Google Analytics and privacy-friendly alternatives

You need traffic data. You do not need five analytics plugins or a stale feature matrix that pretends every product stays the same for years.

The short comparison

Approach	Strength	Tradeoff
Google Analytics 4	Familiar reports, free, huge ecosystem	Privacy policy work, consent banners in many regions, Google account dependency
Matomo (self-hosted or cloud)	More control over data	You operate (or pay for) the stack
Plausible / Fathom / similar	Lightweight, privacy-oriented marketing	Fewer deep exploration features than GA
Host or CDN analytics	Often “good enough” traffic counts	Limited marketing attribution

Choose based on legal needs, budget, and how deep your reports must go. Revisit consent and cookie notices with your own counsel; this is not legal advice.

WordPress install hygiene

• Prefer one analytics method (plugin, tag manager, or host integration)
• Delete unused tracking plugins
• Review what the plugin loads on every page
• Same security bar as any extension: how to tell if a WordPress plugin is secure

Analytics scripts that load from third parties expand your supply chain. Keep the rest of the site on the WordPress security checklist. Numbers do not help if the site is redirected to malware.