The list

9 Google Analytics alternatives for solo founders.

There is no single best Google Analytics alternative, because GA4 does several unrelated jobs. If you want privacy-first traffic analytics, use Plausible. The simplest dashboard, Fathom. Free and open source, Umami. The closest thing to a full GA4 replacement, Matomo. Session replay and feature flags too, PostHog. And if the question is which channels bring customers who pay and then stay, that is the one we built Ripples for, which is why we put ours last.

Checked August 2026 No affiliate links 6 of the 9 are not ours

The short answer

Pick by the job, not by the ranking.

Which Google Analytics alternative to choose for each job
If you want Use Why
Free, and you want to stop thinking about it Cloudflare Web Analytics Free, no script config, no cookie banner
Privacy-first traffic analytics you can point at Plausible EU-owned, open source, from $9/mo
The simplest possible dashboard Fathom One screen, unlimited sites, from $15/mo
Free and open source, self-hosted Umami MIT licensed, free cloud tier at 100k events
The closest thing to a full GA replacement Matomo Goals, funnels, heatmaps, self-host free
Product analytics, replay and feature flags PostHog 1M events a month free
Which channels bring customers who pay and stay Ripples Free until $1K MRR

In full

Nine tools, and what each one is actually for.

01

Plausible

Privacy-first traffic analytics, done properly

From $9/mo Free: 30-day trial

The tool most people mean when they say "GA alternative". Open source, EU-owned, EU-hosted, cookieless by default, and a single-page dashboard that is genuinely pleasant to read. Revenue means ecommerce revenue goals on the Business plan from $19, and there is no ad-spend side at all.

Strength
The best-regarded product in the category, and a company with a long public track record of not bloating it.
Limitation
No free tier, no billing connection, no retention cohorts. Traffic is the job.

Pick it if Privacy is part of what you tell your users, and traffic reporting is what you need.

Plausible website Ripples vs Plausible

02

Fathom Analytics

The simplest dashboard, unlimited sites

From $15/mo Free: 7-day trial

One screen, nothing to configure, no cookie banner, EU isolation available, and unlimited sites on every plan. Fathom has been independent and profitable for years and has resisted adding almost everything.

Strength
Unlimited sites at a flat price is unusual, and the product takes zero thought to run.
Limitation
No free plan at all. Their own pricing FAQ answers "do you have a lower or free option?" with "Nope."

Pick it if You run several small sites and want one bill and one screen.

Fathom Analytics website Ripples vs Fathom Analytics

03

Umami

Free and open source, self-hosted or cloud

Free, or $20/mo cloud Free: Yes, 100k events a month

MIT licensed, easy to self-host next to something you already run, and Umami Cloud has a real free tier rather than a trial. Traffic, referrers, goals, and a retention report.

Strength
The best genuinely free option in the category, in both hosted and self-hosted form.
Limitation
No billing connection and no ad-spend view, so revenue questions stay unanswered.

Pick it if Free matters more than revenue attribution, or you already self-host things.

Umami website Ripples vs Umami

04

Matomo

The closest thing to a full GA4 replacement

Self-host free, cloud from around €29/mo Free: Self-hosted only

The most feature-complete alternative by a distance: goals, funnels, heatmaps, session recording, ecommerce, tag manager, and full data ownership if you self-host. It is also the heaviest, and it is aimed at organisations with someone to run it.

Strength
If you actually used GA4 features and miss them, Matomo is the one that has them.
Limitation
Cloud pricing starts well above the rest of this list, and self-hosting is real work.

Pick it if You need GDPR-grade data ownership and the full feature surface.

Matomo website

05

PostHog

Product analytics, replay, flags and experiments

Free, then usage-based Free: Yes, around 1M events a month

Not really a GA replacement, a platform: product analytics, session replay, feature flags, experiments, surveys and a warehouse, with an unusually large free allowance. It also has Stripe revenue analytics and an ad-spend feature in beta, though the two are not joined into a payback number.

Strength
One tool for behaviour, replay and experimentation, free for most small products.
Limitation
Configuration is the price of admission, and usage-based costs across several products are hard to predict.

Pick it if You want to watch sessions and ship feature flags, not just count visits.

PostHog website Ripples vs PostHog

06

Cloudflare Web Analytics

Free basic traffic numbers with no thought

Free Free: Yes

If your site is already behind Cloudflare, this is a checkbox. No cookies, no consent banner, no script to maintain if you use the server-side option. Pageviews, referrers, countries, core web vitals.

