If you want to understand more about on-premise web analytics software, or open source web analytics tools in general, you’ve come to the right place. Our goal with this post is to help you better understand what these different tools are and if they’re the right fit for your company.
Are you looking to learn about on premise web analytics software? Or about open source web analytics tools? Read below for a list of the best web analytics software. If you’re considering a move from a free, hosted tool to an on premise solution, your first question will probably be “what is the best web analytics software for my company?”
Matomo
Let’s start with the open source application that rivals Google Analytics for functions: Matomo (formerly known as Piwik). Matomo does most of what Google Analytics does, and chances are it offers the features that you need.
Those features include metrics on the number of visitors hitting your site, data on where they come from (both on the web and geographically), the pages from which they leave, and the ability to track search engine referrals. Matomo also offers many reports, and you can customize the dashboard to view the metrics that you want to see.
To make your life easier, Matomo integrates with more than 65 content management, e-commerce, and online forum systems, including WordPress, Magneto, Joomla, and vBulletin, using plugins. For any others, you can simply add a tracking code to a page on your site.
You can test-drive Matomo or use a hosted version.
Open Web Analytics
If there’s a close second to Matomo in the open source web analytics stakes, it’s Open Web Analytics. In fact, it includes key features that either rival Google Analytics or leave it in the dust.
In addition to the usual raft of analytics and reporting functions, Open Web Analytics tracks where on a page, and on what elements, visitors click; provides heat maps that show where on a page visitors interact the most; and even does e-commerce tracking.
Open Web Analytics has a WordPress plugin and can integrate with MediaWiki using a plugin. Or you can add a snippet of JavaScript or PHP code to your web pages to enable tracking.
Before you download the Open Web Analytics package, you can give the demo a try to see it it’s right for you.
AWStats
Web server log files provide a rich vein of information about visitors to your site, but tapping into that vein isn’t always easy. That’s where AWStats comes to the rescue. While it lacks the most modern look and feel, AWStats more than makes up for that with breadth of data it can present.
That information includes the number of unique visitors, how long those visitors stay on the site, the operating system and web browsers they use, the size of a visitor’s screen, and the search engines and search terms people use to find your site. AWStats can also tell you the number of times your site is bookmarked, track the pages where visitors enter and exit your sites, and keep a tally of the most popular pages on your site.
These features only scratch the surface of AWStats’s capabilities. It also works with FTP and email logs, as well as syslog files. AWStats can gives you a deep insight into what’s happening on your website using data that stays under your control.
Countly
Countly bills itself as a “secure web analytics” platform. While I can’t vouch for its security, Countly does a solid job of collecting and presenting data about your site and its visitors.
Heavily targeting marketing organizations, Countly tracks data that is important to marketers. That information includes site visitors’ transactions, as well as which campaigns and sources led visitors to your site. You can also create metrics that are specific to your business. Countly doesn’t forgo basic web analytics; it also keeps track of the number of visitors on your site, where they’re from, which pages they visited, and more.
You can use the hosted version of Countly or grab the source code from GitHub and self-host the application. And yes, there are differences between the hosted and self-hosted versions of Countly.
Plausible
Plausible is a newer kid on the open source analytics tools block. It’s lean, it’s fast, and only collects a small amount of information — that includes numbers of unique visitors and the top pages they visited, the number of page views, the bounce rate, and referrers. Plausible is simple and very focused.
What sets Plausible apart from its competitors is its heavy focus on privacy. The project creators state that the tool doesn’t collect or store any information about visitors to your website, which is particularly attractive if privacy is important to you. You can read more about that here.
MixPanel
MixPanel is a real-time web analytics solution that measures user engagement. Its base lies in the conversion funnel design. It has the ability to construct and examine funnels actively to ensure they adjust to the incoming data. This helps in presenting the information in a live and is well refined manner.
Advantages of MixPanel:
- MixPanel has been designed to present real-time web analytics to its customers.
- Its segmentation process gives you more information about your customers
- Track the product retention, to understand your customers by graphing their subsequent visits after their initial visit.
FoxMetrics
FoxMetrics has been designed to track events and trigger a subsequent event that engages customer or leads to goal conversion. For Eg., if a visitor data shows that he has been engaged on your website for quite sometime and has visited many links on your website, FoxMetrics intelligently lets you to trigger and event for the customer to sign up or subscribe for newsletter.
Advantages:
- Lets you to track newsletters, software installations and beyond.
- Lets you to track ad campaigns and measure conversions.
- API based solutions and easily integratable
CustomerEngagePro
CustomerEngagePro Analytics has been applauded for its robust design and advanced, On-Premise analytics solutions it provides. It boasts itself to be a secure analytics solution that follows European Security Norms for Data Security and Privacy. Data Encryption and respecting user privacy stand among the pillars of CustomerEngagePro Analytics. It does not limit itself to desktops, laptops and personal computers but has been designed to extend its solutions to Enterprise web Analytics and Mobile App Analytics.
Advantages:
- Easy to use by appending a simple JS tracking code on your website.
- Real-time web Analytics software making way for data-driven decision making.
- Mobile App Analytics
- Magento and WordPress Plugins for easy E-commerce integration
- Goal setup and tracking conversions
- Track Unlimited websites on single platform
- Enterprise-wide software installation and usage tracking
- Customizable analytics solution based on Business Needs.
Conclusion:
You have probably heard of Google Analytics by now, probably the most famous web analytics programming. And you have heard about their competitors, mainly Yahoo! Web Analytics. You are probably wondering why you should use one or the other when both tools are capable of doing the job.