Netlify Analytics First Impressions
<p>My new website is hosted on <a href="https://www.netlify.com">Netlify</a>, which is an <strong>awesome</strong> service for hosting static websites. Recently, <a href="https://www.netlify.com/blog/2019/07/10/netlify-analytics---accurate-insights-without-performance-impacts/">they launched an Analytics Platform</a> as an alternative to Google Analytics. My impressions of this new tool isn’t quite as enthusiastic as their service in general, but it does have some nice features.</p> <div style='text-align:center; margin-bottom: 1rem'> <img src='/assets/images/netlify_analytics_screenshot.png' alt='Netlify Analytics Screenshot' /> </div> <h3 id="pros">Pros:</h3> <h5 id="server-side">Server Side</h5> <ul> <li>Can’t be blocked by Ad-Blockers</li> <li>Tracks requests of non-web-page assets like RSS feeds, images, etc</li> <li>No impact on your client side performance since there’s no Javascript library</li> </ul> <h5 id="privacy-centric">Privacy Centric</h5> <ul> <li>Isn’t connected to an ad network that’s building a database of what sites you’re browsing</li> </ul> <p><hr></p> <h3 id="cons">Cons:</h3> <h5 id="server-side">Server Side</h5> <ul> <li>You can’t track any user behavior via Javascript. I never do this anyway, but many sites do.</li> </ul> <h5 id="extremely-barebones">Extremely barebones</h5> <ul> <li>No way to filter users by geography, browser, OS, etc</li> <li>No way to exclude people by IP address. I generally like to exclude my house and my office.</li> <li>No way to track conversions / goals</li> </ul> <h5 id="expensive">Expensive!</h5> <ul> <li>$9/month is expensive for such a barebones feature set. Particular when compared to $0 for Google Analytics.</li> <li>This is somewhat mitigated for me by the fact that my site falls under the free tier of their hosting service.</li> </ul> <p><hr></p> <h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion:</h3> <p>I like the general premise of Netlify Analytics, but given the lack of features and price, I suspect that I’ll cancel it off after a month or two. But I’d wager that this is just the MVP for what will eventually become a much more comprehensive tool. So perhaps check back in a year.</p>