Looking for an alternative to Google Analytics for your website? Then you might like to find out more about the following WordPress plugins.

Whether we like it or not, when we’re online, we’re subjected to countless methods of tracking how we interact with a website. As well as how we arrived at the website, paths we’re taking and a lot more besides. With the advent of GDPR (if you’re in the EU) things are tough for website owners, complying with laws left-right and of course centre.

With that in mind, we’re going to dive into some privacy-focused statistical/analytical WordPress plugins. Great for those who value their visitor’s privacy or want to use something different to Google Analytics. Let’s get started!

*Please note the statistics shown in the imagery on this roundup are actual site stats, not made up ones. They show real-world usage and how the plugins mentioned show the data.

Koko Analytics

Koko Analytics does precisely what it says on the tin. It’s a privacy friendly plugin to chart visitors coming to your website. It’s a breeze to install, find it through your WordPress backend or download it from WordPress.org.

Koko counts page views, visitors and referrers, as well as returning visitors and new visitors. Koko is quick, so no need to worry if you experience a traffic spike. Another useful feature in Koko is the ability to stop specific user roles showing up in your stats. By this we mean administrator, editor, author, etc.

Privacy focussed analytics WordPress plugins - Koko Analytics

Koko Analytics uses a cookie for better tracking, but if you don’t want to set a cookie you can disable this in the settings. Keep in mind that the stats would be less reliable if this is disabled. Also, Koko is compatible with AMP pages if you’re using AMP, as well as being compatible with caching plugins. All stats are kept in your site and not shared with third parties, plus you can set your stats to auto-delete after a specific timeframe through the settings page.

Another cool feature in Koko analytics is the ability to add a widget to your sidebar (or area of choice), highlighting the most viewed posts. Give your widget a title, choose the post type, select from posts, pages, media or indeed a custom post type if you have them enabled. You can also select the time frame to show stats from, seven days, thirty days, ninety days or a year.

Lastly, you can choose the number of posts to show, and whether or not you want to display the post date. A pretty cool feature indeed, and useful for visitors to see what’s hot on your site so to speak.

With a simple no-frills interface, Koko Analytics shows you the stats that matter, without complicating things with stats you don’t need.

Koko Analytics is entirely free to use and well worth a look.

Statify

Statify offers visitor stats but with a real focus on data protection. In fact, out of the solutions listed, it’s probably the most minimalist of all.

Privacy focussed analytics WordPress plugins - Statify

That’s not a bad thing if you want to know what your most popular content is, the top referral sites and of course the target page they subsequently landed on.

It’s incredibly simple to use, housed in your dashboard (your landing page once logged into WordPress) stats display in a handy widget.

Privacy focussed analytics WordPress plugins - Statify

Clicking on the widget lets you configure a few options. It’s here you can choose the time period to save data from, the number of entries in the top lists (referrers), select whether or not to enable page tracking via JavaScript, which the plugin recommends if you’re using a caching plugin. And lastly, skip tracking from referrers listed in the comment blacklist.

Scant information in terms of tracking, granted. Not ideal for stat junkies again that’s a given. Easy to use? Yes. Useful? Yes.

Despite its lack of reporting functionality, if you’re looking for a privacy focussed solution that’s easy to use and is barebones, Statify is a good choice.

Statify is available freely over on WordPress.org.

WP Statistics

A bit of a beast when it comes to statistics, with a boatload of options available to you to utilise. WP Statistics is actually free on WordPress.org with a premium addon available for more functionality.

Privacy focussed analytics WordPress plugins - WP Statistics

WP Statistics is fully GPDR compliant, with the ability to anonymise IP addresses for more privacy focussed approach to tracking stats. An excellent feature for those who are conscious of their visitor’s privacy.

WP Statistics has some lovely looking graphs and charts available with plenty of filtering options. You can see referring sites, most popular content, search words from Bing, recent visitors and your top 10 pages.

What we do like about WP Statistics is that the information is laid out nicely for you. In your admin sidebar in the backend, you will find a pie chart with the words Statistics here. Clicking on this you can get:

  • an overview,
  • hits,
  • who’s online,
  • referrers,
  • search words,
  • search engines,
  • pages visited,
  • visitors,
  • categories viewed,
  • tags viewed,
  • popular authors,
  • browsers used and
  • top visitors today.

So you can drill down the info you need, very quickly.

There’s so much to list here; it would go on and on! If however, you’d like a stat solution that does offer privacy via an options panel and lots of charts, and other features – WP Statistics could be a good choice for your needs.

Remember WP Statistics is available for free on WordPress.org and there’s also a premium add on available.

Slimstat

Another beast of a stat plugin, with more options than you can shake a very angry stick at! Slimstat is GPDR compliant and incorporates a cookie popup (customizable) with opt-out options; this compared to the others sets it apart.

You will not need a separate plugin for highlighting your cookie policy, which is pretty cool. Couple this with a privacy mode, to mask visitors IP addresses, and optional set cookies, Slimstat has privacy covered.

Privacy focussed analytics WordPress plugins - Slimstat

Options wise, again like we said there’s a lot on offer. The overview page gives you a real insight into what’s going on or has been going on site-wise. You can drill down here, choose different parameters for the data, filter by date and dimension and more. Things like:

  • currently online,
  • recent search terms,
  • top pages,
  • top referring domains,
  • top search terms and
  • more besides.

In your sidebar in the WP admin, you will have a Slimstat menu item, and here you have options that house different segments, from real-time stats, an overview, audience, site analysis, traffic sources, customization, settings and add-ons.

Slimstat has a wealth of paid-for add-ons which include the following:

user overview, users by IP address, track cookies, network analytics, Maxmind integration, IP address fix, IP2Location integration, IPINFODM integration, Heatmap, heartbeat, export to Excel, email reports, default filters, Custom DB and author overview.

Or you could choose the bundle option, which is all of the above in one bundle, or only pay for what you need.

Slimstat is a good all-rounder, it might be overkill for some, but for those who yearn for as much information as possible, it could be a good choice.

Slimstat base version is available for free on WordPress.org.

So which privacy focussed analytics plugin should you choose?

Well, we’d recommend you play around with all of them, they are all available freely on WordPress.org. It’s hard to make a recommendation as everyone’s usage cases will be different.

If you want something lightweight and straightforward, we’d go for Koko, want something with more meat on the bones? Well, we’d probably plump for WP Statistics, these choices are what we’d go for, your choice could be something completely different!

What will you use? Let us know with a comment, or if you have a solution you’d like to mention, again let us know!

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