What is Google Analytics used for?

Google Analytics is Google's web and app analytics service, helping businesses understand visitors and use the insights to improve sites and build audiences. It is a good fit for measuring website traffic and conversions, building audiences for ad campaigns, and enterprises connecting analytics and advertising.

Is Google Analytics open source?

No. Google Analytics is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Google Analytics include Open Web Analytics, Umami and Plausible.

What are some alternatives to Google Analytics?

Google Analytics competes with Mixpanel, Amplitude and Simple Analytics. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Google Analytics alternatives.

Google Analytics: features, pricing and alternatives

About Google Analytics

Google Analytics is Google's analytics product for measuring how people find and use websites and apps. It gives businesses insight into their customers, which they can use to improve a site, create tailored audience lists and inform marketing decisions.

It is part of Google Marketing Platform, which also includes Tag Manager for managing tags without editing code, and advertising products such as Campaign Manager 360 and Display and Video 360. The vendor describes free, easy-to-use solutions for small businesses and a single platform for enterprises that links advertising and analytics so teams can act on customer insights faster.

Google Analytics is a proprietary service run by Google in the cloud and cannot be self-hosted. A free version is widely used, with enterprise options available through the Marketing Platform. Some teams choose privacy-focused or self-hosted analytics tools instead if they prefer not to send visitor data to Google.

Key features

Website and app traffic analytics
Audience lists for tailored marketing
Insights on customer behavior
Tag Manager integration
Links with Google advertising products
Free version for small businesses

Good fit for

→Measuring website traffic and conversions
→Building audiences for ad campaigns
→Enterprises connecting analytics and advertising

Tags: web-analytics; marketing-analytics; google; tag-management; audiences; reporting

Google Analytics: questions and answers

What is Google Analytics used for?: Google Analytics is Google's web and app analytics service, helping businesses understand visitors and use the insights to improve sites and build audiences. It is a good fit for measuring website traffic and conversions, building audiences for ad campaigns, and enterprises connecting analytics and advertising.
Is Google Analytics open source?: No. Google Analytics is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Google Analytics include Open Web Analytics, Umami and Plausible.
What are some alternatives to Google Analytics?: Google Analytics competes with Mixpanel, Amplitude and Simple Analytics. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Google Analytics alternatives.