Umami Analytics is an easy-to-use open-source analytics tool that gained popularity among developers because of its user-friendliness. By self-hosting, people could use it for free, and hence the popularity of Umami Analytics started spreading.
This article will cover Umami Analytics’s features, strengths, and weaknesses. But there's more! We'll introduce you to an exciting alternative. This innovative solution offers a fresh perspective, empowering you to make informed decisions.
- Umami Analytics
- Umami Reviews
- Simple Analytics: A powerful alternative
- Feature comparison between Umami Analytics and Simple Analytics
- Conclusion
- FAQs: A Better Alternative to Unami
Umami Analytics
Umami Analytics is an open-source web analytics tool that provides website owners insights into visitor behavior. It was created by three brothers, Mike, Brian, and Francis Cao.
Many devs love it as it’s easy to install and start, but remember that this can be challenging for non-developers. It has a simple and clear UI allows customers to measure important metrics like page visits, referrers, and user agents without jeopardizing their visitors' privacy. Umami Analytics also has event tracking, but users have reported it to be very limited.
Pros of Umami Analytics
- Open-source, which means it's free to use if self-hosted
- Lightweight web analytics and doesn’t slow the website
Cons of Umami Analytics
- Limited support options
- Limited data retention options (in cloud version)
Umami Reviews
"Very easy to use and provides superb value for free"
What do you like best about Umami?
It provides great insights about your website and is very easy to set up. You can track views, visitors and utm parameters.
What do you dislike about Umami?
It's a bit limited in regards to "ordering" or "filtering" options.
What problems is Umami solving and how is that benefiting you?
I use umami to track views and visitors to our website. We wanted more privacy than with Google Analytics so umami is also helping us in that front.
Verified User in Leisure, Travel & Tourism, Small Business
Source: G2
"Very simple but effective alternative to GA"
What do you like best about Umami?
- Very simple to setup via Docker
- Possible to rename the script for your website, so that it wont be blocked by ublock
- Easy to use
What do you dislike about Umami?
- No option to send events
- No option for funnels
What problems is Umami solving and how is that benefiting you?
It respects the german gdpr (DSGVO).
It will be not blocked by ublock or other Adblocker.
It's a selfhosted alternative to GA
Verified User in Information Technology and Services, Small Business
Source: G2
Simple Analytics: A powerful alternative
Simple Analytics is an easy-to-use analytics tool that gives you the insights you need while being 100% GDPR-compliant.
It was founded by Adriaan van Rossum shortly after the GDPR was approved. Since its inception, Simple Analytics has had customers of all sizes, notable ones being: Michelin, Havas Media, Nomadlist, and the UK Government.
Though Simple Analytics might sound like a simple minimal analytics tool, it does pack some powerful features that many marketers love, such as automated event collection, goal tracking, e-commerce analytics, bypassing ad blockers (as it’s privacy-friendly), and much more.
Let's explore why it's become a preferred choice for businesses seeking reliable and affordable analytics tools.
Pros of using Simple Analytics
- Simple UI: Simple Analytics is one of the easiest analytics tools. The dashboard is built in a way to easily understandable to non-marketers.
- Affordable: Tracking website and product metrics is pretty affordable with Simple Analytics. For just $9/month, you can track 100,000 data points (pageviews + events). Additionally, you get features that you would find in much more expensive tools.
- Privacy First: The world is moving in a direction where privacy is becoming increasingly important. Google Analytics has been declared illegal in multiple EU countries. You would rather avoid getting caught up in this mess. Take privacy or compliance with regulations into account.
- Mini Websites: Have you ever seen “t.co” as a referrer in your web analytics? If you have, you must have broken your head trying to find the source. Simple Analytics helps you find the exact tweet that referred/mentioned to your website.
- Lightweight: Your website is your storefront on the internet. Providing the best possible experience matters. Installing an analytics script has an impact on page speed. Choose an analytics tool that won’t slow your website down. Even Google recommends having a website that loads quickly.
- Integration: Installing and integrating Simple Analytics is also super easy. It has 20+ integrations to select from, so you can get it added quickly.
Cons of using Simple Analytics
Due to privacy laws, Simple Analytics doesn’t store IPs and user identifiers, which makes it lack a couple of metrics, such as bounce rate, but it does have time on page to give you an idea of user stickiness.
Pricing of Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics offers one of the most affordable pricing structures in its segment. The plans start at just $9/month, which lets you track 100,000 data points.
If you need more features, such as team access, the pricing goes up to $49/month, increasing the data points limit from 100,000 to 1,000,000.
Feature comparison between Umami Analytics and Simple Analytics
| Simple Analytics | Umami Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Account Management | ||
| Trackable Items | Unlimited | 3 to Unlimited |
| User Seats | 1 to Unlimited users | Unlimited |
| User Roles | Available | Available |
| Account Security | Passwordless Login | N/A |
| Data Processing | ||
| Data Retention | Unlimited | 6 months to Unlimited (costs extra) |
| Data Center Locations | European Economic Area (EEA) | European Economic Area (EEA) |
| Data Import | GA importer included | CSV |
| Data Ownership | You | You |
| Software Hosting | Public Cloud | Public Cloud / On-Premise |
| Compliance | GDPR, PECR, CCPA | GDPR, CCPA |
| Data Freshness | Realtime | Realtime |
| Data Export | As CSV or via API | PDF, Excel, or CSV |
| Cookieless | Simple Analytics is cookieless | Umami Analytics does not use cookies |
| Reporting | ||
| Funnel Reporting | Available | Not Available |
| Device Reporting | Available (based on OS and screen sizes) | Available |
| Segmentation | Available | Simple filters like browser, OS, and country |
| Trend Reporting | Available | Available |
| Alerts & Automation | ||
| Integrations | 20+ Available and can send a request to the Simple Analytics team for more | N/A |
| Email Reports | Weekly, monthly | N/A |
| Customizability | ||
| Annotations | Available | Not Available |
| Custom Events | Available | Available |
Conclusion
Umami Analytics is a fun and easy-to-use web analytics tool that lacks advanced features like goal tracking. Even existing features like event analytics need improvements.
Simple Analytics gives you the insights you need and more. It is 100% GDPR-compliant and includes extensive event and goal-tracking capabilities. Feel free to give it a try!
FAQs: A Better Alternative to Unami
Is Umami Analytics capable of handling high-traffic websites?
Umami Analytics is intended to be lightweight and performant, making it suited for high-traffic websites. However, the scalability of Umami Analytics is ultimately determined by the server infrastructure and resources supplied to it.
Can we use Umami Analytics for free?
Umami Analytics is an open-source project that is free to use. You can download the software, host it on your own server, and use it for free.
Can Umami Analytics provide support or community resources?
Umami Analytics has an active user and developer community that contributes to its development and provides support via forums, GitHub, and community-driven documentation.
Why is Simple Analytics preferred over Umami Analytics?
Umami Analytics Analytics is less straightforward than Simple Analytics. It only launched its cloud-hosted analytics version a little while ago. Installing it is more difficult, and the dashboard is less intuitive. In addition, Simple Analytics is more feature-rich regarding event collection and goal tracking.