Simplytics vs Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free and enormously powerful. But for most websites it is overkill that arrives with real costs: a cookie consent banner for EU visitors, a heavy script, day-old reports, and an interface built for analysts. Simplytics covers the essentials — visitors, views, referrers, sessions — live, with no cookies and no banner, for $1 a month.
| Simplytics | Google Analytics | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1/month | Free (GA360 from ~$50,000/year) |
| Cookies | None | Yes — _ga cookies, 2-year lifetime |
| EU consent banner needed | No | Yes, before the script loads |
| Script size (compressed) | ~1.9 KB | ~140 KB (measured June 2026) |
| Reports | Live | Up to 24–48 h processing delay |
| User-level data stored | None at all | 2 or 14 months retention |
| Sampling / thresholding | Never | On large queries and demographics |
| Analytics data location | EU (Warsaw) | US transfer under the Data Privacy Framework |
| View-counter badge (site & per-page) | Yes — live SVG | No |
| Setup | One script tag | Tags, consent mode, configuration |
Prices and features verified from official Google Analytics pages, June 2026. Script sizes are compressed transfer sizes.
Where Google Analytics is better
- It is free, forever, at any traffic volume.
- Deep integration with Google Ads — if you buy ads, GA attribution is unmatched.
- Enterprise-grade features: BigQuery export, audiences, predictive metrics.
Where Simplytics is better
- No cookie banner: we set no cookies and store no personal data, so there is nothing to ask consent for.
- A ~1.9 KB script instead of ~140 KB — your pages stay fast.
- Live numbers instead of waiting a day for processed reports.
- A dashboard you understand in ten seconds, not ten training videos.
- Raw visit records are deleted every night — only anonymous daily totals are kept, forever.
Which should you pick?
If you run paid ad campaigns or need enterprise-depth analysis, keep Google Analytics. If you mainly open analytics to see how many people visited, which pages they read, and where they came from — Simplytics gives you exactly that without the banner, the weight, or the wait.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Analytics illegal in the EU?
No. After 2022-era rulings against it, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (2023) made properly-configured Google Analytics lawful again — though you still need a consent banner. The framework survived its first legal challenge (the EU General Court dismissed it in September 2025), but an appeal is now pending before the EU Court of Justice. Simplytics avoids the question entirely: no cookies, no personal data, no US transfer of analytics data.
Do I need a cookie banner with Simplytics?
No. The script sets no cookies and we store no personal data. Visitors are counted with an anonymous hash that is rotated daily and the raw records are deleted every night.
Can Simplytics fully replace Google Analytics?
For visitor counts, pages, referrers, sessions, bounce rate, custom events, outbound clicks, and funnels — yes. For ad-campaign attribution and enterprise reporting — no, and we are honest about that.
Compare Simplytics with others: vs Plausible · vs Fathom · vs Simple Analytics · vs Matomo