When I’ve removed all plugins and services using cookies, I’ve also cut ties with Google Analytics. But I still wanted to have a plugin that would give me some statistics and insights into my websites and the content that is read most often. I was using three potential replacements simultaneously, while still having Google Analytics as a reference. The two more “simple plugins” will be covered today.
What does Koko Analytics do?
The Koko Analytics plugin does not offer a ton of statistics, but the major onces are on board in the free version (there is also a premium one, which I have never tested, and don’t really need). It does track page views and also shows where people are coming from. It does not list things like countries, devices types, screen resolutions, search term, or other metrics. But it does offer a nice dashboard widget which shows the top pages and referrers of the day. You can exclude user roles from tracking and exclude static IP addresses.
The tracking can be set to “cookie”, which can be used to detect repeated pageviews. This requires a cookie policy and/or consent. There is also a (new) “cookieless” option, that tries to detect repeated visits without a cookie. I use the legacy “none” setting, which does not really care about unique or repeated pageviews.
All data can be deleted after a certain period, unless you set this period to zero, to never delete data (which I would usually do). All in all, it’s a nice little statistics plugin, if you only care about how many pages/posts were viewed each day.
What does Statify do?
This is another plugin of the Pluginkollektiv, but I don’t regularly contribute to this one. So, how is the Statify plugin different to Koko Analytics? It is even simpler, as it only offers a dashboard widget with the latest pageviews and referrers. You can set the period of days to show in the widget, and you can also set a deletion period (or set it to zero, to not delete old statistics). Just like Koko Analytics, it is very privacy-friendly, as it does not set any cookies. It doesn’t even offer an option that would set a cookies, unlike Koko Analytics.
More statistics with the “Statify – Extended Evaluation” add-on
There are a few add-ons to Statify, and I use one of them myself: Statify – Extended Evaluation. This plugin will soon be integrated into Statify, and it extends the statistics with overviews of pageviews per month and year. It also gives you a view of the most popular pages, posts, and other public post types (like episodes on my podcast website). You can also use it to export the stats into a CSV file.
Why do I use those plugins?
I use Koko Analytics and Statify (in combination with Statify – Extended Evaluation) on different pages, depending on the needs I have. On this blog, I do use Koko Analytics, as Statify was tracking too many “false positives” (potentially some bots, who like my blog) and it was too much off from what Google Analytics was showing me in numbers.
Conclusion
If you need a privacy-friendly (and cookieless) plugin, either of the two can serve you well. But you’ll only get limited statistics, mainly pageviews and referrers. I also use another statistics plugin, that give you a lot more, but more on that tomorrow.
Do you use one of the two plugin? Or maybe one of the other free (or premium) statistics plugins out there? Then share them in a comment.