Switching from Google Analytics to a European alternative
By the EU Alternatives team Published
For most websites, switching from Google Analytics to a European analytics tool is an afternoon of actual work plus a few weeks of running both in parallel. The two real gains are that you can drop the cookie consent banner for analytics, since the European tools measure without cookies or personal data, and that your traffic data stays under European law instead of US jurisdiction. Here is why the question comes up, which tools are worth considering, and a migration plan that will not lose you anything you need.
Why Google Analytics became a legal question
In 2020 the EU Court of Justice invalidated the Privacy Shield agreement in the Schrems II ruling, which removed the convenient legal basis for sending personal data to US providers. The consequences reached Google Analytics in early 2022: the Austrian data protection authority decided in January that a website using it had transferred visitor data to the United States unlawfully, and the French CNIL reached the same conclusion in February and ordered the site operators involved to comply. For about eighteen months, running Google Analytics on a European website was, in the plain reading of those decisions, a GDPR violation.
The EU-US Data Privacy Framework, adopted in 2023, changed that. Transfers to certified US companies, Google included, have a legal basis again, and no European regulator currently treats Google Analytics as unlawful on transfer grounds alone. But the framework is being challenged in the EU courts, and both of its predecessors, Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield, were struck down. There is also a second, separate issue: under US law, American companies can be compelled to hand over data they control regardless of where the servers stand, which we cover in our guide to the CLOUD Act.
None of this makes Google Analytics radioactive. It makes it a dependency on a legal arrangement that has failed twice before. Whether that risk is worth carrying for a free analytics tool is a judgement call, and it is the reason many European sites have stopped carrying it.
The European options
The tools below are all in our web analytics category, and the table uses the same relevance scoring we apply across the site: a measure of maturity and feature depth in the category, not of who paid to be listed. Country, free tier and open-source status come straight from our directory data.
| Tool | Country | Free tier | Open source | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plausible | Estonia | Yes | Yes | Lightweight cookieless dashboard with goals, funnels and revenue tracking |
| Simple Analytics | Netherlands | Yes | No | Clean single-screen reports with a full export API |
| Pirsch | Germany | Yes | No | Developer-friendly analytics with an under-2-KB script |
| Matomo | France | No | Yes | The full-featured option, closest to Google Analytics in scope |
| Betterlytics | Denmark | No | No | Newer real-time cookieless analytics |
A fair sentence on each. Plausible is the default recommendation for most sites: a single-page dashboard, a tracking script well under 1 KB, EU-hosted, open source under AGPLv3, and one of the few tools that can import your Google Analytics history. Simple Analytics takes a similar cookieless approach from Amsterdam, stores everything on Dutch servers with no US sub-processors, and stands out for its export API if you want the raw data in your own warehouse. Pirsch is the developer’s pick, with a script under 2 KB, an API and webhooks, integrations for WordPress, Ghost, Astro and Next.js, and all visitor data held in German data centres. Matomo is the one to choose if you actually use Google Analytics in depth, since it is the European tool closest to Google Analytics in report coverage, and being open source it can run on your own infrastructure. Betterlytics is the young entrant from Denmark, worth a look if you want real-time cookieless reports and are comfortable with a less mature product.
If you are weighing the top picks directly against what you have, we keep detailed comparisons of Plausible vs Google Analytics and Simple Analytics vs Google Analytics, plus a broader list of European alternatives to Google Analytics.
The migration in six steps
- Pick the tool. If you mostly check pageviews, referrers and a handful of conversions, any of the lightweight tools will do and Plausible or Simple Analytics are the safe picks. If you rely on deep segmentation or e-commerce reports, evaluate Matomo first, because the simpler tools deliberately do not go that deep.
- Add the new script alongside Google Analytics. The scripts do not conflict, and the European ones are small enough that running both costs you almost nothing in page weight. This is a paste-one-line job on most platforms.
- Run both in parallel for two to four weeks. The goal is not identical numbers, which you will not get, but a stable ratio between the two tools. Note what one “visitor” in the old world equals in the new one, so you can read your history against future reports.
- Recreate goals and events. List the conversions you actually look at, usually far fewer than the ones configured, and set them up in the new tool. All five tools above support custom events and goals; funnels are available in Plausible, Simple Analytics and Matomo.
- Export or archive your Google Analytics history. Be realistic here: most European tools cannot import it, so the practical move is to export the reports you care about, or archive the data via BigQuery, before you lose access. Plausible and Matomo are the exceptions, both with built-in Google Analytics importers.
- Remove Google Analytics and update your privacy policy. Delete the tag, remove Google from your processor list, update the cookie section of the policy, and take analytics out of your consent banner. If analytics was the only thing the banner covered, this is the day the banner goes away entirely.
What actually changes
- Your numbers will not match, and that is normal. Cookieless tools count unique visitors differently, without cross-device tracking or long-lived identifiers. At the same time they typically report more traffic than Google Analytics, because adblockers target Google far more aggressively, and because a consent-gated setup never measured the visitors who clicked “reject”. Expect a visible step in your charts and use the parallel-running period as the translation key.
- You lose some depth. No demographic and interest reports, no advertising integrations, and less user-level exploration. Teams that ran GA4 mostly for the audience reports should check whether anyone actually acted on them; in our experience, mostly not.
- You gain simplicity and speed. The dashboards are a single page that non-specialists actually read, the scripts are a fraction of the size of Google’s tag, and pages get marginally faster. The consent banner for analytics disappears, which is a measurable conversion improvement on its own.
Frequently asked questions
Do I still need a cookie banner with a European analytics tool?
Not for analytics. Plausible, Simple Analytics, Pirsch and Betterlytics work without cookies or personal identifiers, so they fall outside the consent requirement that applies to Google Analytics. You still need a banner if other parts of your site set tracking cookies, for example ad pixels or embedded videos.
Can I import my Google Analytics history?
Mostly no. The European tools store data in aggregate form that Google’s raw exports do not map onto, so the honest plan is to export or archive the GA reports you care about before switching. Plausible and Matomo are the exceptions, both offering built-in imports for Google Analytics historical data.
Is Google Analytics illegal in the EU?
No, not today. Austrian and French regulators did find its US data transfers unlawful in 2022, but the EU-US Data Privacy Framework adopted in 2023 restored a legal basis for them. That framework is being challenged in court, and its two predecessors were both struck down, which is why many European sites treat the switch as risk management rather than compliance panic.
Will my visitor numbers match after the switch?
No, expect a difference in both directions. Cookieless tools count unique visitors more conservatively without cross-device tracking, but they also see traffic that Google Analytics misses because of adblockers and rejected consent prompts. Run both tools in parallel for a few weeks so you know how to read old numbers against new ones.