Matomo Analytics is free and open-source
It is free and open-source software. You can download, modify and distribute it.
You don’t have to pay anything for the license.
Still, you need a server for the software. And servers are not free.
And, of course, you need people to install the tool, take backup copies of the database and take care of updates.
So it is free as speech, not free as beer.
Google Analytics is free as beer but not free as speech.
Available on cloud, server, on-premises
Of course, you don’t have to install Matomo Analytics on your server.
On-premises is just one option.
You can use the cloud or even software as a service, depending on your needs.
Store the data in the European Union, USA, or where ever you need to.
For most companies, the easiest solution is to use the service provided by Innocraft.
Others prefer to use their staff for setting up the server and databases.
And many others use local service providers for server administration and digital agencies for the implementation.
You can always choose the perfect combination for your company!
Simple to use with a familiar look and feel
Matomo’s simplicity is something most of my clients love.
It is simple and easy to use, like a simplified version of Google Analytics.
There is a limited selection of reports, and users don’t lose their way in dozens of different reports and tabs.
On the other hand, this means you can’t find everything in the reports.
Or finding specific information might be a bit more complicated than using traditional Universal Analytics.
It has a powerful API
You can’t do everything in Matomo’s simple and practical user interface.
But you can often get the data via API and visualise it with third-party tools.
I have always used Power BI for this purpose, but you can use other tools as well.
The API is available in all versions of Matomo.
With Matomo, you have direct access to raw data
And, of course, you can access the MySQL database when you need to dive deep into the data.
After all, it is your data stored in your database. You should be able to, and you can access it the way you want.
This is not available in the software as a service version of Matomo Analytics.
With it, you can still access the data using the API.
But for direct database access, you need to install Matomo on your server or a virtual private server.
Or by someone who gives you access to MySQL.
With Matomo Tag Manager, you don’t need GTM anymore
Matomo comes with a simple Tag Manager with version management.
It is not perfect, but usually good enough. And, of course, you can improve it by writing your plugins.
Matomo Tag Manager functions pretty much in the same way as GTM.
There are tags, triggers and variables. Just like in GTM.
You can use predefined tag templates or add javascript in custom HTML tags. Just like in GTM.
And, of course, you can preview your container and publish it in different environments, for example, in live, staging and development environments.
Matomo for the privacy
We might have a new privacy shield between the EU and USA early 2023.
But if you want to be sure that foreign spooks and big tech are not after your customers’ personal data, you can always use Matomo Analytics.
Your customers’ personal data is not used by any big tech profiling algorithms, and not shared with any advertising platforms.
And if you don’t want to track any personal data, that is possible too.
With Matomo, you decide how data is collected and stored, and who can access it.