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Google Analytics vs Amplitude - Comparison 2025

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Google Analytics vs. Amplitude

Last updated on

Reviewed by Camin McCluskey

Stackfix Co-Founder & CTO

Amplitude and Google Analytics serve different purposes.

Amplitude is a sophisticated product analytics platform, built for product teams and enterprises that need deep behavioral insights and cross-functional analytics adoption. Its superior user experience and comprehensive support make it valuable for organizations willing to invest in proper analytics implementation.

Google Analytics, on the other hand, is simpler to set up and integrates seamlessly with Google’s ecosystem, making it ideal for small businesses and marketing teams focused on web traffic and Google Ads optimization. However, its capabilities are more limited compared to Amplitude.

Go with Amplitude if you need advanced product analytics and deep behavioral insights. Choose Google Analytics for basic web analytics and Google Ads integration.

Advantages of Google Analytics

Google Analytics is significantly easier to set up than Amplitude

Unlike Amplitude's complex implementation requiring strategic event planning, Google Analytics offers a simple drop-in tracking code that gets you started in minutes. This makes it ideal for small businesses or websites needing quick analytics setup.

Google Analytics has superior integration with Google's ecosystem

While Amplitude offers broad integration options, Google Analytics provides unmatched integration with Google Ads and other Google products. This makes it particularly valuable for marketing teams heavily invested in Google's advertising platform.

Advantages of Amplitude

Amplitude is significantly more powerful for product analytics than Google Analytics

While Google Analytics focuses on traffic metrics, Amplitude provides deep behavioral cohort analysis and predictive analytics capabilities. This makes it invaluable for product teams needing to understand complex user journeys and make data-driven product decisions.

Amplitude offers a far superior user experience compared to Google Analytics

Unlike Google Analytics' cluttered and confusing interface, Amplitude delivers an intuitive experience that balances depth for data scientists with accessibility for business users. This makes it much easier for cross-functional teams to extract valuable insights.

Amplitude provides much better customer support than Google Analytics

While Google Analytics offers minimal support for users, Amplitude provides comprehensive documentation tailored to different user personas. This is particularly valuable for enterprise teams requiring reliable support for their analytics infrastructure.

Google Analytics is best for

Businesses with basic web analytics needs who prioritize Google ecosystem integration
Who need comprehensive traffic analysis and acquisition channel tracking
And/or who need industry benchmarking capabilities

Amplitude is best for

Businesses with sophisticated product analytics requirements and diverse stakeholder teams
Who need to connect quantitative metrics with qualitative insights
And/or who need robust data governance and enterprise-grade security compliance

Google Analytics is less good for

Businesses with complex product analytics needs who require an intuitive, user-friendly interface
Who need comprehensive user behavior analysis like heatmaps and session replays
And/or who need reliable customer support and clear documentation

Amplitude is less good for

Businesses with limited technical resources and need for rapid implementation
Who need extensive click and scroll behavior tracking capabilities
And/or who need self-hosted deployment options

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Google Analytics

Amplitude

Pricing, features & ratings

	Google Analytics Starting at $0 Billed monthly Pricing calculator Visit Website	Amplitude Starting at $0 Billed monthly Pricing calculator Visit Website

Stackfix Verdict
Functionality	4 Functionality 4/10 <p>Google Analytics excels at website visitor tracking but struggles with product analytics. It offers solid traffic analysis and acquisition data but falls short on user behavior insights. Its real power comes from Google Ads integrations and benchmarking functionality.</p>	8 Functionality 8/10 <p>Amplitude offers comprehensive product analytics with particular strengths in behavioral cohort analysis, predictive analytics, and cross-platform journey mapping. Its Behavioral Graph technology differentiates it from competitors, though it lacks some specialized features like heatmaps found in more all-in-one solutions.</p>
Ease of Use	3 Ease of Use 3/10 <p>GA4 is surprisingly difficult to use despite its popularity. Finding basic metrics often requires hunting through multiple screens. The learning curve is steep, and the recent redesign has only made things worse by disrupting established workflows.</p>	7 Ease of Use 7/10 <p>Amplitude excels at making complex analytics accessible to non-technical users through intuitive interfaces and guided analysis capabilities. The platform effectively balances depth for data scientists with accessibility for business users, though the learning curve is steeper than with more focused competitors.</p>
Look and feel	2 Look and feel 2/10 <p>GA4's interface is cluttered and confusing. Navigation is a labyrinth of menus and submenus that hide basic information. Reports load quickly but finding the right one is a chore. The design prioritizes Google's needs over users', making common tasks unnecessarily difficult.</p>	5 Look and feel 5/10 <p>Amplitude's interface is polished, professional and highly scalable. The enterprise-oriented design emphasizes accessibility for diverse team members. Visualizations are sophisticated yet intuitive, with reasonable load times (4-5s) for complex dashboards—slightly slower than some competitors.</p>
Customisability	6 Customisability 6/10 <p>Google Analytics offers decent customization through custom dimensions and metrics, but implementing these requires technical knowledge. Custom reports are possible but clunky to configure.</p>	6 Customisability 6/10 <p>Amplitude offers extensive customization options for metrics, reports, and dashboards. Its enterprise focus brings robust governance features for custom taxonomies and data definitions. That being said, it lacks the self-hosting flexibility of open-source alternatives.</p>
Ease of Setup	7 Ease of Setup 7/10 <p>Drop in a tracking code and you're done. Setting up Google Analytics takes minutes, making it very simple to start with like most web analytics products. However, to make full use of the product there is a fair amount of customization that you can action after initial installation.</p>	4 Ease of Setup 4/10 <p>Amplitude requires thoughtful implementation with strategic event planning and taxonomies. Though it offers automatic event capture, its clear that the tool is best used through manual instrumentation. While the initial setup demands more investment than some alternatives, this approach can yield better long-term analytics outcomes.</p>
Customer Support	3 Customer Support 3/10 <p>Support is practically non-existent for free users. Google offers documentation but it's often outdated or unclear. Users mostly rely on community forums for help, creating a significant gap compared to privacy-focused alternatives that provide stronger documentation.</p>	6 Customer Support 6/10 <p>Amplitude's documentation is comprehensive and tailored to different user personas (albeit slightly hard to navigate), though community resources aren't as vibrant as those found in open-source ecosystems.</p>
Integratability	8 Integratability 8/10 <p>Google Analytics integrates seamlessly with Google's ecosystem (especially Google Ads) and offers connections to major marketing platforms. Its status as the industry standard means most tools support it, though privacy-focused competitors are quickly catching up.</p>	8 Integratability 8/10 <p>Amplitude offers one of the widest arrays of integrations covering everything from data warehouses, to CRMs, to CDPs and even customer support tools. Their Amplitude Connect hub simplifies integration management, and their well-documented API enables programmatic interaction with the platform.</p>
Ease of Migration	5 Ease of Migration 5/10 <p>Data export options are adequate but outdated. Reports can be exported to spreadsheets or accessed via API, but the process feels clunky compared to modern alternatives.</p>	8 Ease of Migration 8/10 <p>Amplitude provides robust data export capabilities including scheduled exports, direct data warehouse connections, and reverse ETL options. Its comprehensive API allows for programmatic data interaction too.</p>

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