[openplatypus]

As a founder in this space, it not as bad as you think. There are niches in this crowded yet broad space.

Plausible - good for self-hosting, but their SaaS is very expensive and FOSS vs SaaS offering differ.

Ahrefs - they will use your traffic to improve your competitor research, you really should use them cautiously.

Matomo - feature rich but can be overwhelming.

Posthog - its SaaS is US based so dismissed early by EU customers.

Clarity, like GA has serious privacy issues.

Our product, Wide Angle Analytics, has its own gotchas compared to competitors - its opinionated and there are folks who do not agree with our opinions, but the landscape of websites is so vast that you find your client nevertheless.

That said, we are still in business after 4 years, and we saw few competitors disappear or get acquired and extinguished.

So, all the best to the OP. Hope you find your niche :)

[rmonvfer]

Just for the record, I use PostHog in my Europe-based startup. They have a EU region so it’s not a problem for us.

[teddyh]

There are some indications that this may soon no longer be sufficient.

[openplatypus]

It is US company. Does not matter where server resides. If server is in EU but under US jurisdiction (US company) that can be (needs checking) treated as International Data Transfer.

[meander_water]

There's a bunch more listed here as well https://github.com/oxnr/awesome-analytics

[nm980]

What's your sales strategy? Is cold calling companies with google analytics installed on their websites more effective than the blog? Have you been able to retain Next.js users after Vercel released Web Analytics?

[gregjw]

Surprised no ones talked about Fathom Analytics. My alternative of choice.

[herpdyderp]

Why do you prefer Fathom?

[flashblaze]

I'm using Clarity and was under the impression it was better than GA

[rossjudson]

What are the privacy issues with GA and Clarity?

[CGMthrowaway]

What about Amplitude?

[bill_yang]

This is pretty spot on. There's a couple of dimensions the major players sit on, and there's enough combinations that there's plenty of space for smaller players to survive in.

I'm not super familiar with all of these products, so some of these ratings will be based on vibes

1-----------------10

OSS <-> Proprietary

Small business <-> Enterprise

Simplicity <-> Complexity

Web analytics <-> Product analytics

Privacy <-> No privacy

# Rybbit (me) - just launched $0

OSS/Proprietary - 2

I use AGPL 3.0 which isn't as permissive as MIT

Small business/Enterprise - 5

I definitely want enterprises to use Rybbit, but it's hard to target them at this stage

Simplicity/Complexity - 6.5

I think Rybbit is going to end up as one of the more feature-rich OS analytics tools, but I hope it stays easy to use (famous last words)

Web analytics/Product analytics - 4

Want to target both eventually, but my product analytics is weaker relatively

Privacy/No privacy - 3

Can be as GDPR compliant as others, but can also be configured to be a bit more invasive

# Posthog - ~15M ARR

OSS/Proprietary - 4

Have a bunch of enterprise licensed parts of their repo and they tell people in their docs to not self-host it because it's too difficult.

Small business/Enterprise - 8

Seems like they hook startups in with generous free tiers and then milk the unicorns that come out

Simplicity/Complexity - 10

The scope of Posthog is awe inspiring. They are literally 10 startups in 1

Web analytics/Product analytics - 8

I believe product analytics was their first feature

Privacy/No privacy - 7

I think they use cookies?

# Google Analytics

OSS/Proprietary - 10

Small business/Enterprise - 9

Free for everyone but it's clear they don't care about regular users that want to track their small site

Simplicity/Complexity - 8

If there was a dimension for usability it would be 11/10 totally unusable

Web analytics/Product analytics - 6

Not too sure about this one

Privacy/No privacy - 9

i mean it's google

# Mixpanel - $200m ARR

I'm the least familiar with this one

OSS/Proprietary - 9

Small business/Enterprise - 8

Simplicity/Complexity - 8

Web analytics/Product analytics - 9

Privacy/No privacy - 7

# Umami - unknown ARR (maybe 500K?)

OSS/Proprietary - 1

MIT license, no enterprise only features from what I see

Small business/Enterprise - 5

Seem to have some big names on their site

Simplicity/Complexity - 4

Web analytics/Product analytics - 5

Privacy/No privacy - 5 They claim GDPR compliance but I've self hosted it and they clearly fingerprint users without any obvious opt out.

# Plausible - ~2m ARR

OSS/Proprietary - 4

AGPL v3 and some a some enterprise features the community version doesn't have. Also they use Elixir so i doubt anyone actually reads it/s

Small business/Enterprise - 6

Have to be selling to enterprises with that ARR

Simplicity/Complexity - 3

Tool is very simple at the surface, but there's a lot of config options under the hood

Web analytics/Product analytics - 3

Mostly just web analytics

Privacy/No privacy - 2

This is a big focus for them

# Simple Analytics ~500k ARR

OSS/Proprietary - 8

Closed source, but they are an open startup that shares their financials

Small business/Enterprise - 3

They show some big names, but the creator is an indie hacker

Simplicity/Complexity - 2

Self explanatory

Web analytics/Product analytics - 2

Privacy/No privacy - 2

Very GDPR compliance focused

If this was a multi-dimensional vector, I'm trying to fill the space between something like Posthog and Plausible, where we are as open source as either of them and fill the missing space between extreme simplicity and extreme complexity.

[GordonS]

This really does look like a great project!

Is it possible to use it server-side only, with no JavaScript required? I currently use Umami like that - it has an API, so I can send it page view events and custom events from server-side code. That means analytics can't be disabled by uBlock or the like, or by disabling JavaScript.

[withinboredom]

I also have my own analytics service on serverside, and it is sooo vastly different from the client-side analytics. The client side only sees ~5-10% of what I see on the server side -- even after filtering out bots and the like.

[bill_yang]

I'm going to add an API soon!

[stuartjohnson12]

> Posthog - its SaaS is US based so dismissed early by EU customers.

Posthog has had an EU server for years. I'm not sure what you mean by this.

[withinboredom]

An EU server isn't enough. Those EU servers should be operated and maintained by an EU subsidy that licenses the tech from the US company. In other words, even if the US company wanted the data served by the EU company, they couldn't get to it.

[openplatypus]

It is US company. It does not matter where the servers are physically located.

[_heimdall]

It would be quite funny to reply to an NSA request by saying "Oh yeah, I have that data and can access it but its on a server in the EU. I can get it, but I won't."

I genuinely don't know how they would proceed, but it'd be interesting to watch.

[guappa]

Probably randomly find 3kg of cocaine on your person.

[jillyboel]

Some not-so-friendly men in suits will show up at your house. Afterwards you will most certainly comply.

[tonyhart7]

I mean if you can even refuse that, this is national agency we talking about

They can physically tap global internet cable just because they can

[tonyhart7]

ok if that possible, what makes EU agency not doing the same to EU base company then???

[danielheath]

EU doesn’t have that kind of agency.

Member states have spy agencies, but they also signed treaties to join the EU. Having your spy agency violate international treaties isn’t something most governments allow.

[blitzar]

If the company or individual is in a country, expect they can be compelled to hand over everything in their possession by a court order (or it can be siezed).

If the information is stored in a country, expect that the owner of the information can be compelled to hand it over by a court order (or it can be seized).

[__m]

The EU doesn't have something like the CLOUD Act, so they wouldn't be able to do that.

[_heimdall]

Well the EU absolutely could do the same thing. If an EU-based company had servers in the US, I would expect the EU could compel them to hand over data despite where the data is stored.

[bjelkeman-again]

The EU doesn’t do law enforcement. That is a national concern. But a legal request from one country to another may well happen.

[tom_y]

Niche markets always allow good products to survive.