A client came to us recently with a concern about privacy in the recording and reporting of their website visitors. Specifically, they wanted to get rid of Google Analytics and replace it with a different stats tracking service. Apparently, they thought Google was using their clients’ browsing data for nefarious purposes 🤔.
Well, I’m sure they weren’t completely wrong in that concern.
The solution we’ve been recommending lately is not as feature-rich as GA; it also doesn’t require a multi-year degree to use and understand at a professional level every time a new version is released.
Enter: Fathom Analytics
Fathom is a Canadian company and the data is stored on German-owned servers so it’s legal to use per the EU DPA ruling. It’s not a free service, but the pricing is quite reasonable for a commercial website and even better if paid annually.
You can manage multiple sites from one account and the UI is super-simple:
If you need to share the stats with other users, Fathom provides a share url and optional password:
You can also create simple events to track e-com goals or simulate a funnel:
I will admit that this is definitely a more simplistic stats service right now. It’s not going to fit the needs of everyone, but it will work just fine for quite a few website owners.
Fathom also has quite a few features on their roadmap, and their changelog is updated every month, so they are serious about becoming a strong competitor in the analytics space. For those needing a non-GA stats solution, check out Fathom.
