,718 active sites.
The downside is maintenance: the On-Premise version needs updating, the database grows and high-traffic sites need a properly sized server. For a business with nobody looking after hosting, the Cloud version is the realistic choice.
Plausible, Simple Analytics and Fathom: the cookieless counters
These three tools share the same idea: a one-page dashboard, no cookies, no personal data stored. Plausible says IP addresses and user agents are never saved and are only used to generate an encrypted daily identifier, deleted after 24 hours. Simple Analytics is Dutch and keeps data in Europe. Fathom is Canadian, but traffic from European visitors is anonymised on European servers before it reaches the US infrastructure.
They suit anyone who wants to know where traffic comes from, which pages work and how many people complete a goal. They don't suit complex funnel analysis or building audiences for advertising. If you need to get clear on the difference between metrics and goals before choosing, start with what KPIs are.
Umami and Cloudflare Web Analytics: the no-cost options
Umami is open source, uses no cookies and installs on your own server, or you can use the no-cost Cloud plan. Cloudflare Web Analytics costs nothing for anyone and, according to Cloudflare, uses neither cookies nor localStorage. Both are good options for small sites. Cloudflare is a US company: on transfers, the same points made for Google apply.
Microsoft Clarity: an add-on, not a replacement
Clarity costs nothing, has no traffic limits and does something the others don't: it records sessions and generates heatmaps. It doesn't replace an analytics system, it sits alongside one. It uses cookies and records visitor behaviour, so it goes behind the banner. It's very useful when a site has traffic but doesn't convert and you need to see where people get stuck.
Piwik PRO, Adobe Analytics, Amplitude: for enterprise needs
Piwik PRO, Adobe Analytics, Amplitude and Mixpanel appear on almost every list, and Amplitude publishes one of the comparisons cited in Google UK's AI Overview. They're tools for companies with dedicated data teams or digital products, such as apps and SaaS platforms, where you need to analyse user behaviour by cohort. For a small business website they're overkill.
What you lose by leaving GA4
Guides on alternatives tend to skip this part. GA4 is more than a visit counter:
- it links to Google Ads to import conversions and build remarketing audiences, which no alternative does as easily (if you run campaigns, discuss this with whoever manages your Google Ads account);
- it connects to Search Console and BigQuery without extra configuration;
- it works with Google Tag Manager and Looker Studio for reporting.
That's why, for many businesses, the most sensible choice is to run a cookieless tool alongside GA4 rather than replace it. GA4 stays behind the banner for campaigns and detailed analysis. The lightweight counter gives you the full visit count, which you need to work out a credible conversion rate and to read your website traffic without the hole left by people who reject cookies.
How to choose in three questions
The first question is whether you advertise on Google. If you do, you'll need GA4, or at least the Google Ads conversion tag, whatever happens, and the alternative becomes a companion.
The second is who will run the tool. If nobody in the business looks after servers and updates, rule out the self-hosted versions of Matomo and Umami and choose between Matomo Cloud, Plausible, Simple Analytics and Fathom.
The third is what you need to measure. To know how many people arrive, where from and how many fill in a form, Plausible or Simple Analytics is enough. For an ecommerce site with goals, segments and revenue by source you need Matomo. If you're unsure which numbers to look at before you even pick a tool, our guide to SEO analytics starts right there.
The UK Business Data Survey 2026 from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, published in June 2026 with fieldwork from October 2025 to January 2026, found that 86% of UK businesses handle digitised data, up from 77% in the 2024 edition. Only 25% of those businesses say they analyse it. Most companies collecting website data, in other words, aren't yet working with it, and for them a simple tool they actually open is worth more than a complete one they don't.
How to switch without losing your history
GA4 data can't be moved wholesale into Plausible or Fathom. Matomo has a dedicated importer for Google Analytics history; the others don't. The safest method is this:
- install the alternative alongside GA4 and run them together for at least a month, so you can see the difference between the two counts;
- export the GA4 reports you need as a historical reference, remembering that detailed data is only kept for 2 or 14 months;
- recreate goals and key events in the new tool before removing GA4, if you decide to remove it;
- update your privacy notice and cookie banner, and check the result with whoever handles your SEO strategy or your legal advice.
The number nobody looks at
The debate on Google Analytics alternatives began as a legal question and has stayed stuck there. Meanwhile, for most sites the more concrete problem is a different one: with a consent banner and below the modelling thresholds, GA4 only counts part of your visitors, and many businesses make decisions on that part believing it's the whole. The first reason to install a cookieless counter next to GA4 is to find out how big the hole in your data is, before you even get to privacy. In the UK, the new statistical purposes exception makes that counter easier to run without a banner. If you want to know how big the gap is on your own site, it's one of the first things we look at in an SEO project.
Frequently asked questions
No. The 2022 decisions by EU regulators, such as the Italian Garante's, concerned transfers to the United States without adequate safeguards, and we found no comparable ICO decision. Since 12 October 2023 the UK-US data bridge has been in force and Google relies on the UK Extension to the Data Privacy Framework. Under PECR you still need consent for GA4 cookies unless your set-up meets the statistical purposes exception, and the appeal against the DPF at the Court of Justice (case C-703/25 P) is still pending.
It depends on who will run it. Matomo On-Premise and Umami cost nothing but have to be installed and updated on your own server. Cloudflare Web Analytics, Umami Cloud on the Hobby plan and Simple Analytics on its free plan need no server, with more limited features. Microsoft Clarity costs nothing but records sessions and heatmaps; it doesn't replace an analytics system.
It depends on what else is on the site. Since 5 February 2026 PECR has had a statistical purposes exception: analytics used only to improve your site, producing aggregate statistics, with clear information and a simple way to object, can run without opt-in consent. If you also have advertising pixels, embedded videos or Google Ads tags, the banner stays. Your privacy notice needs updating either way.
It depends on how you use it. Matomo has features similar to GA4, full control of your data and a configuration that can fit consent exemptions. GA4 costs nothing, needs no maintenance and integrates natively with Google Ads, Search Console and BigQuery. Businesses that run Google campaigns usually keep GA4 and add a second tool.
Only in part. Matomo has an importer for Google Analytics history; Plausible, Fathom and Simple Analytics start from zero on the day you install them. It's worth running both tools in parallel for at least a month and exporting historical reports from GA4 before the 2 or 14 months of retention run out.
GOV.UK uses Google Analytics and SpeedCurve's LUX, and only loads them if you accept cookies that measure website use. In Italy many public administrations use Web Analytics Italia, the government agency AgID's platform based on Matomo, which lists 4,505 registered administrations and 9,718 active sites.