Strength
Free, private and about as low-effort as analytics gets.
Limitation
Shallow. No goals, no funnels, no revenue, no retention.

Pick it if You just want to know whether anyone visited, and you already use Cloudflare.

Cloudflare Web Analytics website

07

Rybbit

The fast-moving open-source newcomer

Self-host free, paid cloud plans Free: Self-hosted, and a cloud tier

AGPL, over 12,000 GitHub stars, and one of the better-looking dashboards in the category. Traffic-focused, with sessions, funnels, journeys and web vitals. No revenue or ad-spend features at the time of writing.

Strength
Moving quickly, open source, and pleasant to use.
Limitation
Young, and traffic only. Nothing here answers a revenue question.

Pick it if You like backing the newer open-source option and traffic is the job.

Rybbit website

08

DataFast

Revenue-first analytics for indie founders

From $9/mo Free: 14-day trial

The most direct competitor to Ripples and the more established of the two. Connects Stripe to your traffic, reports LTV and ROAS, and integrates Meta Ads. No Google Ads, no retention cohorts, and no free tier.

Strength
Proven, popular, and the Meta Ads integration is real.
Limitation
Meta only on the spend side, and ROAS on the click day rather than a payback period.

Pick it if Your acquisition budget goes to Facebook and Instagram.

DataFast website Ripples vs DataFast

09

Ripples

Ours

Which channels bring customers who pay and stay

Free until $1K MRR, then $9/mo Free: Yes, until $1K MRR

Ours, so read this last and with suspicion. One script tag, plus a Stripe, Paddle, Polar or Lemon Squeezy connection and your Google Ads account, and the dashboard shows revenue and retention against the channel that brought each customer, and how many days until a channel has paid back what it cost.

Strength
The ad spend, the subscription revenue and the retention curve are joined by default, with nothing to configure.
Limitation
Useless before you have revenue, hosted only, and no session replay, heatmaps, flags or experiments. Past roughly $10K MRR you should be on PostHog, Amplitude or Mixpanel.

Pick it if You sell a subscription, you spend money on acquisition, and you want to know whether it comes back.

Ripples website

Read this bit

A vendor wrote this list. Here is how to weigh it.

We sell one of the nine tools on this page, so you should read it the way you would read any list written by someone with something to sell. Three things we can tell you that make it easier to check.

We take no affiliate commission from anyone here

Not from one tool on this page. That is worth stating because at least one direct competitor pays 50% commission on referrals, which is a good part of why published reviews in this category are so uniformly enthusiastic.

Ours is last, and its limitations are in the same box as everyone else's

Ripples is useless before you have revenue, hosted only, and the wrong tool past roughly $10K MRR. Those are in the entry, not buried on another page.

Every price links to the vendor's own page

Prices are as of August 2026. If one is wrong, tell us and we will correct it. A list nobody can check is worth nothing to you and nothing to us.

Questions

What people ask before switching.

What is the best Google Analytics alternative in 2026?
There is no single best one, because GA4 does several unrelated jobs. For privacy-first traffic analytics, Plausible. For the simplest possible dashboard, Fathom. For free and open source, Umami. For the closest thing to a full GA4 feature replacement, Matomo. For product analytics with session replay and feature flags, PostHog. For connecting ad spend and subscription revenue to see which channels pay back, Ripples.
Is there a free Google Analytics alternative?
Several. Umami Cloud is free up to 100,000 events a month and free to self-host. Cloudflare Web Analytics is free. PostHog includes around a million events a month free. Ripples is free until your project reaches $1K MRR. Plausible, Fathom and DataFast all run trials rather than free tiers.
Why do people move off Google Analytics 4?
Three reasons, usually. GA4 is built for marketing teams and takes real configuration before it answers anything. Its data model is session and event based, which fits ecommerce far better than subscription software where the money arrives weeks after the signup. And it is an advertising product, which brings cookie consent and, in several EU jurisdictions, regulatory attention.
Which Google Analytics alternative tracks Stripe revenue?
Very few. Ripples connects Stripe, Paddle, Polar and Lemon Squeezy and attributes revenue to the channel that brought each customer. DataFast connects Stripe. PostHog has Stripe revenue analytics. Plausible supports ecommerce revenue goals on its Business plan. Fathom, Umami, Matomo, Rybbit and Cloudflare have no billing connection.
Can I keep Google Analytics and add one of these?
Yes, and it is the normal way to switch. All of these are a script tag, none of them conflict with GA4, and running both for a month tells you whether the numbers agree before you turn anything off.

If the last row of that table was your question.

One script tag. Free until $1K MRR. No credit card.