How to choose web analytics
Pick the tool that helps with the decisions you make every week—not the one with the longest feature list.
1. Write down your weekly question
If the question is “how many people visited, where did they come from, and which goals were reached?”, a focused cookieless tool is enough. If the question is “which individual users went through a 40-step sign-up process, across all their devices?”, you need a specialised product analytics tool.
2. Decide on hosting and legal requirements
- Must visitor statistics stay in the EU, with a named data processor?
- Are you willing to run your own server, or do you want a hosted service?
- Would analytics cookies require a cookie banner in the countries you serve?
PureMetrix: hosted in the EU at Hetzner, no visitor cookies, DPA (data processing agreement) available. Whether you still need a banner depends on all the other tools on your site—ask your legal adviser.
3. Count the setup and maintenance effort
Script size, tracking page changes in single-page apps, whether you need a proxy, and who gets called when the numbers look wrong all belong in the total cost—not only the price tag. Compare paid vs free.
4. Compare honestly
5. Test for a fixed period
Run PureMetrix next to your current tool for two weeks. Check your goals. Don’t expect the numbers to match GA4 exactly—see GA4 accuracy. Then decide.
Last updated: September 2026