Leaving Google Analytics: the alternatives, and what we chose

On 6 October 2026, we removed Google Analytics from our own site. Not out of activism: when we looked at what we actually used it for, we found we were paying a high price, in speed and in visitor comfort, for features we never touched.

A post on this subject is doing the rounds right now, and it is right on the substance: for most sites, Google Analytics has become too big a tool. Here are the reasons to leave, the serious alternatives, and what we chose, including what we lost.

Three reasons to leave

Weight. The Google Analytics 4 tag, often loaded through Tag Manager, adds several dozen KB of JavaScript to download and run. The alternatives fit in a few KB. On a fast site it is often the heaviest file on the page, and it does nothing for the visitor. Our push to score 100 on PageSpeed Insights reminded us of that at every measurement.

Privacy. GA4 sets cookies and also serves Google’s advertising ecosystem. So you need a consent banner, and every visitor who clicks “Reject” vanishes from your statistics. You measure part of your traffic, the part that accepts, while believing you measure everyone. The French data protection authority, the CNIL, exempts audience measurement tools from consent when they meet strict conditions: measurement as the only purpose, anonymous statistics, no cross-referencing with other data, no tracking across sites, according to its rules on audience measurement. A properly configured cookieless tool fits that frame, and the banner is no longer needed for measurement.

Sovereignty. In February 2022, the CNIL ruled that a French site’s use of Google Analytics breached the GDPR because of data transfers to the United States. Since then, in July 2023, the European Union adopted a new transfer framework with the United States, the Data Privacy Framework, which makes those transfers possible again. But it is the third framework of its kind: the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down the previous two. Keeping your statistics in Europe, on a tool you control, means not depending on the next reversal.

One argument sits behind all three: GA4 is designed first to serve advertising, its audiences, its conversions, its retargeting. If you want to understand your site rather than feed an ad network, you are carrying a machine you only use a small part of.

The serious alternatives

• Umami: open source (MIT licence), cookieless, a script of about 2 KB. Self-host it for free, or use the cloud version. Visitors, pages, sources, devices, events and UTM campaigns on a single screen. For whom: most brochure sites, blogs and service sites that want the essentials and simple events.
• Plausible: open source (AGPL licence), cookieless, the lightest script of the lot, hosted in the European Union. Paid as a cloud service, free to self-host. For whom: the same needs as Umami, for those who prefer to pay for a turnkey European service.
• Matomo: open source, the most complete, up to e-commerce tracking and funnels. Can run without cookies, and it is the closest tool to GA4. For whom: online shops and marketing teams that genuinely need detailed analysis.
• Cloudflare Web Analytics: free, cookieless, and it measures the speed real visitors experience (Core Web Vitals). Few options: no custom events, sampled data. For whom: a site already served by Cloudflare that wants simple measurement with nothing to maintain.

And GA4? It keeps a real lead if you run Google Ads campaigns with advanced conversion tracking: conversion import, audiences, automated bidding. In that case the right choice is often to keep it for the campaigns, properly set up with Consent Mode, and to measure site audience with a lighter tool alongside.

What we chose, and why

Our site is served by Cloudflare. So we took Cloudflare Web Analytics: nothing to install or maintain, no cookies, no banner, and Core Web Vitals measured on real visitors, which matters for an agency that sells fast websites. For lead sources, we do not need an analytics tool: the source and campaign of each visit are recorded with the contact form and arrive with the request in our CRM.

What we lost, honestly: events (how many clicks on “Book a call”, how far an article is read), campaign detail and long history. And Cloudflare is still an American company: on sovereignty, it is only half an answer.

That is why the next step, for us and for clients with the same needs, is to add Umami hosted on our own server: events and conversions, with data that never leaves our hands, for a near-zero hosting cost. Cloudflare keeps the speed measurement.

How to choose for your site

1. 01List the three questions you really ask your statistics.

   Most often: how many visitors, where they come from, which pages lead them to contact us.

2. 02Check whether you run Google Ads campaigns.

   If you do, GA4 stays useful for them, alongside a light tool for the site.

3. 03Choose between hosting and paying.

   Umami or Matomo on your server, or turnkey Plausible.

4. 04Run the old and new tool side by side for a month.

   The numbers will not match, because the new one also counts visitors who used to reject cookies.

5. 05Remove GA4, then the banner if it no longer serves anything else.

   Check that no other service (video, ads, chat) still sets cookies.

The last step is the one people forget: removing GA4 does not remove the banner if a standard YouTube embed or an ad pixel still sets its cookies. On our site, videos use the cookieless version of the player.

Sources

1. CNIL: consent exemption conditions for audience measurement (new tab)cnil.fr
2. CNIL: Google Analytics and data transfers to the United States (new tab)cnil.fr
3. European Commission: Data Privacy Framework adequacy decision (new tab)ec.europa.eu