Google Analytics Vs Piwik

Differences Between Google Analytics vs Piwik

In this article Google Analytics vs Piwik, we shall be comparing two tools that are used to monitor web traffic. While Google Analytics is an industry leader, Piwik is an open source web analytics tool. We shall be understanding key features of each of these tools, their advantages & disadvantages also talk about key differences.

The analysis provided in this article help website owners and analysts decide which tool they should choose to monitor traffic on their site considering a various factor in mind like cost etc.

• Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free as well as premium service that tracks and reports website traffic. Google Analytics is obviously the most widely used web analytics service on the Internet. It has two additional versions: the subscription-based Google Analytics 360 targeted at enterprise users, and Google Analytics for Mobile Apps that allows gathering usage data from iOS and Android App

• Piwik

Matomo, formerly Piwik is a free and open source web analytics application developed by a team of international developers. It runs on a PHP/MySQL web server. Piwik tracks online visits to one or more websites and displays reports on these visits for analysis. According to Wikipedia Piwik has been translated into 54 languages so far.  New versions are also released regularly meaning it has active support available.

There could be several reasons why one might want to consider an alternative to Google Analytics. For example:

• It can be really uneasy for someone to share its data with anyone else – Nobody wants to disclose information about its clients to other companies, also many companies are not legally allowed to do so.
• If somebody wants to have more than one analytics tool at their disposal i.e. wants to check if there are any discrepancies between reporting in Google Analytics and other platforms.
• Those who are seeking features that GA doesn’t have – after all, different organization could have different needs.

Head To Head Comparison Between Google Analytics vs Piwik (Infographics)

Below is the top 11 comparison between Google Analytics vs Piwik

Key Differences Between Google Analytics vs Piwik

Now that we have seen the comparison table with essential Differences Between Google Analytics vs Piwik, here we shall be focusing on key features that each tool provides.  Hence comparison here is more in terms of functional specifications rather than the technical specifications.

Key features of Google Analytic are as below:

• Campaign Management: Traffic
• Track Goals: Website conversions and user activity
• Audience report: know users
• Flow visualization: follow every step
• Custom report: analytics data

Key features of Piwik are as below:

• A/B Testing
• Funnels
• Heatmaps
• Tracking and Reporting API
• Facebook Ads, Yahoo! Search Marketing
• Google AdWords
• Bing Ads: Paid search marketing campaign
• Cost Per Click (CPC)

Comparison Table between Google Analytics vs Piwik

Below are the lists of points, describe the Differences Between Google Analytics vs Piwik

Conclusion – Google Analytics vs Piwik

From the above comparison, it is clear that Google Analytics is a clear winner. Particularly, for someone who is a small vendor and needs to use the only basic set of data, Google analytics is much convenient for him. Google analytics is simpler to learn and easier to install. For somebody who loves open source product, Piwik might be a good choice, But, honestly, Piwik still needs to cover a lot of ground to provide something that users can really enjoy.

For the sake of user convenience, a simple rule is created below, one can follow that to choose the right tool for its need.

• If a criterion is ease of use go for Google Analytics
• If a criterion is featured go for Google Analytics
• If a criterion is data manipulation go for Google Analytics or Piwik, anyone would do.
• If a criterion is easy to set up again go for Google Analytics or Piwik (minimal install ).
• If a criterion is custom segmentation go for Google Analytics.
• If the criterion is third-party integrations go for Google Analytics
• If the criterion is additional goodies go for Google Analytics
• If the criterion is data ownership go for Piwik.

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