The best Google Analytics alternative depends on which part of GA4 you are trying to escape. If it is the cookie banner, any cookieless tool removes it. If it is the sampling, look for a tool that says outright that it does not sample. If it is the complexity, the answer is a tool with one screen. This page lists the credible options and says which problem each one solves, including the several where DataSpice is not the answer.
Why people leave Google Analytics 4
Four reasons account for almost every migration, and they are not the same problem. Consent: GA4 sets first-party cookies by default, which in the EU and UK puts a banner in front of your data and loses every visitor who declines. Sampling: GA4 samples explorations above processing thresholds and suppresses low-volume rows, so two reports of the same period can disagree. Complexity: explorations, custom dimensions and event design are a skill, and most founders do not want to acquire it. Ownership: the data is processed by Google on Google's terms.
Which of those four is yours decides the entire shortlist below. A tool that fixes consent may do nothing about complexity, and the reverse.
The cookieless, deliberately simple options
These set no cookies, need no consent banner, and show you one screen rather than a reporting suite. They are the right answer if your complaint about GA4 is the banner, the learning curve, or both.
Plausible is open source, self-hostable and mature, with a Stats API on its higher tiers. It is the safest choice on this list for pure web analytics, and the one we point people at most often.
Fathom Analytics is cookieless, keeps data for a long time, and includes API access and exports on every plan. Its site allowance is generous, and if you run a lot of small sites that alone often decides it.
Simple Analytics is the most minimal of the three, and the most opinionated about staying that way.
DataSpice is cookieless with no sampling, and it is the only one here that puts Apple App Store Connect and Stripe revenue in the same workspace as the traffic. It is also new, has no public customer base yet, and has no data export.
The self-hosted options, if the data must stay yours
Pick one of these when the requirement is that nothing leaves infrastructure you control. All of them are open source and all of them are work to operate.
Matomo has the deepest feature set of any privacy-focused analytics tool and is a genuine GA4 replacement in scope. It is also the heaviest to run and to learn.
Umami is light, fast and free if you are willing to host it. A database and an evening.
PostHog is self-hostable and does far more than web analytics. It covers funnels, retention, session replay, feature flags and experiments.
The free options that are good enough for many sites
If the honest answer is "I just want to know whether anyone is reading this", stop here and save your money.
Cloudflare Web Analytics is free, cookieless, and roughly a toggle if you are already behind Cloudflare. You get pageviews, referrers, countries and core web vitals, and nothing else.
Umami, self-hosted is free in licence terms, at the price of running it.
GA4 itself is still free, and still the only one with native Google Ads integration. If you buy traffic from Google, do not remove it. Add something beside it.
When you should not leave Google Analytics 4
Do not migrate if you run paid acquisition through Google Ads. GA4's audience and conversion integration is the one thing on this page nothing else replaces, and losing it to gain a cleaner interface is a bad trade. Do not migrate if you depend on multi-touch attribution modelling or on the free BigQuery export. And do not migrate expecting your numbers to match: they will not, because every tool on this list defines a session differently.
The common outcome is not replacement. It is running a cookieless tool as the number you trust, and leaving GA4 in place for the ad platform.
How to choose between them in one afternoon
Answer these in order and the list shortens itself fast.
Do you buy traffic from Google? If yes, keep GA4 and add something beside it.
Must the data stay on your own servers? If yes, the list is Matomo, Umami or self-hosted PostHog.
Do you need funnels, cohorts or session replay? If yes, PostHog.
Do you need to get the data out again, by API or export? If yes, Fathom or Plausible.
Do you also ship an iOS app, or take money through Stripe, and want that beside the traffic? If yes, DataSpice.
If none of the above applies, take the free one and move on.